In 1994, Stephen Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and David Geffen founded a studio known as Dreamworks Animation. One of their main goals was to challenge Disney at the animated box office. While some of the studio’s earlier concepts appear closer to the likes of Disney and Pixar, Dreamworks has managed to establish its own style, tone, and success to develop a well-earned reputation for quality. Their films have gone to box office highs and some box office lows. But that’s all part of the remarkable journey this studio has gone through on its way to notoriety.

It should be noted that their lowest-grossing films are measured according to worldwide gross and are not adjusted for inflation. And not all of them are by any means among their worst work. Rather, they are films that, for one reason or another, did not manage to meet financial expectations, even if they found an audience elsewhere.

10 'Flushed Away' (2006)

Box Office: $178,281,554

Flushed Away was the last of DreamWorks’ partnership with Aardman, having previously produced Chicken Run and Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Roddy (Hugh Jackman) is a posh rat living in a high, if solitary, life as a pet in Kensington. But when a series of events leads him to get flushed down the toilet, he finds himself in the London sewers, where rats, frogs, flies, and slugs live together in a metropolis made of junk. Desperate to get home, he meets tough boat driver Rita (Kate Winslet), hoping to avoid the wrath of an evil Toad (Ian McKellen).

It received positive reviews but under-performed at the box office, earning $178 million against a $149 million budget. Both the financial failure and turbulent production led to Aardman parting ways with DreamWorks and moving to Sony, where they would make acclaimed films such as Arthur Christmas and The Pirates! Band of Misfits.

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9 ‘Antz’ (1998)

Box Office: $171,751,863

Antz is the first film that DreamWorks released, and it certainly set much of the studio’s personality going forward. Neurotic Ant Z (Woody Allen) meets Ant Princess Bala (Sharon Stone) at a bar and becomes desperate to see her again. After a series of unfortunate circumstances, Z and Bala are accidentally thrust out of their colony and journey to a fabled land called Insectopia despite not knowing if it even exists.

Nowadays, Antz is brought up mostly in discussion due to the strong similarities between the film and a specific Pixar film that came out the same year. But while not earning as much as A Bug’s Life, Antz still made a solid first impression for the studio, had somewhat better reviews (Gene Siskel, as CBS News reports, even regarded it as better than the former), and it holds the distinction of being the first non-Disney animated film to gross over $100 million worldwide.

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8 'The Boss Baby: Family Business' (2021)

Box Office: $146,745,280

Set many years after the events of the first movie, Tim (James Marsden) and Toby (Alec Baldwin) Templeton are all grown up and living different lives. Toby is a successful CEO, while Tim is happily married with two daughters. But they soon discover Tim’s infant daughter Tina (Amy Sedaris) is a part of Baby Corps and needs their help. An evil scientist (Jeff Goldblum) has a plan to get rid of all parents, so the brothers must be aged back down to infiltrate his secret school and stop him.

The Boss Baby films have never been critical darlings among DreamWorks’ other franchises, despite doing fairly well at the box office. Family Business, released during the COVID-19 pandemic, ended up grossing $146 million against an $82 million budget. Part of its lower grosses came as a result of it being released on Peacock on the same day as its theatrical run, as The Hollywood Reporter reported.

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7 'Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie' (2017)

Box Office: $129,135,077

Based on the best-selling children’s book series by Dav Pilkey, George Beard (Kevin Hart) and Harold Hutchins (Thomas Middleditch) are a pair of fun-loving prankster schoolboys who enjoy drawing comics and playing pranks on their teachers. But when their gummy principal, Mr. Krupp (Ed Helms), threatens to put the two in separate classes. They hypnotize him into thinking he is a superhero from their comics - the amazing Captain Underpants.

Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie is delightfully juvenile, with an intelligent story, well-executed low-brow humor, and an animation style that perfectly replicates the visual style of the books in a 3-D environment. While it seemingly did not earn as much as other DreamWorks films, it still earned a substantial $129 million against a budget of just $38 million. It’s managed to inspire a Netflix series and an upcoming spin-off based around Pilkey’s other hit character, Dog Man.

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6 'Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron' (2002)

Box Office: $122,563,539

The titular Spirit (Matt Damon) is a wild horse roaming freely in the fields of the 19th-century American wilderness, and the film focuses on his encounters with humans. Specifically, the white soldiers who capture and attempt in vain to tame him and the Lakota man Little Creek (Daniel Studi), who befriends him and sets him free. While Little Creek tries to get Spirit home, they are continuously pursued by a colonel (James Cromwell) desperate to break Spirit’s will and keep him as his horse.

