The DreamWorks Animation saga continues as investors have filed a class-action lawsuit, which accuses the major league studio of making misleading statements about the financial health of the company, and failing to write down 2013’s Turbo in time. DWA reported its 2014 Q2 results on July 29, revealing a $15.4 million loss with a revenue of $122.3 million compared with last year’s $22.2m profit and $213.4m revenue.
The suit, filed in California, represents investors who purchased shares between October 29, 2013 and July 29, 2014, alleging “that throughout the class period, defendants made false and/or misleading statements, and failed to disclose material adverse facts about the company’s business, operations, prospects and performance,” per a statement from the law firm Pomerantz LLP.
Along with the Q2 report last week, DWA revealed that it had learned the Securities Exchange Commission was conducting an investigation related to the $13.5m Turbo write-down, which the studio reported in February. Specific allegations by the investors include that the studio failed to take a timely write-down for the CG film, which saw the lowest gross of any DWA film to date; that the company’s net income for 2013 was overstated; it lacked adequate control of financial reporting; and that financial statements were false and misleading.
The studio’s March release, Mr. Peabody & Sherman, took in even less than Turbo for a box-office gross of $268.2m, though the summer sequel How to Train Your Dragon 2 is performing well with a worldwide total of $463.8m. The studio’s next film is Penguins of Madagascar (November 26), and DWA has a three-picture-per-year slate planned through 2018.
This does not bode well for Jeffrey Katzenberg
It may be the future of DWA is 2 Pictures per Year over the next 4 years
No wonder DWA is looking beyond Nickelodeon / Cartoon Network content
(as in getting paid by Netflix to create content exclusive to Netflix)
Could it be Smaller Studios compete better against Walt Disney Animation
by delivering films on smaller budgets?
The tumblrinas who say Dreamworks financially beats Disney remind me of those “Nintendo beats Rockstar, Ubisoft, etc!” people. Sure the former might have memorable characters and some great hits, but the later usually comes out with newer (better) titles and don’t loose a shit ton of money.
In other words, anyone who says Dreamworks is the most sucessfull animation company is a moron.