Is Venice Vanishing?

Spielberg's DreamWorks finally lands movie funds

Nearly a year after embarking on plans to relaunch DreamWorks as an independent studio, Steven Spielberg finally has the financial means to greenlight his own movies.

Today, DreamWorks said it had finalized the first phase of a long-in-the-works funding deal that paves the way for the production studio to be fully operational.

The funds, which will enable DreamWorks to make 18 to 20 films over the next three years, include $325 million in bank debt and a matching equity investment of $325 million from Spielberg’s 50% partner, India’s Reliance Big Entertainment. Additionally, as part of DreamWorks’ recent distribution deal with Walt Disney Co., the Burbank studio agreed to lend DreamWorks up to $175 million to bankroll movies.

Although the $825 millon falls far short of the $1.25 billion the director had originally sought, DreamWorks was able to achieve what many in Hollywood have been unable to do: secure new sources of film funding in financially trecherous times.

But independence comes at a steep cost: Spielberg, to raise the money, had to sell a half interest in his new company to Indian investors who want to get a toehold in Hollywood.

DreamWorks plans to produce up to six movies a year, which will be released under Disney’s Touchstone Pictures label. Disney, suffering an uneven run at the box office, hopes to benefit from movies supplied by the famous filmmaker.

Nonetheless, the major beneficiary at the moment is Spielberg and his business partner Stacey Snider, who haven’t been able to bankroll a new movie since their company’s contentious split from Paramount last fall. DreamWorks had hoped to have its financing in place months ago, but efforts to raise the debt portion of the funds were set back by the credit crunch. In all, nine lenders, including lead bank JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, City National Bank and Comerica took part in the deal.  

“I’m thrilled that after 11 months we can finally be a company,” Snider said in an interview. “We got the funding in an environment where credit has been almost impossible to secure.”

Reliance Capital vice chairman Amitabh Jhunjhunwala and JPMorgan's Alan J. Levine, who helped Reliance structure the financing deal are joining Snider and Spielberg on the DreamWorks board of directors.

Snider said the goal would be to eventually raise a second phase of funding if the credit markets improve.
If successful, that would trigger an additional equity investment by Reliance. The Mumbai-based media company, headed by billionaire investor Anil Ambani, orginally said it was prepared to invest as much as $550 million in Spielberg’s new studio.

For now, Snider said she plans to make five to six movies a year, including “one big tent pole” and four to five others. She noted that she and Spielberg retain “complete creative control” over the movies and Reliance has given them “a generous greenlighting cap,” believed to be north of $100 million. During the period when DreamWorks’ bank was struggling to raise funds, Snider operated with limited financial resources as she scrambled to attach actors and filmmakers to movie projects she was stockpiling. During that period, Spielberg and Relianace covered overhead and development costs at DreamWorks, which employs 80 people and is based at Spielberg’s longtime production offices at Universal Studios.

DreamWorks plans to be in production on its first movie this fall. In October, cameras will roll on “Dinner With Schmucks,” a $75-million-budgeted comedy directed by Jay Roach and starring Steve Carrell in which DreamWorks is a partner with Paramount and Spyglass Entertainment.

Up next for Spielberg to direct is a remake of the 1950 Jimmy Stewart movie “Harvey,” which will begin shooting in early 2010. The film, adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning play about an eccentric man who befriends a six-foot-tall invisible rabbit, will be financed by 20th Century Fox, which had been developing the project, and DreamWorks.

Among DreamWorks’ priority projects are “The 39 Clues,” based on the children's series about the world’s most powerful family; “Real Steel,” a family movie that Robert Zemeckis is producing with Don Murphy about the relationship between an estranged father and his son who team up on the boxing circuit â€" where the fighters are robots; “Motorcade,” an action thriller about terrorists attacking the president’s motorcade in Los Angeles; and an adaptation of the comic book “Cowboys and Aliens.”

DreamWorks also has more than a dozen other movies in development that Spielberg bought from Paramount as part of his company’s divorce settlement from the Viacom Inc.-owned studio. Paramount has the option to partner with DreamWorks on those movies as well as any other it greenlights before the end of this year.

