It hasn't been a smooth sailing for the Glendale based animation studio of late with projects under performing at the box office. Having said that, DreamWorks Animation's next film, 'The Penguins Of Madagascar' which is set to arrive in November seems like a project in which confidence can be placed. 

However, The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that DreamWorks Animation may be sold to Japanese conglomerate, SoftBank in a deal valued at $3.4 billion. Co-founder and CEO, Jeffrey Katzenberg will be tied in a contract to stay with the firm for five years.

In order to buy DWA, SoftBank is offering a higher stock price of $32 a share in comparison to DWA's stock price of $22.36 as of Friday.

DreamWorks Animation has a mixed record at the box office recently. With "How To Train Your Dragon 2" earning $611 million this summer, "Mr. Peabody & Sherman" was a miss at the box office with just $273 million. "Turbo" too didn't do well at the box office but the film developed an animated series on Netflix and is eventually expanding into TV so that it doesn't have to completely rely on films as it has in the past.

DreamWorks Animation has scored big time with its profitable acquisition of Awesomeness TV, a digital network which targets the young online audience. Besides, DWA's relationship with Netflix probably encouraged SoftBank, which already has numerous investments in digital platforms.

It owns considerable shares in giants like Alibaba, Yahoo, Sprint and mobile game maker, GungHo Online Entertainment. DWA has been operating as a publicly traded company since 2004.

DreamWorks Animation spent much of the year in the middle of a reorganization of its major corporate ranks. Chief financial officer Lew Coleman was replaced by Fazal Merchant who formerly was Capital executive of DirecTV and Barclays Capital. It upped Ann Daly to president and hired Mark Zoradi, former Disney executive as COO.

DWA did not comment on the news saying it doesn't "comment on rumors and speculation."