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RICHARD SOAMES, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE
year-old assistant to Barry Diller at Paramount. His future partner David Geffen, eight years his sen- ior, remembered once looking on, equally flabbergasted yet admir- ing, of his “hustler-like” qualities as the young man skilfully oiled Diller’s path through customs.
He was also known as ‘The Headlight Kid” because he’d arrive at the office before dawn and always leave after dark. Then he was sometimes com- pared to Sammy Glick, the archetypal Hollywood live-wire immortalised in Budd Shulberg’s novel What Makes Sammy Run?
His boss at Disney, Michael Eisner, with whom Katzenberg would have a terminal falling-out, has written of him being “focused, driven and relentless” not to men- tion “aggressive and outspoken.”
Katzenberg has noted of his departure from Disney with whom he worked for 10 years, “the greatest single loss for me was the thought that I’d never make another animated feature.” Yet before he arrived at Disney he’d never in more than a dozen years in the industry had anything to do with animation. He admits that over the succeeding years he became “totally and completely seduced.”
His desire to start Dreamworks was much to do with the hunger to make animation again.
Now it’s an integral part of the company slate. Already in pro- duction are Shrek 2 – “we have to find a way of keeping the same style, tone and sensibilities yet also make sure the charac- ters and story develop properly” – Sharkslayer and Sinbad: Legend Of The Seven Seas as well as an ambitious series of films in associ- ation with the Bristol-based Aardman outfit following their successful debut together, Chicken Run. Next up is a Wallace & Gromit feature fol- lowed by The Tortoise And The Hare and Flushed Away.
And he talks about a project called Madagascar – in which a lion, zebra, giraffe and hippo, all cosily caged up neighbours in Central Park Zoo, are shipwrecked
while being shunted back well- meaningly to the African wild – with the wide-eyed enthusiasm of a first-time producer.
From 2004, he says, Dreamworks will do two full-length animation features a year alongside 10 live- action pictures.
“One of the things that’s been a real journey at Dreamworks has been trying to refine and define a philosophy of animation that’s distinctive from what Walt did. I still quote that wonderful line of his, ‘I make movies for children and the children in adults,’ so when we started Dreamworks we wanted to come up with our own mission statement, our own path to pursue.
“As a kind of nod and a wink to Walt we’ve tried to make ani- mated movies for the adult that exists in every child. When we both do our jobs perfectly we get to the same place. Monsters Inc is in many ways the perfect Disney film – a great kids film also wonderfully entertaining to adults. Shrek is the perfect Dreamworks film – a great adult film, wonderfully entertaining for kids. And yet, they don’t look or sound anything like each other.”
Talking of mission statements, I had, finally, to remind Katzenberg about his notorious 28-page memo in 1991 at Disney in the wake of, as he outlined it, esca- lating costs, slipping profitability and the compounding of risk. It was time, he extolled his troops, “to get back to our roots.”
He first groaned then proceed- ed to laugh uproariously at the memory of it: “I haven’t read it in 10 years and don’t intend to. No, I’m not disclaiming it... but I’m not ready to re-embrace it either.
“The thing about the three of us at Dreamworks is that 100 per cent of our energies are focused on making things whether it’s live action movies, animation or music. We’re not managers, we’re not building conglomer- ates nor are we bankers. We’re building a company whose entire value comes from trying to make good product.”
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