We really hope that the writers, animators and technical bods around DreamWorks Animation have got all their sleep in by now. Because from the looks of the company’s ambitious schedule, part of its newly minted distribution deal with 20th Century Fox, there won’t be much downtime.
Part of that springs from a drive to release not one, not two but three movies a year for the foreseeable future, with a mixture of sequels and original films arriving at different times. Oh, and four films in 2015.
"This is the moment when we can declare that we will have three films a year going forward on a continuing basis," DWA chief creative officer Bill Damaschke tells the Hollywood Reporter. "Every one of the movies in our line-up – whether it is an original film or a sequel to one of our beloved franchises – comes from the unique and special vision of our filmmakers, and we look forward to joining together with Fox to make them available to family audiences starting next year.”
So what is included in this promised feast of filmmaking? With the proviso that all these dates are for the US release and will not represent the movies arriving over here, let’s do the list… **The Croods **(March 22, 2013 – the same as in the UK), Turbo (July 19, 2013 – we get this one on October 18, 2013), Mr Peabody & Sherman (Nov. 1, 2013), Me And My Shadow (March 14, 2014), How to Train Your Dragon 2 (June 20, 2014), Happy Smekday! (November 26, 2014), The Penguins Of Madagascar (March 27, 2015), Trolls (working title, June 5, 2015), B.O.O: Bureau Of Otherworldly Operations (November 6. 2015), **How To Train Your Dragon 3 **(June 18, 2016), Mumbai Musical (working title, December 19, 2015) and Kung Fu Panda 3 (March 18, 2016).
One or two, such as Trolls and **Mumbai Musical **are still being kept mostly quiet. B.O.O., which features Seth Rogen as a less-than-terrifying ghost, was called BOO U when it was announced, and is the brainchild of Igor director Tony Leondis.