What are the chances that Spielberg and Jackson -- knowing full well Universal would balk -- are now set to finance the flick themselves cutting the studio out of all the dollars?

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Mike

They're actually in an awkward position now. Dreamworks currently has a deal with Paramount, but they're leaving that to do this financing thing with the company from India. It was thought they would approach Universal for a distribution deal. So this decision by Uni makes that a little more difficult. Plus, do they go back to Paramount for deal on Tintin?

Perhaps they pony up the money themselves, but at $130M, I doubt it. They know the track record of this type of animation, too, and nothing has come close to $400M in revenues.