Back to the Drawing Board: The DreamWorks Edition, Part 2: The Shrekoning

When I wrote the edition of Back to the Drawing Board about unreleased DreamWorks movies (the very first one of those posts), I intended for it to just be one article. I didn't expect to wind up doing ANOTHER edition about DreamWorks movies we didn't get. But there are a LOT of unreleased DreamWorks movies, so I figured, what the heck? I'll do another one!

As I've said before, DreamWorks has always been sort of an out-of-the-box animation studio. They've released some movies with really, really weird premises (a panda doing kung-fu! A snail racing in the Indy 500! A baby with the voice of Alec Baldwin!). With that in mind, it's fun to see what kind of premises for films they came up with that we COULD'VE gotten, but for whatever reason didn't. For example...

"Me and My Shadow"

I wanted to start with one that sounds like it would've been really, really cool. Me and My Shadow would've starred Shadow Dan, who was to be voiced by Bill Hader, the shadow of a timid guy by the name of Daniel Grubb (who was to be voiced by Josh Gad). Shadow Dan yearned for a more exciting life, but Daniel was adverse to adventure, so that wasn't gonna happen. When a crime in the shadow world put both of their lives in danger, Shadow Dan had to take control of Daniel and they went on a madcap adventure to stop an evil shadow (who was to be voiced by Tom Hiddleston) from leading a shadow rebellion on the human race. Daniel would've learned to embrace his fears and blah-blah-blah.

Concept art for the film.

The main draw of this film was that it was going to combine CGI and hand-drawn animation - the humans and their world would've been CGI, but the shadows would've been hand-drawn. If you go online, you can find some pencil tests of Shadow Dan, with Bill Hader clearly having fun in the recording booth recording his lines. It seems as though he's channeling the Genie from Aladdin as Shadow Dan.

The film was originally supposed to be released in November 2013, but in 2012 the film's release date was changed to March 2014... and then Mr. Peabody and Sherman took that release date instead. In 2015, Edgar Wright signed on to direct the film. And then... well, I don't know WHAT happened. Mr. Wright said in 2017 that due to the regime change at DreamWorks, most of the folks that hired him had left the company, so at the moment it wasn't something that he was attached to.

According to animator Matt Williames, there was a test screening for the film where Jeffrey Katzenberg fell asleep (he had just flown back from China). Afterwards, he told them it wasn't a "two-hundred million dollar movie" and that was what he needed.

By the way, the reason why I didn't talk about this one in the first DreamWorks edition of Back to the Drawing Board is because I wasn't sure if it was still in production or not. Same goes for...

"B.O.O.: Bureau of Otherworldly Operations"

B.O.O.: Bureau of Otherworldly Operations was to be DreamWorks' 2015 release. As the name suggests, it would have been about ghosts - specifically, it was initially about a ghost who had to go back to scaring college. Then it evolved into a story about a super-classified agency of ghosts dedicated to protecting humans from evil hauntings. But then two new agents, Jackson Moss and Watts, would've uncovered a plot to destroy the agency.

The film's director was Tony Leondias, also the director of The Emoji Movie. Voices for the film included Melissa McCarthy, Seth Rogen, Matt Bomer, Octavia Spencer, Rashida Jones, Jennifer Coolidge, and Bill Murray. There's something amusing about the fact that a Ghostbuster was to have provided the voice of a ghost.

Much like with Larrakins and Me and My Shadow, some in-progress animation can be found online:

So what happened? Well, the film was pulled from its June 2015 release date to avoid competition with PIXAR's Inside Out. And then, when the film had almost finished production, DreamWorks shut it down. One animator who worked on the film described it as "Three years just gets flushed down the toilet." Why was it cancelled? Well, you can blame DreamWorks' string of flops from 2012's Rise of the Guardians to 2014's Penguins of Madagascar for that, plus the planned DreamWorks-Hasbro merger that was in talks at the time.  And the layoffs. Remember the layoffs? Yeah, that was a large factor in B.O.O. being cancelled. There were a handful of projects at DreamWorks that were either put on hold or shoved onto the shelf. And B.O.O. was one of those projects.

The baffling thing is, when they were deciding which projects to give the axe to they chose Home and Trolls over this and Larrakins. But I digress...

