Cinema Experts

DreamWorks, LLC, also known as DreamWorks Pictures, DreamWorks SKG, or DreamWorks Studios is a major American film studio which develops, produces, and distributes films, video games, and television programming. It has produced or distributed more than ten films with box-office grosses totalling more than $100 million each. Its most successful title to date is Shrek 3.
DreamWorks began as an ambitious attempt by media moguls Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and David Geffen to create a new Hollywood studio. But in December 2005, the founders agreed to sell the studio to Viacom, the parent company of Paramount Pictures. The sale was completed in February 2006.
DreamWorks' animation arm was spun-off in 2004, into DreamWorks Animation SKG. Its films are distributed worldwide by Paramount, but the animation studio remains independent of Paramount/Viacom.
The company was founded following Katzenberg's forced resignation from The Walt Disney Company in 1994. At the suggestion of Spielberg's friend, the two made an agreement with long-time Katzenberg collaborator Geffen to start their own studio. The studio was officially founded on October 12, 1994 with financial backing of $33 million from each of the three main partners and $500 million from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.
The first feature length DreamWorks film to be released was The Peacemaker, in 1997, although a failed TV pilot called Dear Diary was put into limited theatrical release in 1996. It went on to win an Oscar for Best Short Film.
In 1998, DreamWorks releases their first full length animated feature, The Prince of Egypt.
In 1999, 2000 and 2001, DreamWorks won three consecutive best picture Oscars for American Beauty, Gladiator and A Beautiful Mind (the later two with Universal).
In 2000, Electronic Arts acquired DreamWorks Interactive from DreamWorks and merged it with EA Pacific and Westwood Studios. DreamWorks Interactive became EA Los Angeles (EALA).
DreamWorks Records, the company's record label (the first project of which was George Michael's Older), never lived up to expectations, and was sold in October 2003 to Universal Music Group, which operated the label as DreamWorks Nashville. That label was shut down in 2005 when its flagship artist, Toby Keith, departed to form his own label.
The studio has had its greatest financial success with movies, specifically animated movies. DreamWorks Animation teamed up with Pacific Data Images (now known as PDI/DreamWorks) in 1996 to create some of the highest grossing animated hits of all time, such as Antz (1998), The Prince of Egypt (1998), Shrek (2001), its sequels Shrek 2 (2004) and Shrek the Third (2007); Shark Tale (2004), Madagascar (2005), Over the Hedge (2006), and Flushed Away (2006). Based on their success, DreamWorks Animation has spun off as its own publicly traded company. In fact, PDI/DreamWorks has emerged as the main competitor to Pixar in the age of computer-generated animation, and is based in Redwood City, California.
In recent years DreamWorks has scaled back. It stopped plans to build a high-tech studio, sold its music division, and only produces one television series, Las Vegas.
Recently, David Geffen admitted that DreamWorks had come close to bankruptcy twice. Under Katzenberg's watch, the studio suffered a $125 million loss on Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, and also overestimated the DVD demand for Shrek 2. In 2005, out of their two large budget pictures, The Island bombed at the domestic box office, while War of the Worlds was produced as a joint effort with Paramount which was the first to reap the profits.
In December 2005, Viacom's Paramount Pictures agreed to purchase the live-action studio. The deal was valued at approximately $1.6 billion, an amount that included about $400 million in debt assumptions. The company completed its acquisition on February 1, 2006.On March 17, 2006 Paramount agreed to sell the DreamWorks live-action library to a group led by George Soros for $900 million. Paramount retained the worldwide distribution rights to these films, as well as various auxiliary rights, including music publishing, sequels, and merchandising - this includes films that had been made by Paramount and DreamWorks. The sale was completed on May 8, 2006.

“When I first said I wanted to make a film about Rome and cast Russell Crowe, everyone had a good old snigger. I thought, `You wait.' They've done the same with Kingdom of Heaven and Orlando Bloom. I now say, 'Take a look at this.”
Scott grew up in an Army family, meaning that for most of his early life his father - an officer in the Royal Engineers - was absent. After the Second World War the Scott family moved back to their native north-east England, eventually settling in Teesside (whose industrial landscape would later inspire similar scenes in Blade Runner). Scott studied there at the West Hartlepool College of Art. He was to progress to an M.A. in graphic design at London's Royal College of Art from 1960 to 1962. There, he was to contribute to the college magazine, ARK, and help to establish its film department. For his final show he made a black and white short film, Boy and Bicycle, starring his younger brother, Tony Scott, and his father. The film's main visual elements would become features of Scott's later work. After graduation in 1963 he secured a traineeship as a set designer with the BBC, leading him to work on the popular television police series Z-Cars and the science fiction series Out of the Unknown. He was also assigned to design the second Doctor Who serial, The Daleks, which would have entailed realising the famous alien creatures. However, shortly before he was due to start work a schedule conflict meant that he was replaced on the serial by Raymond Cusick. At the BBC, Scott was placed into a directing training programme and, before he left the corporation, had directed episodes of Z-Cars, its spin-off, Softly, Softly, and adventure series Adam Adamant Lives!.