Spielberg recently completed directing “Tintin,” a 3-D film based on the classic Belgian comic strip series for Paramount and Sony Pictures, due out in 2011.

--Claudia Eller

Photo: DreamWorks partners Stacey Snider and Steven Spielberg. Credit: Business Wire

'Mad Men,' Season 3: Let's talk about 'Out of Town'

The following post discusses the first episode of Season 3 of "Mad Men." Feel free to leave your comments at the end of the post.

Welcome back, "Mad Men"!

The wait between seasons was so long that I would have been content had the hour consisted of Joan reading client names off a list (and taking breaks to put down that insufferable Brit twit).

But this was an action-packed and extremely accessible hour of TV. It had delightfully vicious office politics -- the arrival of the Brits, Mr. Pryce especially, has thrown all of Sterling Cooper into turmoil. Nobody's status is safe, and right off the bat we see Ken and Pete put in direct conflict with each other. No two men could be more different -- Ken is upbeat and optimistic, while for Pete, everything is a grim game, if not a grudge match. How fun is that little war going to be?

We not only had Pete vs. Ken and Mr. Pryce vs. Everybody, we also had some saucy hotel action for both Don and Sal. We also got the condensed history of Don Draper/Dick Whitman, updates on where our characters stand six months after the end of Season 2 and a status check on the apparently mended Draper marriage.

All in all, it was a lot to fit in, but "Out of Town" did all of that with a lot of verve. It was just a highly enjoyable hour of soapy fun. You can't hear Burt, the fired head of accounts, stomping through the office and shouting "Drop dead, you limey vulture!" and not think this is some inscrutable, arty fare.

"Mad Men" does have its digressive moments -- Season 2's "The Jet Set" was one of its odder but more memorable offerings -- but "Out of Town" was all about making the show welcoming for new viewers while giving longtime fans a lot to enjoy.

A few thoughts on the episode:

The scene in which the hotel bellhop comes on to Sal was terrific. I don't know about you, but I found that scene about a million times more electric than Don's conquest of the all-too-eager stewardess. Another city, another Betty clone, another easy score for Don Draper -- it almost seemed as if it was set up to be a direct contrast to Sal's unexpected and extremely sensual moment with bellhop. Bryan Batt once again wowed me in that scene -- he blended surprise, lust and tenderness so beautifully. You had to wonder if that was Sal's first time with a man (in which case, how awful for poor Sal that the fire alarm went off! Yet the look of alarm on his face was priceless). In any case, it's one of the most erotic scenes "Mad Men" has ever done -- that sudden rush of desire was expertly portrayed. Wow. Oh, thank you, "Mad Men," for giving us Pete Campbell in full hissy-fit mode. How classic was his glare of rage at Ken, as Joan read off the list of clients each man would get? He was petulant, petty, angry and childish, all qualities that are vastly entertaining to see in Pete. Of course we can't forget the toadying, suck-up side of Pete -- witness him trying to be nice to Ken when Pete thought he'd beat out Ken for the head of accounts position. And there was the moment in Don's office when he changed on a dime and went from pre-rant mode to "Hey, I'm just one of the executives having a drink with my bosses, whom I now call by their first names!" Brilliant. (The only false note of the episode, for me anyway, came after he proposed calling his mother. I thought the response of Pete's wife, Trudy, was a clunker of a line: "Don't go to the well, there's no water there.") It's not possible for me to enjoy Roger Sterling more. Not only did he deftly put Pete in his place during that drinks scene ("Help yourself. Not the Stoli"), he added the perfectly insincere grace note to the scene in which Burt was fired ("It wasn't easy"). Nobody thinks Roger is ever sincere -- not even him, I think. But underneath that bonhomie, you have to wonder what's going to happen with him. Mr. Pryce is clearly running the show at Sterling Cooper, and what function does Roger perform, aside from being the life of the party? Joan, Joan, Joan, Joan. I think Joan needs her own spin-off. I loved how she brilliantly put down "Moneypenny" while pretending to be subservient to him -- and art she has perfected in her years at Sterling Cooper. Did she get him his own office as a Machiavellian move -- did she know it would tick off Mr. Pryce? Even if she didn't, at least she tried to solve the problems he was causing. Not that she would get any thanks for her efforts, as is usually the case with Joan. According to Alan Sepinwall's interview with creator Matthew Weiner, Joan is now married to the loathsome man who raped her last season. Ugh. Let's hope that doesn't last.   Speaking of Brits, what a great addition to the cast Jared Harris is. I've lived in England a couple of different times and I'm married to a Brit, so I pretty much loved the way the show depicted the Limey occupation of Sterling Cooper -- it was spot-on. The writing and Harris' performance completely captured the way that a certain kind of Englishman can be devastatingly brutal -- all while deploying a very proper accent that barely rises above a whisper (my husband is not like that, I should add. He's not only very nice but he also has great teeth. How lucky am I, right?). It's clear that Mr. Pryce is not playing around -- he's got all the employees, even his own secretary (or should I say, right hand), wondering where they stand. That's obviously just how he wants things, and how delicious for us as viewers -- we don't know what's coming either. Anything could happen with Mr. Pryce on the scene, and "Mad Men" is usually at its best when it's unleashing curveballs. It's amusing the way that Don mocked the Fleischmann's ad for being gross and obvious -- and then he turned around and created a London Fog that was crass and overtly sexual in a similar way. At first I wondered, "Has Don Draper lost the Don Draper touch?" This was no Carousel ad, after all. But, probably wisely, Don was just attempting to change with the times (now that the son was in charge at London Fog, obviously some sort of change was needed). And in keeping with the season premiere's snappy pace, Don's "reassure the clients" speech was brief and it was said while everyone at the meeting was standing. I do hope at some point that we get "the full Draper" -- that heart-swelling demonstration of his magic ability to tap emotion with his ad copy -- but this wasn't the episode for that. Though it wasn't a great ad, that "Limit your exposure" functioned not only as a tagline but as a veiled warning of sorts from Don to Sal, methinks. Don's fully willing to forget Sal's hotel encounter, but he seemed to be telling Sal to keep that side of his life as hidden as possible. Despite Sal's terror when Don asked him to be "completely honest" with him, I do hope we see more of his sexual awakening. Of course it wouldn't be "Mad Men" without the more contemplative elements, and we saw Don recalling birth and death stories -- his own harsh entry into the world and his daughter's much more secure and smooth arrival. Don was not wanted, by anyone, and that can never fail to be heartbreaking -- for a baby who's only a few hours old to be regarded as a problem to be solved. Whatever Don was up to the night of Sally's birth -- and that could be just about anything, as Betty fully knows -- she was born into a position of affluence and comfort. "At least she was wanted" -- maybe that's what was behind Don's inscrutable expression as the episode came to a close. But it's Don Draper -- who knows what he was thinking?

So, to review, we had delish office politics, sultry hotel shenanigans, quite a bit of humor ("I didn't want to make it awkward with a threesome") and a lot of interesting dynamics were set up for the next few episodes. Is it next Sunday yet?

Some "Mad Men" links:

Here's my recent interview with "Mad Men's" Jon Hamm, who plays Don Draper. Alan Sepinwall talked to creator Matthew Weiner about the new season and has a review of "Out of Town."Keith Phipps of The Onion's AV Club has a review as well. Ken Tucker of EW thought the Sal-bellhop scene was great but wonders if "Mad Men" took the "easy way out." Hmmm, Don's reaction made sense to me but Ken has his doubts. As James Poniewozik points out in his review, "it's going to be something to see who wins [the Pete-Ken war] and how." Matt Roush's review captures much of what was enjoyable about the episode, and he also recaps last night's "True Blood," which was also excellent. "For the next few weeks, while True Blood and Mad Men run side by side, Sundays are going to be awesome," Roush writes, and I could not agree more. The shows offer very different pleasures, and what a treat it will be to enjoy both for a little while. Tom and Lorenzo from Project Rungay are avid fans of the show, and offer their typically thoughtful analysis here.

Sponsored Link: Amazon's Mad Men Store

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