"Monkeys of Mumbai"

This film was announced in 2011 as Mumbai Musical. Fortunately, we have a lot of information about what the film would've been like, thanks to the guy who was going to direct it - Kevin Lima of A Goofy Movie fame. He's talked about the film on Twitter, filling us in as to what the plot, characters, and production process were like. Thanks, Kevin!

Anyhow, Monkeys of Mumbai was to focus on a pair of monkeys, brothers Raj and Deepu, living on the streets of Mumbai. Raj is pragmatic and disillusioned, Deepu is an optimist who believes that one day the street monkeys will discover their inner Hanuman (the Indian deity that was once revered by all) and rise to their forgotten glory. After a run-in with the local Monkey Catcher, the brothers find a hidden cavern with bas-relief-carved sculptures of the story of the Ramayana. Then they find a golden arrow that Deepu believes is the very same arrow that struck down the villain of the story, the nine-headed power-hungry Ravana - who appears when Raj pulls the arrow out of the rubble and captures a Bollywood megastar named Chandani (she's playing Sita in a movie adaptation of the Ramayana that they're filming, and he thinks she's the real Sita), with Deepu stowing away. Raj teams up with Chandani's pet monkey Pinki to save them, culminating in a battle between the monkeys of Mumbai (see what I did there?) and Ravana's demon army.

"Hey, how about you and I get together later and pick fleas off each other?"

The film had lots of Bollywood-style musical numbers. According to Kevin Lima, almost all of the songs existed in one form or another from rough demos to completed demos with finished vocal tracks. The film was very close to beginning production... and then DreamWorks cancelled it. Apparently, despite the fact that DreamWorks' marketing team was always nervous about the Ramayana playing such a big part in the movie (at one point, the filmmakers brought in a group of religious historians for a test screening and they were totally fine with its interpolation and encouraged them to go further), it had nothing to do with the movie and everything to do with "the politics of selling the studio". So apparently this is another case where we can blame the company's financial troubles.

Since then, Kevin Lima has attempted to bring the movie to other animation studios to see if they would like to fund it, but the price tag scared them all away. Every so often he's even asked DreamWorks to revive the project, but they always give him the same answer. So don't expect to see Monkeys of Mumbai in theaters anytime soon. Fortunately, some in-progress animation can be found on YouTube:

"Chakulan"

In July 2000, it was announced that Leslie Dixon was writing an animated movie for DreamWorks called Chakulan. According to her, the film's story was inspired by the fact that male Bengal tigers have a biological animosity towards female tigers and their cubs.

There doesn't seem to be any concept art for the film online, but I wanted to
put a picture here anyway, so have this.

And that's it. That's all we know about the project. I haven't been able to find any other information. Moving on...

"Zodiac"

Tell me if this sounds familiar: an animated movie taking place in a city of anthropomorphic animals.

Ee-yup. According to Richard Daskas, the film's art director, however, Zodiac was actually being worked on years before Zootopia. It was to focus on a cat trying to become the first cat on the Chinese Zodiac - and stumbling upon a sinister conspiracy. This would've been the debut film of Oriental DreamWorks.

Concept art for what appears to be the film's villains.

The film was scheduled for release in 2014, but wound up being cancelled due to some sort of problems at Oriental DreamWorks. Just think, if Zodiac HAD been released in 2014, Zootopia would've likely been brushed off as a knockoff. Or maybe it would've just resulted in another Madagascar/The Wild situation where the film that came out first was the knockoff.

"Madagascar 4"

Considering the animosity that Chris Rock and Jada Pickett Smith have for
each other, I wouldn't expect THIS ONE to ever get off the ground...

In 2010, two years before Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted was released, Jeffery Katzenberg said that they were planning four installments in the franchise. He said, "Ultimately they will come back to New York, and they will come to terms with that, which they will do in this next chapter. Because of the way this movie concludes there's probably one more for them... yeah, there's probably a fourth there."

Now, just some information for those that haven't seen the third Madagascar movie - near the end of the movie Alex, Marty, Melman, and Gloria finally make it back to the Central Park Zoo. And they actually decide not to stay. They had so much fun traveling the world, seeing what life was like OUTSIDE the zoo... and when they were with the circus, they were ALREADY home! So, the movie ends with them all joining the circus and heading off to... I dunno, San Diego? Since the driving point of these three movies was that the animals wanted to go back to New York, I personally think this ending wrapped the franchise up pretty well. So what could you possibly do for a fourth one? A common suggestion that I've heard is that they could have the characters go to Asia (they've already hit three continents, so why not hit all of 'em?).

