Peacock Flaunts Its Colors...And Original DreamWorks Animation Movies

Today, we get some details on what everybody was craving...a brand new streaming service! This time around, it was NBCUniversal's time to shine as they finally showed off details regarding their new streaming service, which is officially called. Peacock. Yes, that's the actual name. In announcing its original content today, most of the revelations were TV-oriented, specifically around planned reboots of Punky Brewster and Saved by the Bell. But one interesting nugget in here is that, like most of these new streaming services, there will be original films on this service and they'll be provided by movie studios the NBCUNiversal company owns. The three studios providing original contents are Universal (Hmmmmm, is this where The Hunt goes?), Focus Features and, most interestingly, DreamWorks Animation. 

Yes, DreamWorks Animation will be apparently providing original feature-film content for the streaming service. There was no word on any of the original feature film projects that DreamWorks or any of the studios will provide to Peacock, but one can't help but wonder what kind of movies DreamWorks Animation will produce. Specifically, I personally wonder if they'll just revive some of previously canceled DreamWorks films like B.O.O. or Larrkins, finish them up and just plop them on here or if they're planning on doing exclusively wholly new projects. If it's the latter, we can expect it to be years before we see original DreamWorks Animation features on Peacock since computer-animated titles take so long to produce.

Time will tell what DreamWorks Animation has in store for Peacock though the fact that the studio is producing original films for an NBCUniversal streaming service is another sign of how deeply DreamWorks Animation has been integrated into its owner. Further proof of this can be seen in how DreamWorks is getting consistent stewardship from Illumination head Chris Melandandri and how DreamWorks is working with Blumhouse (Universal's go-to horror movie production company) on a kid-friendly horror title called Spooky Jack. Keeping that in mind, it is interesting to note that DreamWorks, as this press release makes clear, is not exclusive to Peacock. They actually have a pay-TV deal with Hulu that goes into effect this year and are producing multiple original shows for Netflix, including TV show spin-off's of Universal juggernauts Fast & Furious and Jurassic World.