Hindi
Spielberg to raise $1 billion for DreamWorks
MUMBAI: Steven Spielberg aims to raise over $1billion in third-party financing to recreate DreamWorks as a separate company that reacquires ownership of films.
Spielberg wants to reestablish DreamWorks as a studio that owns the movies it makes. Currently, DreamWorks is a unit of Paramount Pictures, a subsidiary of media conglomerate Viacom. DreamWorks was acquired by Paramount in 2005.
Earlier, Spielberg was supposed to grant the distribution rights to Universal who lost the acquisition in 2005. But on the recommendation of his advisers, Spielberg will allow a bidding effort among studios for the acquisition of distribution rights of future DreamWorks movies.
From 1 May Spielberg‘s personal contract with Paramount allowed him to discuss potential offers for his services from rival studios. And since then Spielberg and DreamWorks chairman David Geffen and attorney Skip Brittenham have held several meetings with studio suitors and financiers.
Major studios include Universal, Disney and Fox. Spielberg‘s contract is valid until 2010 but he can terminate it early at year‘s end. Snider and Geffen have similar clauses in their deals with Paramount. However, Paramount owns “Transformers” and other films produced by DreamWorks while it was housed at the studio which could lead to conflicts regarding rights between Spielberg and Paramount.
DreamWorks-produced movies have helped fill distribution pipelines at Paramount. The loss of such content would put severe demands on remaining production executives.
But this summer, Paramount has been a distributor in high-profile releases, such as the Lucasfilm-produced Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the Marvel-produced Iron Man and the DreamWorks Animation-produced Kung Fu Panda.
Hindi
Rashmika Mandanna, Shanaya Kapoor and Naila Grrewal climb IMDb’s Indian celebrity rankings
Upcoming films and returning shows are driving fan interest across Bollywood and streaming
MUMBAI: Bollywood’s popularity contest has a new weekly scorecard, and the numbers are telling. IMDb’s Popular Indian Celebrities list for this week places Shanaya Kapoor at number six, buoyed by buzz around her film Tu Yaa Main. Naila Grrewal slots in at seven on the back of the returning comedy series Maamla Legal Hai, while Rashmika Mandanna climbs to eighth, riding mounting anticipation for Cocktail 2.
The list, available exclusively on the IMDb app for Android and iOS, tracks trending Indian entertainers and filmmakers each week, drawing on data from more than 200m monthly visits to the platform worldwide.
Further down the rankings, Raaka is keeping two of its biggest names in the spotlight. Deepika Padukone holds 11th position, with Allu Arjun close behind at 13th, as the film continues to find traction with audiences.
The list offers fans a weekly pulse on who is breaking through, who is holding steady, and who is fading. It is a barometer as unsparing as the box office itself.