After the third film's release, DreamWorks Animation's head of worldwide marketing, Anne Globe, said in regards to a fourth film, "It's too early to tell. There hasn't been a lot of discussion about that." Eric Darnell, who co-directed all three films, said, "Two things have to happen. One is that the world has to want Madagascar 4, because if they don't want it, it doesn't matter what we do. And the other thing is even if the world wants Madagascar 4, we have to make sure that we have an idea that is incredible, that is great, that is unexpected. If the audience wants it and we have a great idea, we will see – maybe."

And apparently, both of those things happened, because in 2014 it was announced that a Madagscar 4 would be released on May 18th, 2018. What was the plot going to be? I have no idea. According to DazzReviews' video about the planned fourth movie, there were some rumors floating around as to what the plot would've been. One claimed that the plot would focus on Alex, Marty, Melman and Gloria getting tired of living in captivity and trying to return to Africa (essentially rendering the ENTIRE THIRD MOVIE completely pointless). Another claimed that the film was going to go all Toy Story 4 and have Alex, Marty, Melman, and Gloria trying to figure out what to do with their lives, eventually realizing that each of them belong in different places and habitats (even though lions, zebras, giraffes, and hippos all live in the same continent of Africa and generally share the same habitat) and leave each other, the moral being that "friendship does not only mean going on adventures together, true friendship can stand the test of time and distance". And also Alex would've met his mate, even though he already got a love interest in the third movie. Take all of this with a grain of salt.

Thank you, Google Image Search.

Then came DreamWorks' corporate restructuring and, as a result, the film was taken off the release schedule. 2018 came and went with no Madagascar 4 being released. Tom McGrath, the films' other co-director, claimed in 2017 that there were things in the works and that he thought the characters would show their faces once more, but for now, we have no idea when we'll get Madagascar 4, if there'll BE a Madagascar 4, or if the world even WANTS a Madagascar 4.

We did get the 2014 Penguins of Madagascar spinoff movie, though. Which was a gigantic flop, so don't expect to see any sequels to THAT one.

"Rockumentary"

"You! Higher mammal! Can you tell them about Rockumentary?"

Speaking of Madagascar and its penguins, do you know that the penguins actually came from an idea for a different DreamWorks film that wound up never being made?

Specifically, the film was going to be a "rockumentary" a la A Hard Day's Night about a Beatles-esque band of penguins. Mireille Soria and Eric Darnell began developing the idea, even using an early Beatles press conference as to create a one minute clip of the penguins.

Coincidentally enough, Tom McGrath had been working for a year and a half at a small independent production company on a film about penguins (though that one was more realistic - no penguin rock bands). The project fell through, and Tom wound up at DreamWorks, where he found out about the project and joined production.

To do the movie, DreamWorks needed to get music clearances from the Beatles themselves. Paul, John, and Ringo agreed, but George refused, and as a result, the project was put on hiatus. A few months later, Tom became a story artist on Madagascar, and he decided to take the penguins from Rockumentary, make them secret agents as opposed to a rock band, and add them to the movie. The rest is history.

"Untitled Bloodhound Project"

This one's similar to Chakulan. In 2001, it was announced that DreamWorks hired Amy Holden Jones to write a movie simply called Untitled Bloodhound Project. Based on an original idea by Jeffrey Katzenberg, the film would've focused on a hip young bloodhound from the Ozarks who, while abroad in England, winds up in the English manor with a family of royals. And there is seemingly no other information about the project online.

Nor is there any concept art. So, here, have a picture of Trusty from Lady and
the Tramp.

"Beekle"

In May 2015, DreamWorks announced another book adaptation that wound up going nowhere. This one was based on The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend, a children's book written by Dan Santat.

I've never read the book, but it focuses on an imaginary friend named Beekle who looks like one of the Adipose from Doctor Who. He leaves the island where imaginary friends wait to be called into being by a child and go find a child himself. I can see why they wanted to do an adaptation of this book - I mean, just look at the main character. Imagine (no pun intended) the merchandise sales!

Jason Reitman (the director of Juno) was to write and direct the film, his first animated project. Why the movie didn't get off the ground, once again, I don't know. Jason Reitman has never stated why the film was cancelled. Who knows, maybe it's still in development. Well, probably not...

