Reports are indicating the Steven Speilberg’s Dreamworks will be leaving Disney following the release of The BFG on July 1, 2016. Disney is also distributing the Tom Hanks cold war thriller Bridge of Spies which will be released this October 16.
The initial deal for Disney to distribute Dreamworks films was negotiated by former studio chairman Dick Cook. The deal was created prior to Disney’s acquisition of Marvel and Lucasfilm as a way to pump more films into Disney’s slate as they were cutting back the number of Touchstone films leaving holes in the release schedule.
Now that Bob Iger is focusing on film’s under Disney’s brands, the Dreamworks films sometimes feel out of place on Disney’s schedule.
The suspicion is that Dreamworks will move to Universal, where Speilberg maintained an office throughout his career. The new partner would distribute A Dog’s Purpose and Ghost in the Shell which otherwise would have fallen under the Disney deal that is now being unwound.
Neither Dreamworks, Disney, nor Universal would comment on the reports.