Paramount, DreamWorks split with no grief

October 05, 2008 Divorce proceedings between the DreamWorks principals and Paramount Pictures took an unexpectedly amicable turn Sunday as the two sides announced a separation agreement under which they are dividing up about 200 projects in the DreamWorks development pipeline. With DreamWorks founder Steven Spielberg and co-chairman/CEO Stacey Snider in the process of forming a new company with $550 million in equity from India's Reliance BIG Entertainment and another $700 million that JPMorgan Chase & Co. is assembling, Paramount could have claimed for itself all of the DreamWorks projects in development, since the Viacom unit has owned DreamWorks since 2006. Such Spielberg passion projects as "Lincoln," "Trial of the Chicago Seven" and "The 39 Clues" are expected to fall within that group, although specific titles were not announced Sunday pending notification of the filmmakers involved.

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