"Spooky Jack"

August 2017 saw DreamWorks announce that they were teaming up with Jason Blum's horror movie company Blumhouse Productions (the same guys who made the recent Five Nights at Freddy's movie) for the latter's first attempt at an animated film. That film, based on an original idea by Robert Ben Garant, was to be a dark comedy about three siblings that move into a new house and discover that all the monsters that inhabit kids' imaginations - the ones under your bed, boogeymen, Chupacabras, witches, etc. - actually exist and are just as afraid of humans as humans are of them. Much like with Zodiac, this sounds very familiar, doesn't it?

Yep, but I'm pretty sure I've seen it somewhere else, too. What other animated movie has "monsters are afraid of humans" as a plot point?

Oh, yeah! I know neither film was the first to do the "secret world of monsters" idea, but you can't tell me this doesn't sound just a biiiiiiiiiiiiit too similar to those movies. Granted, it'd hardly be the first time DreamWorks did a knockoff of PIXAR (coughcoughAntzcoughcough).

Spooky Jack apparently got its start as a live action film, but then DreamWorks Feature Animation Group President Chris DeFaria came a-knocking and it became animated. DeFaria called the film "a touching and funny story that allows us to take audiences deep into folklore from around the globe and create several truly memorable animated characters in addition to a visually unique world inside our own."

By October 2019, the film had been removed from DreamWorks' release schedule. Since then, concept art for the film has popped up online. I have no idea why it was cancelled. Maybe somebody pointed out that everyone would be making comparisons to Monsters Inc. and Hotel Transylvania.

"Rumblewick"

Much like Beekle, this was to be an adaptation of a children's book that I have never read. It was called My Unwilling Witch (The Rumblewick Letters) and it was written by Hiawyn Oram and Sarah Warburton.

The movie would've followed the adventures of a magician's rabbit who gets the opportunity to learn real magic from a witch - only to discover that he's a pawn in a game between rival witches. He would've needed to outsmart them both to save his fuzzy hide.

Why didn't the film get made? Once again, I don't know. But the concept sounded really cool. This is definitely another "Really? We got Home and The Boss Baby over THIS?" situation.

"Lidsville"

Never heard of Lidsville? It was a 1970s kids' show by the masters of 1970s Nightmare Fuel themselves, Sid and Marty Krofft. It starred Butch "Eddie Munster" Patrick as the main character, Mark, who fell into the magic hat of a magician played by Charles Neilson Reilly and landed in a town populated by walking, talking hats. Billie Hayes played a Genie named Weenie, and the bad guy was an evil magician named Horatio J. HooDoo also played by Charles Neilson Reilly. I've never seen a single episode, nor do I want to.

How do you think they even pitched this?

Clearly SOMEBODY at DreamWorks was fond of the show, however, because in January 2011 it was announced that they would be making an animated Lidsville movie. And believe it or not, this adaptation had quite a lot of talent behind it. The director was to be DreamWorks mainstay Conrad Vernon, and the music was to be composed by Alan Menken. Yes, THAT Alan Menken.

Alan claimed on Twitter that the songs would be a homage to '60s psychedelic concept-album rock. Why didn't the movie get off the ground? Sid Krofft explained why in a 2016 interview: "It was going to be like Hair or Tommy, a full-blown musical. But they went in a strange direction and it just didn't work."

We eventually did get a bizarre DreamWorks animated musical with Trolls, so there's that, at least. But I wouldn't expect Lidsville to get a movie adaptation anytime soon, especially since the show hasn't been relevant in decades. If nothing else, though, it's kind of amusing to think about which celebrities DreamWorks would've dragged into lending their voices to this film... maybe they would've had Blake Shelton as the cowboy hat or something?

"Punk Farm"

Punk Farm is a 2005 children's book written and illustrated by Jarrett J. Kroscozka. It's a story about five farm animals - a sheep, a pig, a goat, a cow, and a chicken - who, unbeknownst to the farmer, are an underground punk rock band. I think I found the book at my local library a year or two ago and gave it a read. There's also a sequel, Punk Farm on Tour, which I have NOT read.

A year after the book was released, it was announced that DreamWorks was doing an adaptation of it. Kevin Messick was to have produced the film, which would have expanded the story by having the animals want to play at the world's first animal band festival, LIVESTOCK (geddit? As opposed to "Woodstock"?).

