DreamWorks Animation (DWA) shares took a big hit a day after the company’s fourth “Shrek” installment finished with a disappointing $71.3 million in its premiere weekend. As of 2:30 p.m. ET on Monday, the company’s stock was trading at $31.48 per share, about 10% lower than when trading started. DreamWorks’ stock also tanked 4% last week after an analyst predicted that “Shrek Forever After” would debut to less than the previous two installments, which both premiered to well over $100 million.
The 3D “Shrek 4,” however, ended up doing even worse than its dour tracking predictions, which had forecast an opening of somewhere between $80 million and $100 million. Overall, DreamWorks stock has cratered precipitously since mid-March, when it was trading at a 52-week-high of $44.77 per share.
The slide started during the run-up to the March 26 premiere of DreamWorks 3D movie “How to Train Your Dragon,” which also had a disappointing start ($43.7 million opening in North America) before recovering to gross more than $210 million in the U.S. and Canada so far.
