Spielberg films hit by credit crunch

Even Steven Spielberg (pictured), the three-times Oscar-winning film director and all-round Hollywood darling, is being affected by the world's economic distemper. He is having difficulty raising money for his production company DreamWorks to finance the films planned for 2009.

These include Peter Morgan's Hereafter, which Clint Eastwood is rumoured to be directing, and the comedy Dinner for Schmucks, for which Sacha Baron Cohen was lined up as lead actor before he was replaced by Steve Carrell.

The problem goes back to October when Spielberg split with Paramount Pictures to take DreamWorks independent. An Indian company, Reliance Big Entertainment, put up $500m, on condition that Spielberg raised an additional $750m in loans.

But a large portion of that $750m was going to be provided by the insurance giant AIG. Because of its collapse, and the difficulties raising other money in the current climate, Spielberg's bankers JP Morgan have put everything on hold until the new year.

The LA Times reports that Spielberg, one of the world's wealthiest filmmakers, may have to put his hand in own pocket – though "everyone in Hollywood knows that he hates to spend his own money making movies".

It hasn't been a good month for the man made such mega-hits as ET and Indiana Jones: his Wunderkinder charitable foundation lost "a significant portion" of its assets as a result of the $50bn fraud perpetrated by the Wall Street financier Bernard Madoff.