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As expected, Paramount has sold the DreamWorks film library to a group headed by billionaire George Soros for $900 million, thus greatly defraying the cost of Paramount emperor Brad Grey's early Christmas gift to himself. We can't be bothered to read the press release announcing the boring details of the sale, but because we're committed to recreating the experience of being employed by Viacom for our readers, we're happy to pass along CEO Tom Freston's internal e-mail about the deal. It's just like being on the Melrose lot and wondering if there's any way your coroporate overlords can transition seemingly good news into a fresh round of layoffs!

March 17, 2006
Paramount Employees
Tom Freston
DreamWorks' Library Sale

I wanted to make sure you saw the attached release, announcing Viacom s sale of the DreamWorks Library to Soros and Dune for $900 million.

This is an important announcement for a few reasons - it significantly reduces the cost of the DreamWorks acquisition for us, without losing any of the incredible benefits of the acquisition for Paramount. After this transaction closes, which we expect by the end of next month, our net purchase price for DreamWorks will be about $600 million. This sale also marks the final phase of the acquisition - now that the difficult work of the integration is compl ete and the library is sold, we can focus solely on our most important work - attracting the best talent and projects to the studio and making and marketing great movies. And, finally, it enables is to deliver on the promise we made to Wall Street and our shareholders about the type of acquisitions we'll make.

Now that we're through the acquisition and all the change associated with it, Brad and I could not feel better about the unified company. It s very exciting to see the incredible people, energy and creativity from DreamWorks combine with our strong Paramount team. And we are about to enter the spring and summer with a very promising and exciting slate of new films: MI3, Over the Hedge, Nacho Libre, and World Trade Center.

Thanks to all of you for continuing your hard work and executing on our plan to make this studio great. And, I'd like to extend congratulations to everyone who worked on the library sale - it is an important and good deal for us. Please know that I couldn't feel more excited about or committed to the new Paramount and its leadership, and I truly feel that 2006 will be remembered as the year that our outstanding team started us on a new, bright path.