For some reason, the film wound up getting shelved. But then in 2011, it was announced that an adaptation of Punk Farm was in development at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, with The Simpsons Movie director David Silverman directing it. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND... nothing has happened since then. I don't know if the film is still in development or if it got cancelled again or WHAT. David Silverman has a Twitter account, maybe he explained on there what happened to it...

"Pearls Before Swine"

I love Pearls Before Swine. It's one of my favorite comic strips. I would love to see an animated adaptation of it, but so far all it's gotten are some web animations whipped up by the folks at RingTales. You can find them on YouTube.

I have no idea what the plot of this hypothetical Pearls Before Swine movie was supposed to be. I recall Stephan Pastis mentioned in one of the treasuries that he'd written a script for a movie adaptation of the strip, mainly focusing on the dimwitted crocodiles. Make of that what you will.

DreamWorks announced that they'd bought the film rights at some point in the 2000s. According to TV Tropes, the film didn't get off the ground because of disagreements that DreamWorks was having with United Media after the release of Over the Hedge. But it's TV Tropes, so take that with a grain of salt.

"Gil's All-Fright Diner"

Most of the films in this post have something to do with spookiness, monsters, or horror movie elements (it seems that DreamWorks really wants to do a "spooky" animated movie, but none of their attempts have gotten off the ground... unless you count Monsters vs. Aliens, but does that movie really qualify as "spooky"?). With that in mind, it's fitting that I'm posting this around Halloween. Aren't I clever?

Another shelved animated film that was to be based on a book, Gil's All-Fright Diner was first published in 2005 by A. Lee Martinez. It takes place in the backwoods town of Rockwood, where a vampire and a werewolf in a run-down truck come across a 24-hour diner in the middle of nowhere. The manager of the diner offers them a job. Oh, and did I mention the zombie attacks?

DreamWorks' adaptation of the book was to have been directed by Barry Sonnenfeld (the director of Men in Black) and written by Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris - who'd recently written Kung Fu Panda, which as we all know was a very successful movie for DreamWorks. It makes sense that DreamWorks would want them to write more of their animated movies.

Fortunately, I actually know why this movie got shelved. A. Lee Martinez explained why on his website. You see, just as Gil's All-Fright Diner was about to begin production, DreamWorks released Megamind, which made $321.9 million on a $130 million dollar budget. Seems pretty profitable to me, but the higher-ups at DreamWorks thought it was a box office disappointment. And one of the reasons why they thought it "underperformed" was because it was released the same year as Despicable Me, another animated movie about a bald evil genius who becomes a good guy. So when they found out about Sony Pictures Animation's developing Hotel Transylvania (which had already been announced six years earlier), they became worried that their own animated movie starring a vampire and a werewolf would wind up "underperforming" like Megamind. Thus, no Gil's All-Fright Diner movie. Kind of makes me wonder if I'm right about Spooky Jack being shelved because they thought it would be seen as a Hotel Transylvania knockoff...

"InterWorld"

Oh, look! ANOTHER novel adaptation! This time the film was going to adapt a series of science fiction novels written by Neil Gaiman, Michael Reaves and Mallory Reaves. The books focus on a kid named Joey who discovers that his world is only one of infinite alternate Earths, all of whom are at war. He teams up with alternate versions of himself from these different worlds to keep the balance of power between them all stable.

The funny thing is that Michael Reaves and Neil Gaiman got the idea for the books while Reaves was working on adventure cartoons at DreamWorks in 1996. They pitched the idea, but the executives rejected it. So they decided to make it into a novel. But the publishers they submitted it to were confused by it, so it wound up getting shelved. But then they tried it again a few years later, and this time it got published! Huzzah.

In 2007, Neil Gaiman revealed on his website that DreamWorks, ironically enough, wanted to do a film adaptation of InterWorld. Nothing came out of it.

"The White Seal"

The White Seal is one of the stories featured in Rudyard Kilping's original Jungle Book. It focuses on Kotick, a rare white-furred seal who attempts to find a home for his fellow seals where they'll be safe from the islanders who hunt them. Obviously, Kotick was not featured in Disney's adaptation of The Jungle Book, but the story was adapted into a TV movie directed by Chuck Jones, along with adaptations of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi and Mowgli's Brothers.

Composer Eric Whitacre got a call from DreamWorks after his show Paradise Lost: Shadows and Wings was presented at the ASCAP Musical Theater Workshop. His fellow composer Stephen Schwartz, who leads the workshops, had recommended him to them and they wanted to know if he'd like to write the music for an animated feature. He immediately said yes. "I have always loved animation," he said on his website, listing the early Disney films, Looney Tunes, and PIXAR's work as examples, "And I couldn't believe that I might get a chance to work in that great tradition..." And what was the movie they wanted him to work on? An adaptation of The White Seal.

