Summary
On paper, "Evan Almighty" looked like a sure thing.A spinoff of Jim Carrey's smash hit "Bruce Almighty," the film starred Morgan Freeman, reprising his role as God, and Steve Carell, oneof Hollywood's hottest comedians.But "Evan Almighty" turned out to be a dud, with an estimated $250 million in production and marketing costs and just $173 million inbox office revenue.The film's distributor, Universal Studios, is not the only one feeling the pain. A Milwaukee hedge fund put up millions of dollars to helpbankroll the movie and more than a dozen others, according to investment bankers. Hedge funds have been a major source of capitalfor Hollywood studios over the last three years. Drawn by projections of double-digit returns with minimal risk, they pumped $13 billioninto 150 major pictures. Typically, they helped finance "slates" consisting of as many as several dozen movies. Now, the glitter is gone.Many of those deals are likely to lose money for equity investors, according to investment bankers. The toll could reach hundreds ofmillions of dollars.