Scott quit the BBC in 1968 and established a production company, Ridley Scott Associates, working with Sir Alan Parker, Hugh Hudson, Hugh Johnson and employing his younger brother, Tony. Having cut his teeth on UK television commercials in the 1970s - most notably the 1974 Hovis advert, "Bike Round" (New World Symphony), which was filmed in Shaftesbury, Dorset - he graduated to Hollywood, where he produced and directed a number of top box office films. His first feature, The Duellists, was produced in Europe and won a jury medal at the Cannes Film Festival but made limited impact in the US.
Scott's disappointment with The Duellists was compounded by the success being enjoyed by Alan Parker with American-backed films - Scott admitted he was "ill for a week" with envy. Scott had originally planned to next adapt an opera, Tristan und Isolde, but after seeing Star Wars, he became convinced of the potential of large scale, effects-driven films. He therefore accepted the job of directing Alien, the ground-breaking 1979 horror/science fiction film that would give him international recognition. While Ridley Scott would not direct the three Alien sequels, the female action hero Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), introduced in the first film, would become a cinematic icon. Scott was involved in the 2003 restoration and re-release of the film including media interviews for its promotion. At this time Scott indicated that he had been in discussions to make the fifth and final film in the Alien franchise
After a year working on the film adaptation of Dune, Scott signed to direct the film version of Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, (which would be retitled as Blade Runner), following the sudden death of his brother Frank. Starring Harrison Ford and featuring an acclaimed soundtrack by Vangelis, Blade Runner was a flop when released to theatres in 1982, and was pulled shortly thereafter. However, it would eventually achieve cult status through re-issue on television and through home video. Scott's notes were used by Warner Brothers to create a rushed director's cut in 1991 which removed the voiceovers and modified the ending. Today Blade Runner is often ranked by critics one of the most important science fiction films of the 20th century and is usually discussed along with William Gibson's novel Neuromancer as initiating the cyberpunk genre.
In 1984, Apple Computer launched the Macintosh. Its debut was announced by a single broadcast of the now famous $1.5 million commercial, based on George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, and directed by Ridley Scott (due to his work on Blade Runner).
The commercial was broadcast during the 1984 Super Bowl XVIII. Steve Jobs' intention with the ad was to equate Big Brother with the IBM PC and a nameless female action hero, portrayed by Anya Major, with the Macintosh. The commercial is frequently voted top in surveys of influential marketing campaigns. For example, Advertising Age named it the 1980s "Commercial of the Decade", and in 1999 the US TV Guide selected it as number one in their list of "50 Greatest Commercials of All Time".
The film resurfaced in the late 1990s when Apple made a QuickTime version of the commercial available for download from the Internet. It appeared numerous times on television commercial compilation specials, as well as on Nick-at-Nite during its "Retromercial" breaks. The making and presentation of this famous commercial formed the visual bookends for the docudrama Pirates of Silicon Valley.
In 1985, Scott directed Legend, a fantasy film produced by Arnon Milchan. Having not tackled the fairy tale genre, Scott decided to create a "once upon a time" film set in a world of fairies, princesses, and goblins. Scott cast Tom Cruise as the film's hero, Jack, Mia Sara as Princess Lily, and Tim Curry as the Satan-like Lord of Darkness. But a series of problems with both principal photography and post-production (including heavy editing and substitution of Jerry Goldsmith's original score) hampered the film's release and as a result Legend received scathing reviews. It has since become a cult classic thanks to a DVD release that restores Scott's original, intended vision.
Hungry for a real box office hit and also for respect from the press who considered him as a commercial filmmaker devoted only to fantastic visuals without much substance, Scott decided to postpone further incursions into the science fiction and fantasy genre, in order to avoid being typecast, by focusing more in down to earth mature suspense thrillers. Among them came Someone to Watch Over Me, a romantic police drama starring Tom Berenger, Lorraine Bracco and Mimi Rogers in 1987, and Black Rain, a 1989 cop drama starring Michael Douglas and Andy Garcia, shot partially in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan. Both met with mild success at the box office.
Again, Scott was praised for their lavish visuals, but was still being criticised that his films were nothing more than an extended version of his glossy TV commercials, which he kept directing until that period, due to the more lucrative advertising business.
Thelma & Louise was released in 1991 and stars Geena Davis as Thelma, Susan Sarandon as Louise, and Harvey Keitel as a sympathetic detective trying to solve crimes that the two women find easier and easier to commit. The movie proved to be a success and revived Scott's reputation as a film maker, earning his first Oscar nomination. Scott's next project was the independent movie 1492: Conquest of Paradise, a visually striking take on the story of Christopher Columbus, yet usually considered to be his most slowly paced movie.
