Tintin may have a new benefactor. Filmmakers Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson are in the process of trying to line up a co-financing and co-distribution partner for their in-the-works trilogy of “Tintin” films, set up at Paramount Pictures. The director-producers are trying to entice Sony Pictures, which is now in discussions with Paramount, to help finance the films and take on international distribution.

Steven Spielberg aims to raise more than $1 billion in third-party financing to reinvent DreamWorks as a separate company that once again owns the movies it makes. As for distribution, Spielberg wants to bolt his roost at Paramount for Universal, which wants to land Spielberg and DreamWorks after losing out to Paramount in that quest a couple years ago. But on recommendation from his advisers, Spielberg has allowed a bidding war to begin among studios for the rights to distribute future DreamWorks movies.

Paramount Pictures is chopping its feature films into short scenes, some as little as a few seconds, and distributing them free on the Internet, becoming the first major movie studio to answer consumers’ desire for repeat viewings of short-form video on such sites as YouTube. Paramount, which is owned by Viacom, launched the service yesterday on Facebook, the popular social-networking site.

All six major Hollywood studios are now in the Blu-ray Disc camp, a day after Toshiba has pulled the plug on HD DVD and Blu-ray became effectively the only next-gen game in town.

Paramount Vantage has snapped up the Canadian film "How She Move," a gritty drama about the hip-hop step-dancing scene in Toronto’s notorious Jane-Finch corridor, for a hefty US$3.4 million.