Dreamworks Merges with India’s Reliance to Form Studio

Posted by Cole Abaius (cole.abaius@filmschoolrejects.com) on September 19, 2008

Someone forgot to tell India’s Reliance ADA Group that the American market collapsed the other day. If all you read is movie news - and, yes, there’s other stuff going on out there besides new The Spirit posters emerging - you may have missed that we all went bankrupt forever the other day when Lehman Brothers, AIG, and Bank of Merril Lynch America lost all their money betting on horses and had to ask the government for $1,000 Billion in bailouts. Now, terms like “regulation,” “liquidity,” and “Holy shit, we’re all going to starve to death” are becoming commonplace.

Amidst stories about us staring into the gaping maw of poverty, The Wall Street Journal reported that Dreamworks executives finalized their deal with Reliance, the giant conglomerate based out of Mumbai, to create a new studio. The deal involves Reliance fronting a $500 million investment equity alongside another $700 million in debt funds through the, shockingly still operating, JP Morgan Chase.

The development means Spielberg and company have the assets needed to split from Paramount after months of deal-seeking and bad blood.

With that shift, the fate of several projects is up in the air. Spielberg will still be involved with Paramount despite moving on, but it’s still unknown how the business structure behind Paramount-partnered projects like Shrek Goes Fourth and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen will be laid out.

If we’re not all begging from each other on streets corners in 2009, we’ll have those answers for you.

What do you think? Is this the right move for Dreamworks? Do you believe we actually read The Wall Street Journal? Seriously?

| | Read more articles by Cole Abaius