Reports: Comcast in talks for DreamWorks
Comcast Corp. is in talks to acquire DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc., which produced the "Shrek" and "Kung Fu Panda" franchises, for more than $3 billion, according to published reports late Tuesday.
Comcast Corp. is in talks to acquire DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc., which produced the "Shrek" and "Kung Fu Panda" franchises, for more than $3 billion, according to published reports late Tuesday.
A deal would boost the Comcast-owned Universal Studios, which had a banner year in 2015 with multiple billion-dollar movie blockbusters, and add to Comcast's stable of content companies. The Philadelphia company acquired the NBCUniversal entertainment and news conglomerate in 2011.
The Universal movie studio has been a surprising success of the NBCUniversal deal and now is led by former Comcast executive Jeff Shell.
Comcast officials did not respond to phone calls on Tuesday night. Comcast chief executive Brian Roberts is expected to speak with Wall Street analysts on Wednesday morning as part of Comcast's first-quarter earnings call.
The Wall Street Journal was the first to report the talks between Comcast and DreamWorks.
DreamWorks would be a catch for Comcast, the nation's largest cable company, as it focuses its business on entertainment content and would complement the animation studio in Universal that produced the Despicable Me and Minions movies.
DreamWorks itself was founded in the 1990s through a partnership of entertainment luminaries Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg. But it has struggled in recent years and its stock price has traded off its highs.
A year ago, Comcast abandoned its $45 billion deal for Time Warner Cable Inc. after government regulators balked at Comcast's potential power in the high-speed Internet market. A deal for DreamWorks would not likely face the same level of government scrutiny.