Set against the backdrop of the American wilderness’ domestication, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron balanced DreamWorks’ sense of humor with heavy themes and utilized a turbulent time in American history. But the film under-performed at the box office, facing stiff competition from Star Wars: Attack of the Clones and Spider-Man. Despite this setback, it managed to receive an Academy Award Nomination for Best Animated Feature.

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5 'Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas' (2003)

Box Office: $80,773,077

The last 2-D animated film made by DreamWorks to come to theaters, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas takes its inspiration from the legendary stories of Sinbad. In this retelling, Sinbad himself (Brad Pitt) is a pirate who comes into possession of an item known as the Book of Peace. Intending to hold it for ransom for riches, he is framed for its theft by Eris (Michelle Pfeiffer), the Goddess of Discord, who steals the book for her own evil plans.

Now, he must go on an adventure to prove his innocence to the authorities by stealing the book, risking not just his own life but also the life of his childhood friend Proteus (Joseph Fiennes). While earning more than The Road to El Dorado, Sinbad was still enough of a box office failure that the studio was convinced to make 3-D animated films exclusively in the future. It has since found a cult audience along with the likes of Treasure Planet, in large part due to their similar animation techniques.

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4 'The Road to El Dorado' (2000)

Box Office: $76,432,727

The second 2-D animated film made by DreamWorks after The Prince of Egypt, The Road to El Dorado is a fun film that, while under-performing at the time, has become one of DreamWorks’ underrated gems. Scam artists Miguel (Kenneth Branagh) and Tulio (Kevin Kline) are doing their usual hustle in 1500s Spain when they win the map to the lost city of El Dorado. Stowing away on the ship of Herman Cortez (Jim Cummings), they find their way to the hidden city, only to be mistaken for gods by the locals.

When it was first released, The Road to El Dorado did not fare well with critics. It earned $76 million against a $90 million budget, seemingly dismissed as a wannabe Disney film. But while its notoriety is not quite as high as that of Shrek, in recent years, it has found a strong cult following, owing to its humor, characters, and songs composed by Elton John.

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3 'Trolls World Tour' (2020)

Box Office: $49,276,818

Following the events of the first movie, Queen Poppy (Anna Kendrick) discovers that her tribe is only one of several troll tribes themed around music. Specifically, Pop, Rock, Techno, Funk, Classical, and Country; all are all powered by a magic string that allows them to create music. But Queen Barb (Rachel Bloom), leader of the rock trolls, decides to steal all the strings so rock music can take over; Poppy must unite the other kingdoms to stop her, only to realize her own shortcomings as queen.

Although Trolls World Tour did not earn nearly as much as the other films in the trilogy, what initially killed its theatrical run also helped its success. As movie theater shutdowns during the COVID-19 Pandemic grew ever present before its planned release date of April 10th, 2020, DreamWorks’ parent company, Universal, chose to make the film available for digital rental on the same day. While this move caused controversy among theater owners, it still allowed the film to be seen by most families around the world.

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2 'Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken' (2023)

Box Office: $45,522,036

A combination of high-school drama and epic seafaring adventure, Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken focuses on the titular 16-year-old Ruby Gillman (Lana Condor). She is trying to navigate her life as a teenage girl when she discovers she is descended from a long line of krakens, giant sea creatures that protect the world from all manner of threats. While developing her new abilities, she begins to suspect that popular girl Chelsea (Annie Murphy) is a mermaid whom her Grandmamah (Jane Fonda) regards as the most dangerous, evil, and just plain narcissistic of all creatures.

Despite its intriguing premise, the film under-performed for several reasons, as Screen Rant discussed, including being an original film in an IP-dominated season and lack of marketing. While Ruby Gillman did not do well in theaters, grossing $46 million against a $70 million budget, it found an audience when it became the most-watched movie on Netflix upon its launch in February 2024, as MovieWeb reported.

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1 'Spirit Untamed' (2021)

Box Office: $44,079,223

While Spirit had left theaters for 19 years, suddenly, he returned in DreamWorks’ worst-performing film to date. However, it should be noted that Spirit Untamed is not a direct sequel to the original but rather a computer-animated adaptation of the first few episodes of the Netflix series Spirit: Riding Free. Not long after the death of her mother, Lucky Prescott (Isabela Merced) moves to the small town of Miradero. She soon meets Spirit, a wild horse who rides in the plains outside the town and shares her lack of restraint. But when Spirit gets captured by wranglers, Lucky must save him while discovering a new connection to her dead mother.

A combination of mediocre reviews, a movie-going audience unfamiliar with the original series, and the original film not having as much of a cult fan-base compared to DreamWorks’ other 2-D output led to the film’s poor box office. It grossed $44 million on a $30 million budget, enough to get its budget back but not nearly enough to break even.

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NEXT: 15 DreamWorks Animated Movies That Are Better Than Most Disney Ones