I mean looking at Shrek 3, it generated $92 million in one quarter and one can deduce at least $150 million in another quarter based on nearby quarterly data. $250 million based on $800 million worldwide is 31% off of box office alone.

Your %'s simply DON'T work, is what I am saying. Dreamworks had a $50-$60 million production budget, with a $30 million advertising budget. We are talking $80-$90 million spent on the movie. I just have an incredible time believing (based on the %'s I'm seeing that are publicly available for Shrek 2 and 3), that they didn't already have more revenue from the theaters alone.

Between the time their first movie (Antz) released, and 2002, they had invested $455,000,000 in 6 movies, and grossed $1,298,611,099, those aren't small time numbers.  I guess we'll just have to disagree on this one :)

I assume you know that theatres generally took 50% of the first weekend gross back then.  Then the theatres take increases every week a movie is in the theatre to compensate for the diminshing crowds.  Those #'s are for the US back in the late 90's and early 2000's.  The formula has gone a little heavier for the studios today, as they get 60% of the first week.  Thats why the opening weekend is so important now.  The original Shrek made $42 million(US) the first weekend and was popular enough to stick around to make the $267 million.  It made $42m it's second weekend and $55 million it's third. 

The problem with comparing to Shrek 2 and 3 is that they came out later when the percentages went up and the opening weekends did too.  Shrek 2 made $108m/$72m/$95m in its first 3 weeks.  Shrek 3 made $121m/$53m/$67m it's first 3 weeks.  Also, the toy tie ins and co-op advertising  for the 2/3 were massively higher.  So, the profitability was much better.

For the foreign markets, it really depends.  But the #'s are much lower, but have also improved in the last 10 years.  The foreign markets have also tripled in size.

Dreamworks actually released 25 movies between that time. But that is mostly not relevent.

The 6 animation movies went like this:

The debate really is about what percentage of the revenue is actually profit.  As the theatres take a chunk of that.   Also, Dreamworks used other companies to do their distribution who also took a chunk. 

I agree with you that if you take just Revenue and basic budgets, it would seem to be much more profitable than you would expect.

But, that is not the total of costs or profits.

That's actually the debate you're making, it's not the debate I'm making, nor was it ever my intent.  I'm simply showing that the numbers invested, and the returns (regardless of what percent, had to be at least what they put in, and then some) do not signify a 'small studio.'  Which gets back to the original point of, if your employer who's making a ton of money on your work, isn't showing that they value you and someone comes in and offers you a job with a salary/benefits that you think is more commensurate with your talent (ergo, market deciding salary), there should be no problems with that (which is why it's legal for companies to do just that).

I agree, I veered off the point.

I agree that it should be illegal for companies to stop you from pursuing other opportunities.  The reality is that some of the major companies may have had an understanding between them.  That didn't stop employees from seeking employment elswhere or in a different job.  Was that fair to the employees?  My other arguments show that for that particular employee it was probably harming them short term for sure, but the long term we will never know.  The "must have now" society that we live in today makes doing business rather difficult.  Employees make no effort to earn their way up in a company, they just jump from one company to another draining resources of the companies along the way.  Then everyone asks why everything is so expensive?  The internet has created a whole new world of pay opportunities for everyone, but also created a much higher cost to employ people.  This pretty much pushes the small companies out of the picture, as they can't compete with the larger ones.  But, when this law was made, I am sure that people didn't see the long term impacts on the businesses themselves and how the ensured freedom given to the employee would harm the greater marketplace too.

Now here's where this subject gets interesting, and quite frankly, I think it depends more on the forms you sign upon employment, than it does what any company can do or say about you getting employment somewhere else, for whatever reason.  I used to work for EDS (Electronic Data Systems, now an HP company), who was/is the Fiscal Agent for the Medicaid contract in our State.  When I was hired, there were indeed forms that I had to sign about not going to their competitors, due to the risk of trade secrets or whatever.  But, I think that's a far far cry from no-poaching/raiding or even the wage fixing issue.  That's a conscious decision by the new hire, to agree not to go to one of their competitors.  In that vein, I don't see that as a bad thing (and I'm sure there are other companies with equal concern over their craft being shared with others).

The interesting thing is though, that I know some folks from my own office who presumably had to sign the same forms, who DID go to a competitor, but nothing ever actually happened to them, you know what I mean?  So, I'm not entirely sure about the legal recourse from a business perspective, but such forms do exist and I've signed them.  Still, I think it's very important that such terms are openly discussed with the new hire (who then makes the decision themselves), as opposed to the situation we have going on here.  It seems very very very shady, and quite prone to abuse.

Those are almost always not enforceable.

I didn't think so, I think we even re-hired one or two...seems like a pointless endeavor, really.