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SOURCE, LOS ANGELES: Legendary Hollywood director Steven Spielberg and his longtime partner Paramount Pictures formalized their divorce on Sunday, but intend to stay good friends, announced Paramount. As part of a Hollywood trend to reach out to the booming Bollywood movie industry, Spielberg is to form a new Hollywood-based film venture worth $1.5 billion with Reliance ADA Group. The bank JPMorgan Chase will provide up to $700 million to finance the deal, with Reliance providing an additional $550 million. The money will be used to compensate Viacom, Paramount's owner, which bought Spielberg's studios for $1.6 billion in 2006.
Hollywood counts its pennies
SOURCE AN era ended in Hollywood on Monday with Steven Spielberg and DreamWorks' official separation from Paramount. It was like an amicable divorce, both parties realising their 2006 marriage was a $US1.6billion mistake. To continue the metaphor, the studios led separate lives and it was something of an open marriage. Now Spielberg and his studio chief Stacy Snider have $US1.5billion ($2 billion) and will once again answer to no one. They will probably end up back at Universal, though Paramount and DreamWorks have about 40 projects they will work on together.
Hollywood counts its pennies
SOURCE AN era ended in Hollywood on Monday with Steven Spielberg and DreamWorks' official separation from Paramount. It was like an amicable divorce, both parties realising their 2006 marriage was a $US1.6billion mistake. To continue the metaphor, the studios led separate lives and it was something of an open marriage. Now Spielberg and his studio chief Stacy Snider have $US1.5billion ($2 billion) and will once again answer to no one. They will probably end up back at Universal, though Paramount and DreamWorks have about 40 projects they will work on together.
But 14 years after it began as a studio not run by suits but by creatives (as they're known in the film colony), DreamWorks won't be the same because only Spielberg will remain. Founding partner Jeffrey Katzenberg will continue to head DreamWorks Animation, which stays at Paramount, while David Geffen, the billionaire music mogul, is now officially out of the movie business. Geffen's parting gift to his old friend Spielberg was to get him free from Paramount so he can set up an independent studio backed by India's entertainment juggernaut Reliance ADA Group, which plans to invest $US550million for a 50 per cent stake. Paramount is happy because it was paying at almost every level for two sets of employees who rarely spoke to one another, and will now save $US50 million in overheads.
