The scope and breadth of DreamWorks’ ambitions reflected the go-go nineties -- a time when the economy was surging, Bill Clinton was in the White House, and a still mysterious resource known as the World Wide Web was about to change everything. But its expansiveness was also reflective of its resident rainmaker: director Steven Spielberg.
It was not because of former Disney über-executive Jeffrey Katzenberg, or David Geffen, the billionaire music impresario, that DreamWorks -- the first Hollywood studio to be formed in 60 years -- was getting into the videogame business or mulling over the creation of entertainment centers where families could chow down on hamburgers and zap space invaders (what would be known as GameWorks).
The company was molded around the ideas and dreams of its resident man-child, the inspiration for DreamWorks’ newly unveiled logo: a little boy sitting on the edge of the crescent moon, casting his fishing line into the stars. Whenever a wish materialized in Spielberg’s endlessly imaginative mind, it was up to Geffen and Katzenberg to wave their magic wands and make it come true.
Even when Spielberg’s partners did not necessarily see eye to eye with him -- such as over building a studio at Playa Vista (Geffen, in particular, was skeptical) -- they came through for him, understanding all too well that the star that made DreamWorks SKG shine so brightly, that had the media doing somersaults, the investors lining up for lunch in the Amblin dining room, was not what the K or the G in the company’s initials represented but the S. Which is why the S came first.
Whatever the size of their egos, neither Geffen nor Katzenberg had any illusions about the supremacy of Spielberg’s agenda. As Geffen put it: “When we first started DreamWorks, I said to Jeffrey, ‘We ought to call this new company the Spielberg brothers. Anything Steven thinks is important, we want to invest in.’”
The tricky part for Katzenberg and Geffen, however, was not just catering to Spielberg, but making certain that he stayed focused. According to Bruce Jacobson, co-head of DreamWorks’ videogame division, Katzenberg was often heard saying, in his sports-talk lingo, “This is a town where the batting average is 210 and where you’re profitable if you bat 290. I’ve got like a 410, and Steven bats 667. My mission in life is for Steven to swing as many times as he can and, with all due respect, I should be taking a few swings at bat, too.”
Already, this aim had been somewhat derailed, given Spielberg’s insistence on directing for other studios. What Steven wanted also determined how DreamWorks’ live-action studio would be run and who would run it -- which, to the shock of Hollywood, was not going to be Katzenberg, despite his nearly 20 years of studio experience at Paramount and Disney.
