Mar 15, 2024

Dreamworks Animation will cut staff significantly in the coming months (exclusive).

Dreamworks Animation is now firing on all cylinders. The newly released teaser for Chris Sanders' Wild Robot, which aims to repeat its 4th place in Kung Fu Panda 1 at the U.S. box office this weekend, was received with unbridled enthusiasm. But the mood inside the iconic Glendale, California studio was glum this week as a huge number of workers were informed that they would let go.

The studio claims that no one has been fired. That's an example of downsizing due to "natural wear and tear" where the employment contract has not been renewed, as Randy Lake, Dreamworks Animation's Chief Operating Officer, said a few months ago.

However, the sheer number of people whose contracts have not been renewed has lowered staff morale and left many questions about the future direction of the studio. There are no specific figures on how many people are being released, but that number extends to hundreds. Many departments have been cut in half, and creative staff on features can be reduced as much, if not less than 40-50%.

Company rank-and-file workers do not know exactly how many people have been allowed to go out of their departments, and some are trying to piece together the details by comparing notes between departments. The studio refused to provide a specific figure to the brewing of cartoons.

Cartoon Brew spoke with many workers in the studio, all of whom refused to be identified for fear of retaliation. The studio rep responded to the background to our query.

Here's a more detailed explanation of what's happening:

Why so many people are letting go of everything at once-a studio representative explained that Dreamworks has multiple large pieces– Kung Fu Panda 4 and Wild Robot– around the same time. The new project is winding down to the end date of these current works, and the timing of the new project is not in sync with the end date of these current works. The studio works to minimize the gap, but the dates may not match. The starting workers wrapping the Wild Robot have reached the end date in the period from 4 mid-May to 7 May.

But certainly there should be more to the story - Dreamworks intended to produce in-house 2026 mostly 2 features, but workers said in early May that production would not go on in films that had multiple working titles, including one of these films, a Bollywood-themed film, and another ME. I was told.

Dreamworks told Cartoon Brew that the film was never technically canceled because it was never greenlighted, but workers at multiple studios confirmed last month that they were told by the head of the department that the staffing would be drastically cut because this particular project would not go ahead.

Some workers were told at the conference that the project was not moving forward because it was considered not marketable to a broad audience. Dreamworks' reputation disputed this trait, stating that there are many reasons why the film does not move into production, and marketability is only one of those factors.

To further reduce the need for staff, Dreamworks does not currently have a full in-house production scheduled for 2025. All Dreamworks movies are developed in-house in Glendale, but only one of the 2025 3 releases has been animated in-house in 1 year. Workers have confirmed that even the film will use a significantly reduced crew as production is split between Sony Pictures Imageworks in Canada and Dreamworks' in-house crew. Some workers are said to want the studio to return to its "normal" size in 2025, but it is unlikely that it will grow again to its current size at any time in the near future. That's because the studio told workers last fall that it was moving away from full in-house animation production as part of a new cost-cutting measure ordered by parent company Comcast-NBCUniversal.

At the time, Lake said the goal was to reduce production costs by 20%. As a result, studios are outsourcing some of their work to third-party studios in other countries.These other studios include Sony Pictures Imageworks in Canada, Jellyfish Pictures in the UK and Mikros Animation in India and Canada.