Dreamworks Released By Paramount

Paramount Studios has released Steven Spielberg and his team from their contracts paving the way for Dreamworks to jump ship and form a new studio in a partnership with Reliance ADA Group. From LA Times:

Reliance will invest $550 million in equity for a 50% stake in DreamWorks and has been working with JPMorgan Chase & Co. to borrow an additional $700 million. The new studio is seeking total capitalization of $1.25 billion to satisfy a business plan to make as many as six pictures a year.

However, on Friday, after a DreamWorks lawyer told Paramount that DreamWorks had signed its equity partnership agreement with Reliance, the studio immediately released the DreamWorks principals from their contracts.

Paramount also gave permission to Spielberg to take "without delay" all of DreamWorks' approximately 150 employees. But it is not clear how many of them Spielberg and Snider actually want, nor is it clear whether Paramount intends to keep any of the DreamWorks staff.

Spielberg and Snider also have Paramount's blessing to bring along any of the production deals that they currently have at DreamWorks, which include arrangements with actor-director Ben Stiller; director Sam Mendes; husband-and-wife filmmakers Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald; writer-producers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman; partners Tom Pollock and director Ivan Reitman; and former Disney Studios executive Nina Jacobson.

Hanging in the balance are hundreds of DreamWorks movie projects that are owned by Paramount. Spielberg has earmarked about 40 projects in which he wants to stay involved as director and/or a producer.
Spielberg probably will continue to produce some movies for Paramount, including additional sequels to last year's hit "Transformers." The second film, "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," is currently in production and due out next summer.

DreamWorks' split from Paramount means that Spielberg essentially has to start a company from scratch the way that he, Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg did 14 years ago when they set out to create a media giant involved in movies, television, music and interactive games.

So there you go Steven Spielberg will remain executive producer of the Transformers franchise for the foreseeable future.