Spielberg Pays Bills for Ailing DreamWorks

Perhaps for the first time, Steven Spielberg is using personal funds to pay half of a $26.5 million bill his company, DreamWorks, owes ex-partner Paramount so it can keep 17 film projects under its wing. Due to cash shortages, the studio has already lost the rights to as many projects that the divorced companies had initially agreed to share, Variety reports.

The credit crunch has hit DreamWorks hard: Indian conglomerate Reliance—a key funder that’s footing the other half of the Paramount bill—has dropped its promised $550 million investment to $325 million. DreamWorks, through JP Morgan, was supposed to raise a matching $550 million, but it’s now aiming lower, and, Variety adds, it’s uncertain if and when JP Morgan’s loan will go through. (More Hollywood stories.)