Looks like Dreamworks is in a tough pickle now.

www.cartoonbrew.com/business/b…

That's right, they're shutting down their PDI/DreamWorks Studio, which means 500 jobs have been lost. Mainly because most of their films in the past few years have been considered box office failures. Not that they lost their budgets, but they just weren't as successful as they hoped they would be. But how could this happen to what's arguably Disney's greatest competitor? Is it people getting sick of their usual gimmicks? Is there just too much competition in the box office? Is it both? Well, I have two theories that could explain this.

1. Their lack of originality.

This doesn't apply to all of their films, but the studio's sort of infamous for some of their works suspiciously resembling those of Disney and Pixar. You know films like Shark Tale and Turbo? Two cases of films that imply them stealing their ideas or them trying to be something they're not. But then you have films like Kung Fu Panda and How to Train Your Dragon which are ideas you haven't seen either the two I've listed and it's just DreamWorks being themselves with their identity. And those films have garnered them massive critical and box office success. For a while now, DreamWorks seemed to rely less on their usual gimmicks and took their works a lot more seriously.....until films like Turbo and Penguins of Madagascar came along....

2. Them releasing two to three films a year.

This business practice has given the studio's look to have somewhat a factory produced mentality to them, whiles other studios just focus on releasing just one film per year. Just because you release multiple films for just one year, doesn't mean you get big bucks out of it. I mean, Disney and Pixar proved that, your film can make as much money as you want as long as you just focus on quality more than quantity. (Ignoring the Planes films) Which DreamWorks is somewhat known for putting much attention on the latter.

So what could they do to put them back on track? Well for one, just slow down with their movie releases. Just put their attention on a few films and make them feel more like the franchises that put them on the map. Don't rely on copying the studios your competing against, and have a voice of your own. Rely less on pop culture references and more modern elements and give us something that's more timeless and less dated. And that could get DreamWorks to the position they yearn to get. Disney and Pixar are tough acts to compete against, but there have been films and studios to be proven just as if not more higher quality than the big two, and the same can be said with DreamWorks and some of their films. Not that they're my most favorite animation studio, but they're not worth closing down.