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Spielberg’s Dreakworks signs 7-year deal with Universal Studios

October 14th, 2008 by Scott Marks

Be sure to check out the anti-Spielberg video at the end of this post. I guarantee satisfaction.

The NBC peacock will soon be to contracting a foliar disease. After Paramount’s Bronson Gate hit Steve Spielberg squarely on his backside, it didn’t take a genius to predict where DreamWorks pictures would make its next home.

Nikkie FInke reports NBC/Universal signed an exclusive 7 year deal to distribute up to six DreamWorks movies a year domestically and overseas, except for India, executives for both companies said Monday. In an alliance with Reliance Big Entertainment of India, DreamWorks has lined up $1.5 billion to finance its future film slate. Reliance is handling distribution of DreamWorks films in India.

Stacey Snider, former chairwoman of Universal Pictures, remains DreamWorks chief executive officer, a position she’s held since 2006.

Why didn’t SKG simply sign on with Universal when it began in 1994? Surely Universal should have snatched it up when DreamWorks went on the auction block in 2006. After Hitchcock died (perhaps even before), Steve lived on as the studio’s star directorial attraction. When Universal discovered Steve back in 1968, he became the youngest director ever to be signed to a long-term deal with a major Hollywood studio. Spielberg’s production company Amblin has called Universal home since 1981.

The “G” in SKG negotiated the deal but is not joining the new incarnation of DreamWorks.

Here’s the official news release:

WARNING: SLOPPY ASS KISSING AHEAD!

Continue reading Spielberg’s Dreakworks signs 7-year deal with Universal Studios

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SPIELBERG GOES BOLLYWOOD!

August 12th, 2008 by Scott Marks

Available in Push-start and Pull-start models

In a textbook example of garbage finding its own level, two of the most revolting developments in cinema over the past 30 years are joining forces as Steve Spielberg hops the road to Bollywood. I’d rather sit through Hook again than one of those weightless Bombay song and dance caravans.

Variety is reporting that DreamWorks looks to be closing in on a deal with India’s Reliance ADA Group that would help Steve Spielberg “start fresh and DreamWorks to reboot” after Paramount gave the studio the boot. Steve and David Geffen may announce the merger as soon as this week.

The company was born soon after third-Stooge Jeffrey Katzenberg’s 1994 resignation from Walt Disney. The founding partners each put up $33 million in addition to $500 million dollars Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen coughed up to sweeten the pushke. The studio’s first feature was the 1997 Mimi Leder bomb The Peacemaker starring George Clooney and Nicole Kidman. Budgeted at $50 million, the film had a $12 million opening weekend and fell $10 million shy of recouping its budget.

The studio found success in animated features and in spite of a lot of high grossing titles, there’s not but one decent picture (Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron) in the bunch. There were cookie cutter Antz, a feature set in a toilet and a school of sharks that should have been flushed away. Appropriately, their biggest hits all rhyme with “dreck.” I made an early exit from the first Shrek and never looked back. The unappealing, badly designed computer generated characters spouting endless pages of sitcom dialog made me pine for Bucky and Pepito.

Artistically speaking, their live-action features fared only slightly better than their pixilated counterparts. Of the little over one hundred features released by the studio, only 7 are worthy of your time:Small Time Crooks, American Beauty, the remake of War of the Worlds, the remake of The Heartbreak Kid, The Cat in the Hat, Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events and Dreamgirls.

I’M KIDDING! Do you think I’m cutting my Paxil with Testor’s glue? Come to think of it, I’d rather sniff glue than ever again asphyxiate myself on one of those clunkers. Here are the few pearls cast amidst the DreamWorks swine: Small Soldiers (the only decent thing that Steve’s ever done is backing Joe Dante), Chicken Run, Paycheck, The Chumscrubber, Match Point, Letters from Iwo Jima and Perfume.

Will Columbia replace Paramount as DreamWorks distribution arm?

Quality be damned: DreamWorks took home three consecutive Best Picture Oscars (American Beauty, Gladiator and A Beautiful Mind) and many of their releases hit pay dirt at the box office. In December 2005, Paramount agreed to fork over $1.6 billion for the the live-action studio. With it came Steve, a 60 film library and the right to distribute DreamWorks Animation. Nikki Finke called the purchase “a veritable steal” and predicted “the deal will be in the black ahead of schedule.”

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