Through Viacom Inc, Paramount Pictures try to make a new acquisition: the live action film studio DreamWorks SKG. The studio is already in talks with General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal, according to The Wall Street Journal from Friday.
DreamWorks was created in 1994 by Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg.

Sources that are familiar to the situation said that the board from Viacom would approve the offer made on Thursday if the outside investors decide to contribute with most of the amount.

The same sources told the journal that Paramount tries to raise an amount of almost 800 million dollars since November, therefore talks with the investors started some time ago. Nothing clear has been said, so it is unknown yet if the investors are willing to raise the money or not.

According to the newspaper, the live action film studio DreamWorks SKG is supposed to worth around 1 billion dollars without the debt that it registers.

If the transaction will take place, Paramount will have Spielberg as a producer and it will also control the 60-film library of DreamWorks, plus the right to distribute movies by publicly-traded DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc.

Viacom intends to divide itself into two companies until 2006. Tom Freston will be the chief executive officer of Viacom and will own Paramount, MTV and some other units.

The other new formed company CBS Corp. will be led by Les Moonves and will have the CBS television network, Infinity Broadcasting and other assets.

Apparently Paramount offered to purchase DreamWorks some time ago, but the board from Viacom backed out, telling the studio that such an amount is impossible to be paid at that moment as the company was in a separating process.

Being concerned over the multiple offers that DreamWorks would receive, Viacom asked for an exclusivity agreement.