The hagiographic coverage of St. Steven Spielberg unravels today with the reporting of Nikki Finke,  who details how a scrabbling DreamWorks pushed Universal over the edge. Turns out the two studios had never signed the distribution deal that had been anounced; instead, DreamWorks, arguing from what seems to have been a position of weakness, tried to get Universal to cough up more and more money. In the meantime, it had parallel talks, in secret, with Disney. Finke:

I’ve also learned that, today, [DreamWorks capo Stacy] Snider phoned Universal Studios prez/COO Ron Meyer to apologize. “We had to do this. Our backs were against the wall. We couldn’t tell anyone about our discussions with Disney.” To which Meyer replied, “What you did was wrong on every level. You guys behaved like pigs.”

For once, Finke’s slightly unhinged writing style (SHOWBIZ SHOCKER! EXCLUSIVE DETAILS!) seems to be justified by events: DreamWorks was “financially desperate” to put together the other investment pieces with its new Indian partner, Reliance, and needs to “lay its hands on all the money it can and by any means possible.”

Note how this reporting contrasts with the Spielbergocentric coverage in the Times. In particular, you don’t generally read analyses like this:

Here’s the thinking that went into the offer. First, Spielberg gets the richest gross deals in Hollywood. “So rich that when he finally does a movie with you, you can’t make any money,” one insider complains. He was offering no collateral. And Universal conducted so-called “Monte Carlo’s”, an analysis of the probable scenario of the returns on a future slate of motion pictures. The studio decided that those DreamWorks projections under the current circumstances did not look very favorable.

It’s performance like that that drove DreamWorks the studio—minus most of Spielberg’s blockbuster work and minus the money-minting animation arm, spun off long ago—out of Paramount and overseas to India in the first place.

p.s.: The LAT, which has been way behind on this story, toes the Spielberg line as well:

The slight [i.e., the Disney talks] prompted Universal to swiftly break off talks with DreamWorks on Friday. The move underscores the pressure Hollywood studios are under to rein in costs, even to the point of passing up a deal with one of the industry’s most decorated filmmakers.

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Previously in Hitsville:

The merry adventures of St. Steven Spielberg
“Tropic Thunder”: A case study of PR-friendly journalism
St. Steven Spielberg
Return to “The Spielberg Zone”
Indiana Jones Agonistes
Scary Steven Spielberg!