After announcing a divorce from long time partner Paramount Pictures, legendary Hollywood director Steven Spielberg is to form a new Hollywood-based film venture worth $1.5 billion with India’s Reliance ADA Group.

Spielberg, director of such legendary works as Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, ET the Extraterrestrial and the Indiana Jones franchise, will hold a CEO position in the new venture alongside current Dreamworks’ CEO and co-chairman Stacey Snider.

The deal was finalized by David Geffen, co-founder with Spielberg of the Dreamworks film studio, and Reliance CEO Anil Ambani, ranked the world’s sixth richest man in 2008 by Forbes Magazine.
The new venture supported by Ambani’s Reliance Big and with debt financing raised by J P Morgan Securities, is expected to have at least $1.3 billion in resources and will make about six films a year

Under the separation agreement announced Sunday, the new company, to be led by three-time Oscar winner Spielberg and Snider, will develop a number of projects now owned by Paramount, which would have an option to co-finance and co-distribute them.

The venture will produce up to 35 movies in the next five years, a source close to Reliance said. Geffen will not be joining the new company.