There really is no such thing as a long-term marriage in Hollywood, even at the corporate level. It’s expected that the pair-up of Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks will soon go the way of Jen and Brad, Bruce and Demi, and Reese and Ryan. Word is that DreamWorks principals, including Steven Spielberg and CEO Stacey Snider, are in talks to jump ship from Paramount and form a new company with backing from a little known (in the States anyway) India-based firm, Reliance ADA Group.
Rumor has it that Spielberg and company have been unhappy almost from Day 1 of the combination of Paramount and DreamWorks in 2006. Supposedly, Spielberg and DreamWorks co-founder David Geffen have chafed under what they perceived as a loss of independence under Paramount, as well as Paramount taking unearned credit for DreamWorks successes. Not to defend Hollywood execs, but what exactly did the DreamWorks team expect? You went from an independent to a shingle in one of the biggest conglomerates in the entertainment industry (Viacom). You can’t take Paramount’s money (it paid $1.6 billion for DreamWorks) and then gripe when you don’t like how it runs a business it now owns. There’s a certain arrogance there. “I’m Steven Spielberg and how dare you tell me what to do.” Sure, virtually anything the guy touches is box office gold, but does that give him the right to boss around his new bosses?
Not that Paramount didn’t benefit greatly from the DreamWorks purchase, but that was the entire point. Just before they bought the studio, Paramount had been struggling mightily with flop after flop. One of the reasons it bought DreamWorks was to bring in another pipeline of hits, and they scored big time with massive grosses from Transformers, Blades of Glory, Norbit, and Dreamgirls, among others. It was a bold business move and it paid off.
Ironically, the movies Paramount gained from DreamWorks gave the studio breathing room, and so far this summer, Paramount has been the most successful studio in Hollywood. The grosses from Iron Man and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull put it at the top of the heap. And if Ben Stiller’s comedy Tropic Thunder continues the hot streak, Paramount will probably be more than happy to let their marriage of convenience drift into divorce court. After all, they have the right to distribute DreamWorks films well into 2010 (including Spielberg’s Tintin, Old School Dos, and an Abraham Lincoln biopic, also from Sir Stephen), and upcoming projects such as Tranformers 2, G.I. Joe, and the Star Trek reboot from J.J. Abrams should keep the grosses rolling in for several years to come.
Should Spielberg and company jump ship, they’ll be the ones taking the bigger risk. If they go solo again, the new studio will be in the same boat that got DreamWorks into so much trouble to start with. It’ll once again be an independent studio swimming in a pool of media conglomerates with multipile revenue streams beyond movies. Make a couple bad flicks that don’t make much money, and you’re right back in the dog house looking to the conglomerates to share the costs of production and distribution. If DreamWorks were smart, it’d stay in the Paramount fold and learn to get along.
Comments
Leave a Comment