On Thursday, Comcast announced they were acquiring the major studio Dreamworks Animation. The acquisition came at a price of $3.8 billion and some analysts point that it could be bigger than Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm and Marvel. This is a huge announcement as Dreamworks will be working alongside Universal animation.

Prior to the acquisition, Dreamworks had its films being released by Fox and before that by Paramount. With this new dea, Disney could see a major rival.

Disney vs. Dreamworks

Ever since Dreamworks animation launched in 1994, the company has been giving Disney a run for its money with franchises like Shrek and Ice Age. The company has produced 32 films and has continued to grow in size and quality. The company generally releases two to three films a year and this year already "Kung Fu Panda 3" was a success that is likely to bring another sequel.

In the meantime, Disney shows no signs of stopping its animation branch. Disney still has a superior lead on Dreamworks as its brand has been around since the 1940s and the marketing behind it has been all about family. Disney's quality lagged for some time before pulling back when John Lasseter took over in 2007. The company has since made a number of Oscar winning films. It is also important to know that aside from Disney animation, Disney owns Pixar, making that branch yet another strong point.

Television

While Dreamworks is still newer than Disney, it has quickly built a television presence on important networks including Nickelodeon and the streaming platform Netflix. Disney of course has the Disney Channel and also has a deal with Netflix but the fact that Comcast is such an important cable company and has multiple streaming platforms will allow more exposure to Dreamworks' films and television shows. In this respect, Dreamworks could build a bigger television audience geared towards children.

Short films

Disney also has a long history of short films that have become classics and have also won Oscars. Meanwhile, Dreamworks has 23 and as they continue to produce films, they are aiming at putting short films in front of their feature animated films. This will of course follow the modo of Disney.

Overall, however, where Dreamworks will definitely benefit is having a stable studio and company that will nurture the content they released. Universal also has a small branch of animation known as Universal animation. Now together with Dreamworks, Universal's animation content can expand and it can focus on not only event films and indie films but will also get to compete in the animation branch. The deal is set to to close by the end of the year.

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