A Recurring DreamWorks

The story with more legs than a genetically engineered octopus -- whither Spielberg and DreamWorks after 2008? -- is back, and it's swimming with some ferocity.

As Carl DiOrio reported in THR earlier this week, there are now some good indications and reasons that Spielberg-Snider-Geffen could stay at Paramount after all.

"There's also considerable consensus that while things might not have worked out as swimmingly as Spielberg hoped, much has been done to address his most serious misgivings," DiOrio writes, adding that "issues of money and, well, respect have been dealt with sufficiently to characterize the current situation as not so much Spielberg feeling driven to leave the lot as simply his wanting to take stock of what might be on offer from others."

In other words, the chatter on both sides (including Philippe Dauman's famous "no material impact" from last year) is pre-negotiaton posturing more than a prelude to an exit.

Of course, as DiOrio and others write, Spielberg could take advantage of a still-open pipeline (if not for much longer) of equity and hedge fund-money to start a new (read: old) DreamWorks, one that could be combined with a currently independent DreamWorks Animation and be free of corporate bureaucracy and influence. "In the banking community, there's already talk that Spielberg might look for funding to begin rebuilding DreamWorks for life after Par," DiOrio writes.

Then 10 years later he could sell it to a studio, run it under rocky condiitions for a few years and then leave to start an independent company with the help of investor money.

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