Spielberg Signs Movie Deal with India's Reliance

DreamWorks SKG, the movie production vehicle for star director Steven Spielberg, on Friday completed a widely expected new financing deal with Reliance Entertainment of India.
The Wall Street Journal said on its Web site Friday that Reliance will invest $500 million and provide another $700 million in debt through JPMorgan Chase & Co.
The deal will give DreamWorks its independence from Viacom Inc. subsidiary Paramount Pictures, which bought the production house for $1.6 billion in 2006, and save Paramount overhead costs by cutting loose the high-priced director.
Paramount released a statement wishing the DreamWorks principals well and said it would waive certain provisions of their original deal to allow them to join the new company without delay.
Spielberg is,however, expected to continue to direct "Indiana Jones" sequels with Paramount and Lucasfilm as production companies.
Meanwhile, Reliance Entertainment — part of one of India's top conglomerates, Reliance ADA Group — is deepening the ties between Bollywood and Hollywood.
Reliance Entertainment has as many as 100 films in production and development in India, and Reliance Big Entertainment, a subsidiary, is focused on striking cross-border collaborations involving gaming, movies, online, animation and music.
During the Cannes Film Festival in May, Reliance Big Entertainment announced that it would invest $1 billion to develop and co-produce movies with Hollywood stars George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Tom Hanks and Nicholas Cage and filmmaker Chris Columbus' 1492 Pictures.

Inside The World's First Billion-Dollar Home

The 27-storey skyscraper being built in Mumbai by Mukesh Ambani, the richest person in India, could be the world's largest and costliest home with a price- tag nearing two billion dollar, according to Forbes magazine.

"When the Ambani residence is finished in January, completing a four-year process, it will be 550 feet high with 4,00,000 square feet of interior space," Forbes said in a report on its website.

Earlier in March, Mukesh Ambani was ranked as the fifth richest person in the world with a net worth of 43 billion dollars by the Forbes magazine in its annual list of world's wealthiest billionaires.

The only remotely comparable high-rise property currently on the market is the 70 million dollar triplex penthouse at the Pierre Hotel in New York, designed to resemble a French chateau, and climbing 525 feet in the air,

The report further noted that the cost for the Ambani residence, called Antilla whose shape is based on Vaastu, would be more than a hotel or high-rise of similar size because of its custom measurements and fittings.

While a hotel or condominium has a common layout, replicated on every floor, and uses the same materials throughout the building, the Ambanis' home has no two alike in either plans or materials used, it said.

At the request of Nita Ambani, say the designers, if a metal, wood or crystal is part of the ninth-floor design, it shouldn't be used on the eleventh floor, for example. The idea is to blend styles and architectural elements so spaces give the feel of consistency, but without repetition.