Drama surrounding the divorce of Paramount and DreamWorks is set to ignite as Steven Spielberg is hoping to take the reins of a project left over at Paramount — a custody battle of sorts if you will.
Reports are that Spielberg has garnered strong interest for “Matt Helm,” a project developed by DreamWorks for several years but ultimately left over at Paramount in the divorce. Spielberg is already on board as a producer alongside screenwriters Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci however his efforts to gain the director’s chair may be thwarted by Paramount’s efforts to cut back on the kind of first-dollars gross deals that are bread and butter for Spielberg. As a result, Paramount may prefer a more economically viable filmmaker despite everything that comes with the Spielberg name.
‘Helm’ centers on a government counter-agent whose mission is to take down enemy agents and is based on a series of novels written by Donald Hamilton. While the novels were set in the post-WWII Cold War era, the current script — which saw a rewrite by Paul Attanasio delivered just last week — is set in the present time and is said to be akin to the “Bourne” franchise (god, what isn’t these days?)
Nevertheless, the whole saga is set to be resolved by week’s end. Until then… [BFDealMemo]
