STEVEN SPIELBERG - SPIELBERG, JACKSON CAN'T GET BUDGET OK FOR TINTIN

With studios finding it especially difficult during the current financial storm to find funding for their pictures, Universal Pictures has rejected a film submitted to it by Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson, the Los Angeles Times reported today (Friday). The final budget for their 3-D animated Tintin had come in at $130 million. In reporting the studio's decision, the Times commented, "Universal's refusal to finance Tintin underscores how in today's tough economic climate, bottom-line concerns trump once-inviolable relationships between studios and talent. Until now, however, filmmakers of Spielberg's and Jackson's stature were thought to be immune to the brass-knuckles tactics of the studios. Squeezed by a business trapped between rising costs and leveling revenues, the two filmmakers are Hollywood's latest -- and most prominent -- victims of cost containment." The newspaper also observed that Universal's decision places Spielberg in a position of "embarrassment" as he prepares to end his relationship with Paramount. Many had supposed that Universal, where he maintains his offices, would become the distributor for Spielberg's DreamWorks productions. Now, it is supposed, he will presumably have to go "hat in hand" (as the Times put it) to Paramount in hopes of getting the Tintin film made.

19/09/2008