June
25
DreamWorks Deals Are Fluid
As DreamWorks continues to seek financing for its planned reincarnation as a standalone independent company, two scenarios for the company’s future are emerging. Here's my Variety story.
Word is, DreamWorks is trying to raise $1 billion in equity and another $1 billion in debt so they can produce eight pictures a year. That would give Stacey Snider a bigger slate. And Dreamworks could allocate pictures to more than one studio, likely Paramount and Universal, so there'd be no nasty custody battle over the pics that were developed at Paramount.
What will happen, for example, to The 39 Clues, the new book DreamWorks just acquired, possibly for Spielberg to direct?
After Viacom bought DreamWorks SKG in early 2006 for $1.6 billion, Paramount and DreamWorks squabbled over credit for such hits as Dreamgirls, Norbit and Transformers. A sequel to the Michael Bay film is currently shooting, scheduled for release in summer 2009.
Raising more money would also mean that DreamWorks would not be solely involved with Indian company Reliance, whose topper, Anil Ambani (son of the industrialist on whom the Bollywood hit Guru was based), has expressed a desire for hands-on involvement with his Hollywood interests. That $500-600 million deal has not been closed. Some wonder if wily negotiator David Geffen has something else up his sleeve.
“Now India is owning DreamWorks?” asks one skeptical agency head, who questioned the idea that Spielberg would ever be willing to discuss his work with a Hollywood outsider.
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