On Thursday, DreamWorks announced it was closing its studio in Redwood City, laying off hundreds of its employees and reducing its upcoming films to two per year. As part of DreamWorks' "restructuring," How to Train Your Dragon 3 will yet again be moved a year later to June 29, 2018.
Partly, it seems that this is a result of underperforming films over the past two years. Going to see DreamWorks films is one way you can help. Only one film, Home, is scheduled for 2015, so there's hope that some of these jobs will return once DreamWorks returns to its new plan of two films per year (one original film and one sequel).
However, as DreamWorks is becoming increasingly attached to outsourcing as a way of lowering production costs, it's likely that these are jobs that will never come back. This is sad considering PDI's huge role in the How to Train Your Dragon films as well as in providing the skills and technology for DreamWorks to begin producing CGI animated films, starting with Antz in 1998.
While it's unfortunate that How to Train Your Dragon 3 was delayed yet again, it's even more sad that so many of the amazing people who brought the first two films to life may no longer be working on the third. This is just one more reason to hope that How to Train Your Dragon 2 wins Best Animated Feature Film this year, in addition to the huge number of Annie nominations it has received.
Thanks dragonbassist, God_dragons_love, Julia, and Bubbagump!
