Hollywood Hits Up Wall Street.

The article states that as film executives continue to bank on the combination of star power and tantalizing special effects, the production costs of summer blockbuster movies, like the Paramount/DreamWorks sci-fi thriller "War of the Worlds," continue to soar. Paramount raised $230 million last year to help cover production costs for a portfolio of films expected to be made in the next three years. While film revenue securitization is not necessarily a new phenomenon, Michael Blum, head of global structured finance at Merrill Lynch, says institutional investors, like insurance companies and banks, are playing a more dominant role in Hollywood financing.