50 Fun Facts About DreamWorks

Which three men founded DreamWorks SKG in October 1994?

The SKG initials are theirs; Katzenberg had just been pushed out of Disney, and Geffen came from the music business.

What is the boy in the DreamWorks logo doing on the crescent moon?

Illustrator Robert Hunt painted it and used his own son as the model.

What was DreamWorks Animation's first feature film, released in October 1998?

It beat Pixar's A Bug's Life to cinemas by seven weeks, in one of the pettiest rivalries in animation history.

Which song from The Prince of Egypt won the Academy Award for Best Original Song?

Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey sang the pop version; Val Kilmer voiced both Moses and, uncredited, God.

Which British studio co-produced Chicken Run with DreamWorks in 2000?

The partnership ended after Flushed Away in 2006, having delivered three of five planned films.

Chicken Run began as a spoof of which 1963 war film?

Mel Gibson voiced the American rooster Rocky, and the film became the highest-grossing stop-motion feature ever made.

Which comedian originally recorded almost all of Shrek's dialogue before his death?

Mike Myers took over and then asked to re-record everything in a Scottish accent like his mother's bedtime-story voice.

Shrek won the very first Academy Award in which category?

It beat Monsters, Inc. and Jimmy Neutron in 2002; it was also the first animated film in Cannes competition since 1980.

Shrek is loosely based on a 1990 picture book by which author?

The book's ogre is far nastier than the film's; the movie was added to the National Film Registry in 2020.

Which DreamWorks film was the highest-grossing animated film in the world when it was released in 2004?

It made about $932 million, and with Shark Tale the same year DreamWorks became the first studio to release two CGI features in one year.

Which 2003 flop pushed DreamWorks to abandon hand-drawn animation?

It took only $80.8 million on a $60 million budget; every film after Shrek 2 was CGI, except Aardman's stop-motion Were-Rabbit.

Which stop-motion film won DreamWorks its second Oscar for an animated feature, in 2005?

It remained the studio's last win in the category for many years despite a string of nominations.

Which company did DreamWorks acquire a 90 percent stake in and rename PDI/DreamWorks?

The Northern California studio animated Antz and Shrek; it was shut down in the 2015 restructuring.

In which year was DreamWorks Animation spun off as a separate publicly traded company?

Katzenberg ran it while Spielberg and Geffen stayed on as investors; the live-action studio was sold to Paramount a year later.

Which zoo do Alex, Marty, Melman and Gloria escape from in Madagascar?

Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer and Jada Pinkett Smith voice them; the trilogy grossed over $1.8 billion.

Which comedian voices King Julien the lemur in the Madagascar films?

Danny Jacobs took over for the TV series All Hail King Julien; the character's anthem is Reel 2 Real's I Like to Move It.

Which actor voices Po in the Kung Fu Panda films?

Dustin Hoffman voices his master Shifu, and the four films have grossed more than $2 billion.

Which martial-arts star voices Monkey in the Furious Five?

Angelina Jolie is Tigress, Seth Rogen is Mantis, Lucy Liu is Viper and David Cross is Crane.

Who is the villain of the first Kung Fu Panda?

The snow leopard was Shifu's adopted son; Gary Oldman, J.K. Simmons and Viola Davis voiced the villains of the three sequels.

How to Train Your Dragon is based on books by which British author?

The films depart heavily from the books, in which Toothless is a tiny, toothless garden dragon rather than a Night Fury.

Which actor voices Hiccup in the animated How to Train Your Dragon films?

Gerard Butler plays his father Stoick and reprised the role in the 2025 live-action remake.

Toothless belongs to which rare breed of dragon?

The trilogy earned over $1.6 billion, and Universal's Epic Universe opened an Isle of Berk land in 2025.

In 2010 DreamWorks became the first studio to release three CGI features in one year. Which three?

The other lists mix in Disney, Pixar, Blue Sky and Paramount films that DreamWorks had nothing to do with.

Which company did DreamWorks buy for $155 million in 2012 to acquire Casper, Lassie and others?

The library was renamed DreamWorks Classics; the Trolls doll rights followed in April 2013.

Which streaming service signed a 2013 deal with DreamWorks for 300 hours of original content?

The result was a wave of series including Dragons: Race to the Edge and All Hail King Julien.

Which company's NBCUniversal division agreed to buy DreamWorks Animation for $3.8 billion in April 2016?

