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DREAMWORKS UNVEILS SLATE Wednesday, September 21 2005 
DreamWorks
Animation,
whose
stock
has
taken
a
beating
in
recent
months
after
a
series
of
bad-news,
unveiled
its
development
slate
through
2009
Tuesday
in
an
apparent
effort
to
spark
investor
excitement
in
the
company's
potential.
The
company's
two-pictures-per-year
agenda
includes
the
2008
release
of
Kung
Fu
Panda,
in
which
Jack
Black
will
provide
the
voice
for
the
title
character.
The
year
will
also
see
the
release
of
a
sequel
to
the
company's
recent
hit
Madagascar.
(more)DREAMWORKS TO OFFER MADAGASCAR SEQUEL, SHREK STAGE SHOW Thursday, September 15 2005 
DreamWorks
Animation
chief
Jeffrey
Katzenberg
confirmed
Wednesday
that
his
company
plans
to
produce
a
sequel
to
its
summer
hit
Madagascar
--
he
expects
it
to
premiere
in
2008
--
and
to
mount
a
Broadway
musical
production
of
Shrek.
British
publications
have
reported
that
DreamWorks
will
be
partnering
in
the
stage
production
with
London-based
Neal
Street
Productions,
headed
by
Sam
Mendes,
who
manages
to
direct
hit
movies
and
stage
productions
with
equal
accomplishment.
(Mendes,
who
won
(more) |
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For the time being, at least, the dream of Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen to create a modern movie studio that would outshine its time-worn rivals, will live on. DreamWorks on Tuesday ended its merger talks with NBC Universal after the GE-owned company reportedly cut its original offer of $1.5 billion. According to several reports, Universal had concluded that the value of DreamWorks had declined as a result of the recent costly failures of The Island and Just Like Heaven. In an interview with Reuters, Geffen said, "They've been trying to make a deal with us from the very beginning and came to us with a price that was acceptable to us, although Steven had many concerns about it. And when they tried to change the price at the end, we decided not to go forward." The Associated Press, citing an unnamed source, reported that Spielberg had also balked at Universal's demand for budget approval of DreamWorks movies that would cost more than $100 million. (Under the proposed deal, DreamWorks would have continued as a separate division of Universal.) Geffen told the AP that while he was sad about the breakdown of the talks, Spielberg was "happy." Some analysts expressed skepticism that a Universal/DreamWorks merger was kaput. "These things tend to go away and then come back again after they stew a little bit," media analyst Hal Vogel told today's New York Daily News.