"The White Seal is a beautiful story," Eric said, "Classic Kipling, dark and rich and not at all condescending to kids. Best of all, Kipling begins his tale with the mother seal singing softly to her young pup." He turned the opening poem, "The Seal Lullaby", into a song (here is the song if you'd like to take a listen to it yourself), had his wife record it while he accompanied her on the piano, and then delivered it to the film studio.

He didn't hear back from them for weeks, and he began to worry that they hated it. Eventually, he called up DreamWorks and asked why they apparently rejected the song. What was the executive's reply? That they decided to make Kung Fu Panda instead (apparently, they couldn't just put The White Seal on hold until after Kung Fu Panda was released?). Since then, "The Seal Lullaby" became something that Eric sang to his infant son every night so he'd fall asleep (success rate: less than fifty-percent).

"Gullible's Travels"

Had to talk about this one. In January 2007, DreamWorks announced that they had bought a spec script called Gullible's Travels, written by Ron Friedman and Steve Bencich (who also collaborated on the scripts for Brother Bear, Chicken Little, and Open Season). The film would've focused on a gullible man traveling through time in the most disgusting thing in the entire world - a port-a-potty. That sounds like it would've had comedic potential, doesn't it?

The only thing more disgusting than a gas station bathroom.

"Dinotrux"

Okay, I know what you're thinking: "Didn't DreamWorks actually make an adaptation of Chris Gall's series of books about half-dinosaur half-truck beings?" Well, the answer is that yes, they did. But they were originally going to do a theatrical movie based on the books. After the initial announcement in 2009, it somehow became a Netflix show instead. No, I have not seen a single episode. I'm sure it's a wonderful show. Maybe I'll do a review of it at some point.

"Spamalot"

You've probably heard of Spamalot even if you haven't seen it. Monty Python on Broadway? Who could say no to THAT? So it's no surprise that there's been several attempts over the years to make a movie version of the show. And one of those attempts was by DreamWorks.

We know this because Carlos and Jordi Grangel, the former of whom worked on several of DreamWorks' animated films from the 2000s, posted concept art for this hypothetical adaptation on Instagram. Here is some of that concept art:

For some reason, the film wound up getting the axe. DreamWorks would eventually incorporate characters and locations from the King Arthur story in Shrek the Third - which, coincidentally enough, featured Eric Idle.

"Alma"

This is an interesting one. It was going to be based on a short film created by Rodrigo Blaas, who previously worked at DreamWorks' biggest rival, PIXAR. The short is about a little girl who sees a doll that looks exactly like her in the window of a toy store. Creepy stuff happens from there. Cracked summed it up with "We're just gonna go out on a limb here and guess that the reason Rodrigo Blaas doesn't work at PIXAR anymore was less 'seeking new opportunities' and more like 'We are terrified of what you may do to us in our sleep."

DreamWorks, for some inexplicable reason, thought this would make a great kids' movie, so they called up Rodrigo Blaas and invited him to do a full-length version. Megan Holley and Guillermo Del Toro were also involved.

Why wasn't it made? The closest thing I could find was the claims of a "Cancelled Films Wiki" that said it was axed because A) DreamWorks was too busy with Rise of the Guardians at the time and B) they probably decided the film would've been too scary for children. I think the latter is more likely. Although this WAS the same company that gave us THIS:

This is supposed to look like Angelina Jolie as a fish. It doesn't look like
either.

"Matienence"

Matienence is a comic book so obscure that it doesn't even have a Wikipedia page. According to the first issue's plot description on Amazon, it focuses on a pair of janitors at TerroMax, Inc.; the world's "biggest and best evil science think tank". They deal with "toxic spill monsters", mad scientists, crazy would-be dictators, caveman armies, aliens, all that sort of thing.

In December 2010, DreamWorks announced that they'd grabbed the film rights to the comic, which originally belonged to Warner Bros. Considering they'd recently done Monsters vs. Aliens and Megamind, another science-fiction animated movie seemed like a no-brainer.