Hasbro had also been in talks earlier; the deal closed that August and Katzenberg departed.

Which was the first DreamWorks Animation film distributed by Universal Pictures?

Paramount handled distribution from 2006 to 2012 and 20th Century Fox from 2013 to 2017.

In which California city is DreamWorks Animation's campus?

The address is 1000 Flower Street; Disney is in Burbank, Pixar in Emeryville and Sony in Culver City.

In Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, how many of his nine lives has Puss already lost?

Death himself, a wolf voiced by Wagner Moura, comes whistling for the last one.

Which actress voices Goldilocks, leader of the Three Bears crime family, in The Last Wish?

Olivia Colman, Ray Winstone and Samson Kayo voice the bears; John Mulaney is Big Jack Horner.

The painterly look of Puss in Boots: The Last Wish was inspired by which other studio's film?

Joel Crawford directed; the film grossed about $484 million and earned an Oscar nomination.

The Wild Robot is based on a 2016 novel by which author-illustrator?

Chris Sanders discovered the book through his daughter; the film took about $334 million and nine Annie Awards.

Which Oscar-winning actress voices the robot Roz in The Wild Robot?

The role was a challenge because Roz has no facial articulation, so everything had to come through the voice.

Which DreamWorks sequel did the studio schedule in 2025 for a June 30, 2027 release?

It was dated to arrive 17 years after Shrek Forever After; the studio also slated Forgotten Island for September 2026.

Which pop star voices Poppy in the Trolls films?

Justin Timberlake voices Branch; DreamWorks bought the doll rights from the Dam family in 2013.

Which DreamWorks film's opening credits made Smash Mouth's All Star inescapable?

Katzenberg suggested the song, which had already been used in the film's early test screenings.

Which company nearly bought DreamWorks Animation for about $3.4 billion in 2014?

Hasbro entered talks a few weeks later, and neither deal happened; Comcast got the studio two years on.

Roughly how many feature films has DreamWorks Animation produced?

The count runs from its 1998 debut through the 2020s, and the studio expanded into live action for its 30th anniversary.

Which 2023 DreamWorks film about a young sea monster grossed only about $46 million worldwide?

It came out weeks after Pixar's Elemental and Disney's The Little Mermaid, and drowned between them.

Which DreamWorks franchise got a live-action remake on June 13, 2025, with Mason Thames in the lead?

Dean DeBlois directed both versions, and Mason Thames took over as Hiccup.

Which comedian co-wrote Bee Movie and voices its hero, Barry B. Benson?

He set the film in New York because he called it 'the Tigris and Euphrates of comedy', and worked on it from his office there via an HP Halo teleconferencing system.

Which actor provides the sparse narration for the title horse in Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron?

The filmmakers decided the horses would not speak English, so real hoof beats and horse vocals were recorded at stables outside Los Angeles.

Which songwriting duo wrote the songs for The Road to El Dorado in 2000?

The film was a box-office bomb, grossing $76 million on a roughly $95 million budget, before finding a later cult following.

Which A-list actor voices Metro Man, the Superman parody, in Megamind?

The home-release commentary notes Metro Man's costume and showmanship were deliberately modelled on Elvis Presley.

Shark Tale held its 2004 world premiere in which city, on a giant inflatable screen?

It was the first time Piazza San Marco was closed for a major film premiere; the screen stood more than six stories tall.

Who voices the suit-wearing, briefcase-carrying infant in The Boss Baby?

He had already voiced Makunga in Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa and Santa Claus in Rise of the Guardians for the studio.

Which action star voices RJ the raccoon in Over the Hedge?

The 2006 film adapts the comic strip by Michael Fry and T. Lewis, with Garry Shandling as Verne the turtle.

The Bad Guys is loosely based on a children's book series by which Australian author?

Its heist-movie look drew on Pulp Fiction, the Ocean's trilogy and the anime Lupin the Third, and the voice cast recorded remotely during the pandemic.

Which Oscar-winning actor voices the red panda Master Shifu in Kung Fu Panda?

Composer Hans Zimmer visited China to absorb the culture and recorded with the China National Symphony Orchestra for the score.

In which country did Megamind premiere on October 28, 2010, a week before its US release?

The film grossed $322 million against a $130 million budget and later spawned the 2024 Peacock sequel Megamind vs. the Doom Syndicate.