If you were born in the early 2000s, you grew up on movies like Madagascar, The Lion King, Chicken Run, Kung Fu Panda, How to Train Your Dragon, and The Nightmare Before Christmas. You may even have had a Little Mermaid-themed birthday party. Meme culture nowadays is heavily influenced by films like Bee Movie, Flushed Away, Shark Tales, and Megamind. The man behind it all, executive producer and Disney Chairman for these films, Jeffrey Katzenberg, joined Dodge College for a screening of one of his Producing credits Shrek and a Q&A. 

One of the most important things Katzenberg took away from Disney was that they made movies for both children and the inner child in everyone.

It makes sense. That is why adults still love watching silly films like The Lion King and The Little Mermaid – because it brings us back to our childhood, to a time when nothing was more important than the talking lions and singing mermaids on screen. 

When Katzenberg created Dreamworks Animation, he knew he wanted to do something parallel, something that carried the same message but made his company unique. He decided that he needed to make movies for both adults and the inner adult within every child.