DreamWorks Animation has released a new logo that will premiere on the big screen with Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. The new logo runs through the company's history by highlighting key franchises and moments of the various DreamWorks animated movies produced since Antz in 1998.
DreamWorks SKG, the company created by Steven Spielberg (the S), Jeffrey Katzenberg (the K), and David Geffen (the G), was an attempt to pull off a modern-day version of what United Artists had done in the 1920s: a creator-owned studio producing their in-house product for the silver screen and television. Part of that included DreamWorks Animation, whose most famous series to date is the Shrek franchise.
The new DreamWorks Animation logo, clocking in at thirty-three seconds in length, begins in the same way as their regular logo, with the boy in old-fashioned clothing standing in the crescent moon while the Shrek theme plays over it. The boy then surfs on the moon, sweeping down through a small galaxy of DreamWorks animated movies, cresting over the heads of the cast of DreamWorks' The Bad Guys, a 2022 release, before Toothless from the How to Train Your Dragon franchise swoops past. The DreamWorks boy continues onward, past a tableau of Kung-fu Panda, with the title character in a bow to the audience while the boss baby from Boss Baby sits in a highchair and tosses his bottle in the air and catches it with a wry grin on his face.
The DreamWorks boy then banks right and bursts a bubble featuring Poppy from the Trolls movies. He ends at Fiona and Shrek being interrupted by Donkey. The boy then flies back to his proper position as the music swells to a huge fanfare and the title comes in. There may not be any Croods or Madagascar in this heavily modern-skewed logo, but at least they save the best, Shrek, for last.
It is appropriate that the new DreamWorks Animation logo will debut in front of Puss in Boots: The Last Wish considering how valuable the Shrek franchise is to the studio. Despite some attempts at 2-D (Prince of Egypt, The Road to El Dorado), it wasn't until Shrek took over the pop-culture landscape in 2001 that their future was secured.
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish will be released in theaters on December 21, 2022.
Source: DreamWorks/Twitter