Spielberg Aims to Gain Financing to Reinvent DreamWorks
Director Steven Spielberg plans to raise more than $1 billion in order to reinvent DreamWorks, reaquire ownership of films.
The Hollywood Reporter announced that Steven Spielberg hopes to raise more than $1 billion in third-party financing in order to reinvent DreamWorks. The money raised would be used to reestablish DreamWorks as a studio that owns the movies it makes. Currently, DreamWorks is a unit of Paramount Pictures, a subsidiary of media conglomerate Viacom.
Allegedly, Spielberg hopes to set up shop with Universal, which lost an earlier attempt to do so in December 2005.
However, on the recommendation of his advisers, Spielberg has allowed a bidding war to begin among studios for the right to distribute future DreamWorks movies.
As of May 1, Spielberg's personal contract with Paramount permits him to discuss potential offers for his services from rival studios. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Spielberg, or such advisers as DreamWorks chairman David Geffen and attorney Skip Brittenham, have held several meetings with prospective studio suitors and financiers since then.
Early speculations suggest that Spielberg will stay put with Paramount if he is able to renegotiate for more favorable terms in regard to distribution rights of films produced by DreamWorks.
Spielberg's contract runs until 2010, but he has escape clauses that could allow him out by year's end.