In 1995 Scott, together with his brother Tony, formed the film and television production company Scott Free Productions in Los Angeles. All of his subsequent feature films, starting with White Squall and G.I. Jane, a female tabloid version of Full Metal Jacket starring Demi Moore and Viggo Mortensen, have been produced under the Scott Free banner. Also in 1995, the two brothers purchased a controlling interest in Shepperton Studios that was later merged with Pinewood Studios. Scott and his brother are currently producing (since 2005) the CBS series Numb3rs. It is a crime drama focused on a mathematician who helps the FBI solve crimes using his genius ability in mathematics.
The huge success of Scott's film Gladiator (2000) has been credited with the revival of the nearly defunct genre of the "sword and sandal" historical epic. Scott then turned to "Hannibal", the sequel to Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs. 2001 also saw the release of Scott's war film Black Hawk Down (2001), which further established Scott's position as both a critically and financially successful film maker and went on to earn two Oscars.
In 2005, the director made the internationally successful Kingdom of Heaven, a movie about the Crusades that consciously sought to connect history to current events. While on location in Morocco during filming, Scott reportedly received threats from extremists. The Moroccan government also sent the Moroccan cavalry as extras in the epic battle scenes.
Scott teamed up again with actor Russell Crowe, directing the movie A Good Year, which is based on the best-selling book. Scott is currently in post-production on American Gangster, working for the first time with Denzel Washington and again with Russell Crowe. He is the third director to attempt the project after Antoine Fuqua's attempt (under the working title Tru Blu) was shut down by the studio due to an escalating budget. Washington had been cast in that incarnation of the project (reuniting him with Fuqua who had directed him in his Best Actor Oscar-winning performance in Training Day) as well as Benicio del Toro, who were both paid salaries of $20m and $15m respectively without doing any production on the film. The project was then handed to the director of Hotel Rwanda, Terry George, who was rumoured to be working on a less harsh version of the script with Don Cheadle attached to Washington's role. Eventually George and Cheadle dropped out and Scott took over the project in early 2006.Scott is to direct an adaptation of Robin Hood called Nottingham. Russell Crowe will portray the Sheriff of Nottingham. Rumoured future projects include Shadow Divers and The Invisible World. He also has a historical epic called Tripoli planned, with Russell Crowe and Ben Kingsley attached, and a western in development, Blood Meridian, based on the book by Cormac McCarthy.

"If you grow up in the suburbs of anywhere, a dream like this seems kind of vaguely ludicrous and completely unattainable. But this moment is directly connected to those imaginings. And for anybody who's on the downside of advantage, and relying purely on courage, it's possible."
When Crowe was four years old, his family moved to Australia, where his parents pursued a career in filmset catering. The producer of the Australian TV series Spyforce was his mother's godfather, and Crowe at age five or six was hired for a line of dialogue in one episode, opposite series star Jack Thompson, who years later played Crowe's father in The Sum of Us and who coincidentally had been educated at the same school which Crowe was to attend for two years: Sydney Boys High School.
When he was 14, however, Crowe's family moved back to New Zealand, where he attended Auckland Grammar School with his cousins Martin Crowe and Jeff Crowe. He did not complete secondary school, leaving early to help his family financially. In the mid-1980s Russell, under guidance from his good friend Tom Sharplin, performed as a rock 'n' roll revivalist, under the stage name Russ Le Roq, and had a New Zealand single with "I Wanna Be Marlon Brando."
Crowe returned to Australia at age 21, intending to apply to the National Institute of Dramatic Art. "I was working in a theater show, and talked to a guy who was then the head of technical support at NIDA," Crowe recalled. "I asked him what he thought about me spending three years at NIDA. He told me it'd be a waste of time. He said, 'You already do the things you go there to learn, and you've been doing it for most of your life, so there's nothing to teach you but bad habits.'" In 1987 Crowe spent a six-month stint as a busker when he couldn't find other work.
After appearing in the TV series Neighbours and Living with the Law, Crowe was cast in his first film, The Crossing (1990), a small-town love triangle directed by George Ogilvie. Before production started, a film-student protege of Ogilvie's, Steve Wallace, hired Crowe for the film Blood Oath (1990) (a.k.a. Prisoners of the Sun) which was released a month earlier, although actually filmed later.
In 1992, Crowe starred in the first episode of the second series of Police Rescue. Also in 1992 Crowe starred in Romper Stomper, an Australian film which follows the exploits and downfall of a racist skinhead group in blue-collar suburban Melbourne, directed by Geoffrey Wright.