I don't know why it didn't get off the ground, but if I had to guess... do you recall that I mentioned how DreamWorks considered Megamind a box office disappointment? Well, perhaps (in addition to torpedoing Gil's All-Fright Diner) it convinced them that science fiction animated movies were automatic flops. But that's just a guess.

"Imaginary Enemies"

Before Beekle, DreamWorks had plans for another animated film about imaginary friends... sort of. Imaginary Enemies was to be about imaginary friends who were miffed that the kids who created them would always blame them for their misdeeds, and so they decided to even the score.

Husband and wife Joe Syracuse and Lisa Addario were to write the script. There were rumors flying around that the film would be a live action/CGI hybrid as opposed to a fully animated one.

For whatever reason, the film didn't get made. But if you want to watch a live action/CGI hybrid movie about imaginary friends, check out IF. I thought it was pretty good.

WARNING: Awkwafina is in it. But she doesn't have
much in the way of lines.

"The Pig Scrolls"

You might have noticed that most of the shelved animated movies in this post were to be adaptations of children's books. I guess DreamWorks' mindset was "Hey, it worked for Shrek."

Why is the pig posing like that? It's freaking me out...

The Pig Scrolls is another book that I have never read. It was set in ancient Greece and focuses on a talking pig (one of Circe's victims) who sets out to save the world. Somebody at DreamWorks read the book and said "You know, this could make a great movie!" And thus, in April 2010, it was announced that Barry Sonnenfeld was going to direct the film, with Kirk DeMicco writing the script. And since then, apparently no information about the film has come out. I looked online, I couldn't find anything.

Poor Barry Sonnenfeld. Both of the DreamWorks movies he was going to direct got the axe. Ah well, he directed Men in Black 3 so at least he's doing well (actually, maybe the reason The Pig Scrolls didn't get off the ground is because he was too busy working on Men in Black 3?).

"The Tibet Code"

When DreamWorks established Oriental DreamWorks (now known as Pearl Studio) in 2012, the first project they planned on making there was an adaptation of The Tibet Code, a series of fantasy adventure novels written by He Ma. The novels star an expert on Tibetan Mastiffs named Qiang Ba who, along with his mentor Fang Xin, winds up in a hunt for a hoard of Buddhist treasure hidden during the persecution of the ninth century Tibetan emperor Langdarma.

DreamWorks announced their adaptation of the film in 2013, with Jeffrey Katzenberg saying, "I just think it's a fantastic story. It could be for China, like the Indiana Jones and The Da Vinci Code films." The film was to be co-produced by the state-owned China Film Group, and the creative team planned to visit Tibet in preparation.

The announcement was controversial - some critics claimed that it was pandering to the Chinese government for access to their lucrative film market. Katzenberg insisted that there was no political motivation behind the project. "There's no secondary agenda," he said. "Tibet Code has all the markings of a world-class, quality, blockbuster franchise."

...and then DreamWorks couldn't agree with the producer who owned the rights to the book. So much for that!

"Untitled Blue-Footed Booby Film"

Stop snickering.

In September 2013, DreamWorks announced that they were doing an animated film about blue-footed boobies. Karey Kirkpatrick was to direct the film and co-write it with Chris Poche. The film was about a dim-witted blue-footed booby who learned that "it isn't the size of your brain, but the size of your heart that counts". Mr. Kirkpatrick is no stranger to working on animated films about birds - he also wrote the screenplay for Chicken Run.

So why didn't it get made? No idea! Here's my theory: DreamWorks became worried that parents wouldn't take their kids to see a movie with the word "booby" in the title. Nobody could think of anything else to name the movie, so it got canned. I don't know, it's possible.

"Flawed Dogs"

Berkeley Breathed is most well-known for creating Bloom County (the comic strip that introduced the world to Opus the Penguin), but he's also written some children's books, among them a novel called Flawed Dogs.

I've never read this book, but apparently it's about a Daschund named Sam with a checkered past who infiltrates the Westminster Dog Show. In 2009, DreamWorks got their hands on the film rights to the book, and in 2013 it was revealed that Noah Baumbach and his spouse Greta Gerwig were involved with the project. When Indiewire asked Greta about the project, she said, "It might be a musical. It's being put together right now and these projects take a long time so I don't know how it will all shake down, but I really love it. I mean, it's hard because I think both Noah and I have like a high standard for verisimilitude and not do anything that is totally ridiculously not life-like, but to try to figure out the realities of a dog living in Brookyln Heights while also allowing him to go on a warrior-like journey. So it's balancing two things... the best example of a movie that does that great is E.T. It's a movie about an alien, but it's totally about a California suburbia and it's a movie about divorce too, but it's about an alien. I think that if you can find the balance between that fantasy and put it something that's incredibly real and people can identify as real, then you're Steven Spielberg."

