After leaving Paramount last fall and after a supposed deal with Universal fell through, DreamWorks has reached a distribution deal with Disney. This sets up a pretty huge pairing in legendary Steven Spielberg and juggernaut Disney.
The deal is set to begin in 2010 with an expected 6 movies per year for around 7 years and a total of 30 movies. Disney will invest about a $250 Million jump start to the struggling studio, who in turn, will pay Disney about 9% of their box office take per movie.
The loan from Disney will be put together with $325 Million that India’s Reliance Big Entertainment has put in as well. This would make about $575 Million toward DreamWork’s goal of $650 Million total.
The interesting twist here, is DreamWorks Animation will still work with Paramount. DreamWorks SKG co-founder (the K in SKG) Jeffrey Katzenberg heads the animation department, whose biggest rival (king and rival to all animation companies) is Pixar, who also has a deal with Disney. The deal doesn’t affect Katzenberg at all, but it’s surely not the easiest to swallow.
Disney chairman Dick Cook had this to say about the deal:
We’re both thrilled and honored to be marketing and distributing all of DreamWorks’ signature upcoming live-action motion pictures and to begin a new relationship with such respected colleagues as Steven, Stacey and their creative team at DreamWorks. Steven has made some of the biggest and most loved films of all time and continues to be one of the great icons of our industry. Stacey has an impeccable reputation and a phenomenal track record for making a wide variety of quality films.
No word on what projects DreamWorks will concentrate on now that a deal has been reached.
[Source: THR]
