Bruckheimer Signs Film Pact With Disney

CSI producer Jerry Bruckheimer has signed a new five-year deal to develop movies for Disney reputed to be the most lucrative in the studio's history.

Variety reported that Bruckheimer, who is currently completing back-to-back Pirates of the Caribbean sequels, has agreed to an exclusive development deal with Disney, though he is free to shop projects elsewhere if Disney declines them, as he did with Black Hawk Down.

The deal covers the overhead for Bruckheimer's recently expanded offices in Santa Monica. Disney did not release financial details but Variety noted that it was "understood to be the heftiest in Mouse House history."

The two Pirates sequels "will likely prove the most expensive project in the history of Disney Studios," the article added, with a total that could exceed $550 million. The first Pirates movie grossed $652 million worldwide. Bruckheimer is also planning a sequel to National Treasure, which earned $350 million, and the thriller Deja Vu with Denzel Washington, which is scheduled to shoot in 2006.

Bruckheimer has eight television series currently in production, but after former CEO Michael Eisner turned down CSI for ABC and Touchstone Television declined to finance it, Bruckheimer moved to Warner Bros. Television. As previously reported, Bruckheimer said of ABC at the time, "It's their loss...sometimes it's not good to bet against us, and they bet against us."

The original article is at Variety.

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