He’s got to write a hefty check

Everyone in Hollywood knows that one of the world’s wealthiest filmmakers, Steven Spielberg, hates to spend his own money making movies.

But Spielberg and India’s Reliance Big Entertainment -- his equity partner-in-waiting -- are expected to write a hefty check to Paramount Pictures next month to buy 17 projects to jump-start their new independent studio.

Facing a due date of Jan. 15, Spielberg and Reliance will have to pay DreamWorks’ former owner anywhere from $25 million to $35 million for the projects, depending upon commitments to screenwriters.

In their recent divorce settlement with Paramount, Spielberg and his associate Stacey Snider negotiated the right to buy the DreamWorks projects, which Paramount owns and has an option to co-finance. A second group of DreamWorks projects remains at Paramount, of which Spielberg can be a producer but not an owner.

Spielberg and Snider are eager to get their hands on 17 priority projects that include “Dinner for Schmucks,” a comedy with a $75-million budget to star Steve Carell and be directed by Jay Roach. DreamWorks hopes to make the picture next fall, providing it can line up a financing partner.

Also earmarked to be made are “Motorcade,” an action thriller about terrorists assaulting the president’s motorcade in Los Angeles; “Hereafter,” a thriller in the vein of “The Sixth Sense”; and “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” a drama about the protesters at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

More pressingly, Spielberg and Snider are anxious to secure a $1.25-billion war chest needed to fund their planned studio, which has a distribution deal set with Universal Pictures. Financing efforts, however, have been hampered by the global credit crisis.

Reliance has said it would provide as much as $550 million in equity for half-ownership of the studio, but not until Spielberg and Snider obtain that amount or more in debt financing to meet their plan to produce six movies a year. Lead bank JPMorgan Chase & Co. hopes to raise $325 million of $750 million in total debt by the end of the first quarter.

Since leaving Paramount, Spielberg and Reliance have been bankrolling overhead at the new company, which employs 60 people and is based at the director’s longtime offices on Universal’s lot. The partners each have contributed $12 million to keep operations going, said a person who was not authorized to publicly discuss the studio’s finances.

Snider said that despite the poor state of the economy and its negative effect on the studio’s ambitious plans, she remained confident that the financing would come together.

“It’s an unprecedented time in the market,” Snider said. “Every day there’s a new headline and a new obstacle, but all of our advisors have known about this and are navigating through it.”

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