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While Disney Animation was focused on adapting fairytales that are in the public domain, DreamWorks had taken another route when it came to its animated films. While the studio initially dabbled in public domain folktales and religious stories as well, such asPrince of EgyptandSinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, there was one other source of rich stories that would have made DreamWorks that animation juggernaut that it is today.
While Disney was busy bringing some of the best-known fairytales to life for children all around the world, DreamWorks turned towards more recent stories, looking at books that had been published in recent years and were geared at children. While more often than not the final product was markedly different than the source material, it still stands that some of DreamWorks’ greatest hits found their origins as children’s books.
1Rise of the Guardians
Rise of the Guardianswas a film that brought together some of the best-known holiday spirits to weave a narrative that DreamWorks was banking on. While the film did not perform well at the box office, the film has a lively fandom that is still extremely active online.
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Most fans who have looked into more content for the film have inevitably chanced up the rich source material that the film was based on, penned by William Joyce, calledThe Guardians of Childhood. While this series has multiple books in its roster,Rise of the Guardianssimply failed to hit the benchmark that DreamWorks wanted it to, cutting out any further installments in the project that could have seen the light of day.
One of DreamWorks’ breakout hits,Shrekfunctioned as one of the animation studio’s flagship for more than a few years. Spawning spin-offs of its own, the source material for the films is vastly different than what fans saw on screen.Shrek!, written by William Steig, was a very different story, with a cruder approach to the character.
One of the biggest things that sets the book Shrek apart from the film Shrekis the fact that the Shrek from the book can breathe fire. The film takes a different approach to the narrative,Shrek!delves into the ugliness of the character, being pretty straightforward with the fact that ogres celebrate negative traits that are thrust upon them.
3The Bad Guys
The Bad Guysis one of the most recent breakout hits from DreamWorks, which brilliantly employs the new direction that the company has taken in animation. The film has a cast of diverse characters, with a sequel on the way. This show too, found its origins in books, originally being a set of children’s graphic novels written by Aaron Blabey.
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There are more than a few things that were changed from the graphic novels for the film, such as the team in the comics being an all-male group of bandits. Other characters like Diane Foxington are also different in the comics. The film, however, managed to take the great concept from the story and elevate it, possibly delivering the next big franchise for the animation studio.
4How To Train Your Dragon
Most hardcore fans ofHow to Train Your Dragonare aware of the fact that the story actually started out as a series of children’s books written by Cressida Cowell. The books, much likeShrek!, are very different from the films, with the designs for characters like Toothless and Hiccup being so removed from the books, that it might as well be a different IP altogether.
While there are novels that focus on a slew of things in the world of the story, the films mostly focus on the Dragon Training aspect of the story, there are other parts of the narrative that focus on similarly different aspects, like being a Pirate.
5The Wild Robot
DreamWorks’ latest success,The Wild Robotwas based on a trilogy of science fiction novels that were written by writer and illustrator Peter Brown. This is the most recent among the books on the list, the trilogy of novels that inspired the film only started in 2018, publishing all the way through to 2023 to complete the trilogy.
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The film only covers the first book in the series, with the signature Dreamworks charm that has been commonplace in its more recent works in terms of animation and art style.The Wild Robothad a great story that wowed critics in theatres, which could be indicative of the fact the film will be a part of the newer era at DreamWorks.
Anuraag Chatterjee
Content Writer
Articles Published :1633
Anuraag Chatterjee, Web Content WriterWith a passion for writing fiction and non fiction content, Anuraag is a Media Science graduate with 2 year’s experience with Marketing and Content, with 3 published poetry anthologies. Anuraag holds a Bacherlor’s degree in Arts with a focus on Communication and Media Studies.
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DreamWorks AnimationHow To Train Your DragonShrekThe Bad GuysThe Wild Robot
