Viacom Doesn’t Care if Spielberg Jumps Off the Moon

Posted by Cole Abaius (cole.abaius@filmschoolrejects.com) on September 23, 2007

This could be the end of a terrible friendship. In a rare showing of brass flippancy, IMDB is reporting that Viacom CEO Phillipe Dauman publicly stated that Steven Spielberg’s possible departure from Dreamworks SKG would make little “financial impact”.

Trouble has been apparently brewing for sometime between the iconic director and his colleagues at Paramount since Viacom’s February 2006 acquisition of Dreamworks. Despite financial troubles, fans will remember Dreamworks as the studio that brought them American Beauty, Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, and a whole slew of artistically viable, yet mainstream films.

Some critics and writers are surprised both that Dauman who make such a strong statement and that Viacom was planning for Spielberg’s departure when his contract runs out in 2008. What’s truly surprising is that they didn’t see that coming. Of course they were planning for it. They’re a business. The real question now is whether Dauman, as haughty as he’s being painted in the media this week, is correct in what he says.

Do audiences even associate Spielberg with Dreamworks? Do those shoving hands into pockets to pay ticket prices even connect Dreamworks with some of their favorite films, Almost Famous, Meet the Parents, Shrek, etc? Certainly the creative side will lose a grand master, but will the collective cash cow of movie goers even bat an eye? Even as a casual observer, I’d guess that Sumner Redstone won’t have to switch to the bargain brand toilet paper any time soon.

It still remains to be seen whether Spielberg will stay or go. If he does, the real question becomes whether fellow Dreamworks co-founders Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen will stick around. Since the founding of the company in 1994, all three have played a strong role in what projects are worked on and what goes into them. Without all three, and maybe even just without Spielberg, Dreamworks could become a soulless arm of Paramount.

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