Steven Spielberg finds his next project at Fox
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Walt Disney Studios landed a distribution deal with the newly reconstituted DreamWorks Studios earlier this year after much drama, but it’s Twentieth Century Fox that will be co-financing Steven Spielberg’s first directing project since then.
Hollywood’s most famous filmmaker will start production early next year on a remake of the 1950 movie ‘Harvey,’ which starred Jimmy Stewart and was based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning play about an eccentric man who claims to be friends with an invisible 6-foot rabbit.
Fox will co-finance the picture with DreamWorks, which is expected to soon announce that it has closed a deal for $325 million worth of debt financing, which will be matched by a $325-million investment by India media company Reliance Entertainment. DreamWorks also has a loan of up to $175 million from Disney.
DreamWorks and Fox have yet to determine in which countries each will distribute the movie. As part of their agreement, Disney will handle distribution in the territories DreamWorks ends up controlling and receive a percentage of the movie’s revenue in return.
Spielberg is currently finishing work on the first of a new series of movies based on the French comic strip ‘Tintin,’ which are being co-financed by Paramount Pictures and Sony Pictures. He had been considering directing several other projects in development at DreamWorks next, including one about Abraham Lincoln and an adaptation of the kids’ history book series ‘The 39 Clues.’
His surprise decision to go with a movie that has been in development at Twentieth Century Fox’s Fox 2000 division for a year once again illustrates how, for the entertainment industry’s most powerful director, it’s always difficult to predict what’s next.
-- Ben Fritz
Update (1:30 pm): This post was updated to clarify the financing and distribution relationship between Twentieth Century Fox, Walt Disney Studios and DreamWorks Studios.
Update (9:55 PM): ‘Tintin’ is based on a Belgian comic strip, not French.
Photos, from top: Jimmy Stewart in the 1950 film ‘Harvey’; Steven Spielberg accepting a Golden Globe in January. Credits, from top: Associated Press: Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times.