After initial success in Australia, Crowe began acting in American films. He went on to become a three-time Oscar nominee, winning the Academy Award as Best Actor in 2001 for Gladiator. Crowe wore his grandfather Stan Wemyss's Member of the Order of the British Empire medal to the ceremony.
Crowe received three consecutive best actor Oscar nominations for The Insider, Gladiator and A Beautiful Mind. All three films were also nominated for best picture, and both Gladiator and A Beautiful Mind won the award. Within the six year stretch from 1997-2003, he also starred in two other best picture nominees, L.A. Confidential and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, though he was nominated for neither. In 2005 he re-teamed with A Beautiful Mind director Ron Howard for Cinderella Man. In 2006 he re-teamed with Gladiator director Ridley Scott for A Good Year, the first of two consecutive collaborations (the second being American Gangster, due for release in late 2007). While the light romantic comedy of A Good Year was not greatly received, Crowe seemed pleased with the film, telling STV in an interview that he thought it would be enjoyed by fans of his other films.
On March 9, 2005, Crowe revealed to GQ magazine that Federal Bureau of Investigation agents had approached him prior to the 73rd Academy Awards on March 25, 2001 and told him that the Islamist terrorist group al-Qaeda wanted to kidnap him. Crowe told the magazine that it was the first time he had ever heard of al-Qaeda (the September 11 attacks took place later that year) Crowe recalled that "it was something to do with some recording picked up by a French policewoman, I think, in either Libya or Algiers...it was about taking iconographic Americans out of the picture as a sort of cultural-destabilization plan".
Crowe was guarded by Secret Service agents for the next few months, both while shooting films and at award ceremonies (Scotland Yard also guarded Crowe while he was promoting Proof of Life in London in February 2001).
In August 2007 it was announced that Crowe may be approached by the producers of the new Star Trek film due for release in 2008, for the role of the villain.

“My name is Gladiator.”
Germania, 150 AD, the setting of Gladiator's opening scene. Far from the blazing sun and dazzlingly beauty of ancient Rome, Ridley Scott shoots the opening sequence in a subdued light. The Roman legions are nonetheless impeccably turned out as they face the comparatively disorganised rabble that inhabits this miserable environment. Caesar's soldiers seem somewhat misplaced here. However, Russell Crowe is at home in this environment of knee-deep mud and merciless snow. He commands the screen with all the virtues of his motto: ‘Strength and Honour'.
The plot, with its hero-to-zero-to-hero nature, runs through Gladiator's every vein. As General Maximus, Russell Crowe is welcomed by Marcus Aurelius Caesar (Richard Harris) to take the Roman throne as Emperor of a new Republic. All does not run smoothly however as mislead heir to the throne Commodus (Phoenix) takes over Rome with ill-gotten domination, having dispatched his own Father. Maximus is cast out to find his family murdered and his Spanish farm burnt to the ground. Taken in as a slave by Proximo (Reed), Maximus becomes a Gladiator and starts his journey to the Coliseum and revenge against Commodus.
Scott's cast is powerful and he is not left wanting as powerful performances are delivered by all. Due to his untimely mid-production death, Oliver Reed is created in some scenes by the grace of computer graphics, which are as convincing as they come; sometimes making it difficult to differentiate between Reed himself and his computerised counterpart.
It is, however, the supporting actors who create many of Gladiator's best dialogue-based scenes. In an accomplished demonstration of her acting ability as Lucilla, Connie Nielsen saves the occasional scene as Joaquim Phoenix shows us that he can ‘do evil', but is less convincing when it comes to the more emotional qualities of his role.
As a vehicle for the plot, Scott's beautifully created and highly symbolic (there is an image of fire in nearly every shot of the film) dialogue scenes are of a certain merit with digitally created backgrounds that encompass the meticulous nature of the Roman Empire. However, dialogue alone does not an epic movie make, and it is in the film's spectacular action sequences that Gladiator come into its own. Shot on location in Malta, Scott's first arena was built by an army of locals and commanded some 5000 extras (a large majority of whom were of a cardboard variety). All of this pales in comparison as we arrive in a digitally created Rome which makes some scenes in Ben Hur some somewhat small scale. The Coliseum is immense, both inside and out, and the computerised provides the electric atmosphere in which Crowe and his feline companions (four sizeable, and real, Bengal tigers) perform.
The battle sequences are perfectly choreographed and shot as iconic masks and typically Roman chariots are abundant in their power and imagery. As swords clash and heads roll, Ridley Scott is triumphant in the application of special effects technology and his directorial prowess.It is also emotionally intriguing, something some Scott films lack. Its soul-searching music (kudos to Hans Zimmer) and its ambitious, gorgeous view of the after-life are beautiful. Its truly gritty-edge give it a dirty, gruesome magnificence. It is the tale of earthly combatants, most notable in the final, gut-wrenching duel; where the warriors drop their swords and duke it out with what nature gave them… 10/10