Why the film got shelved, once again, I don't know. Berekley Breathed hasn't had much luck with his films getting adapted into animated movies - in addition to this, there have also been failed attempts at getting a Bloom County movie off the ground, and we all know how Mars Needs Moms turned out. On the bright side, he wrote the script for HitPig!, an animated film scheduled to be released on November 1st this year (which, incidentally, is also based on one of his children's books). We'll see how that turns out.

"Casper the Friendly Ghost"

This is an interesting one in that, to my knowledge, it was never even announced.

Okay, so in 2012, DreamWorks acquired the rights to Classic Media, a company that currently owns a whole lot of franchises and iconic cartoon characters, including Mr. Magoo, Gerald McBoing-Boing, Rankin-Bass' pre-1974 productions, VeggieTales, Felix the Cat, Rocky and Bullwinkle (via a joint venture with Jay Ward Productions), and Harvey Films' work - including Casper the Friendly Ghost. And what did they do with most of these franchises and characters? Not much. We did get the Mr. Peabody and Sherman movie, a Rocky and Bullwinkle short film that wound up being direct-to-video, and a Rocky and Bullwinkle reboot for Amazon Prime. Recently, they made Harvey Street Kids, a Netflix show with the Harvey Films characters (which cast Bobby Moynihan as the voice of Casper for some inexplicable reason). And they pretty much torpedoed VeggieTales with crap like this:

I think it was actually the folks at Big Idea's decision to redesign the characters, but
still... yeesh.

Three years ago, Danny Williams posted some of his concept maquettes for DreamWorks on his ArtStation account. Among the maquettes were none other than a slightly tweaked Casper! Apparently, DreamWorks had plans to do a Casper movie at some point.

Like I said, the film apparently wasn't even announced, so it likely didn't get very far into development. In 2022, it was announced that a live action Casper TV series was being made for Peacock, so maybe that's why? Or maybe the higher-ups didn't think Casper was popular enough to get a new movie? Isn't that why Sony Pictures Animation's Popeye movie didn't get off the ground?

"Miscellaneous Sequels"

I'm just going to group these all together. DreamWorks has a bit of a reputation for being obsessed with sequels. As you know, there were originally going to be five Shrek movies and four Madagascars. In 2010, it was announced that there would be SIX Kung Fu Panda movies. I repeat - SIX. They're so sequel-obsessed that it's always shocking when one of their animated movies DOESN'T get a sequel. But sometimes a sequel is planned and just doesn't get made.

For example, do you remember Antz? DreamWorks Animation's first film? That knock-off of A Bug's Life starring Woody Allen, Sharon Stone, Sylvester Stallone, Dan Aykroyd, Jennifer Lopez, and Christopher Walken? Yeah, they actually considered doing a direct-to-video sequel to it. Eventually the project was cancelled. TV Tropes theorized that this could be because of the disappointing sales of their first direct-to-video project, Joseph: King of Dreams.

After that, DreamWorks wanted to make sequels to The Road to El Dorado (note to self: do a review of that movie at some point), featuring Miguel, Tulio, Chel, and Alvito the Horse going on more adventures. Alas, the film was a box office flop, torpedoing that idea.

Jeffrey Katzenberg claimed in 2007 that they were very close to greenlighting an Over the Hedge 2, but the film wasn't financially successful enough for them to do it. TV Tropes claims that the aforementioned disagreements with United Media is to blame for us never getting an Over the Hedge sequel, but, again, take that with a grain of salt. They also claim that there was a Shark Tale sequel planned for a 2008 release but wound up being cancelled due to the film not doing well internationally.

Currently, DreamWorks is developing several animated movies: a third Boss Baby (because EVERYBODY was asking for THAT, right?),  an adaptation of a board game called Mice and Mystics, a Donkey spinoff movie, and three adaptations of books: Ronan Boyle and the Bridge of Riddles, Sputnik's Guide to Life on Earth, and The Wizards of Once. How likely is it that any of these will become the next Me and My Shadow or Monkeys of Mumbai? I don't know. Fingers crossed that none of them will. But if any of them do, I hope it's the third Boss Baby.