It is a union that the film industry has been waiting for, a marriage between two of the giants of Hollywood and Bollywood - and if it is successful, Steven Spielberg and Anil Ambani will embark on what promises to be a formidably powerful new venture.

Mr Spielberg and senior executives at DreamWorks SKG, the film studio that he founded with David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg, are understood to be in talks with Mr Ambani, the founder of Reliance ADA and India's second-richest man.

A deal with Reliance would reportedly earn the DreamWorks founders up to $600 million (£306 million) in equity to launch the venture, in which Reliance, India's biggest entertainment conglomerate, would have a large stake.

It is understood that the move could provide Mr Spielberg, whose film credits include the Indiana Jones series, Saving Private Ryan and Schindler's List, with sufficient financing to leave Viacom's Paramount Pictures by the end of the year.

Viacom bought DreamWorks in 2006 for $1.6 billion, starting a relationship that is believed to have soured quickly. It has been widely speculated that Mr Spielberg and his team are looking to leave after a series of personal clashes with executives at Paramount Pictures and its Viacom parent.

Many thought that a separation was likely after Philippe Dauman, Viacom's chief executive, said at an investor conference last September that the financial effect of Mr Spielberg's potential departure on the company and Paramount would be “completely immaterial”. Speaking at the Bear Stearns investor conference in March, Mr Dauman said of his relationship with Mr Spielberg: “We both believe we'll be in business together in one form or another for a very, very long time. Whether it is in the current form or not remains to be seen. It's really up to Steven.”

It is understood that DreamWorks has been looking to raise about $1 billion to secure its independence from Viacom and its Paramount film studio.

Reliance has vowed to invest more heavily in film in the next couple of years. At the Cannes Film Festival last month, Reliance's entertainment division - Reliance Big Entertainment - announced a number of investments in Hollywood projects.

These included providing financing to the production houses of leading Hollywood figures such as the actors Jim Carrey, Tom Hanks and Brad Pitt.

Reliance, which refused to comment yesterday, is understood to have spoken to other Hollywood studios. It is thought to be particularly keen to invest in Hollywood, which often struggles to raise cash.

While the Bollywood film industry is buoyant, producing hundreds of films a year, budgets rarely run into the tens of millions.

Mr Ambani, 49, has been an active dealmaker since he and his brother Mukesh divided Reliance Industries, the family business, in 2005. Anil, who is married to a former Bollywood actress, called his part of the business Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani (ADA) Group and has created an empire that encompasses a range of sectors, including media, telecoms and industry.

He is separately in talks with MTN, the South African telecoms group, in an effort to create one of the world's ten largest telecoms companies, worth an estimated $70 billion (£35.7 billion) and with 116 million subscribers worldwide. Reliance Communications is valued at about $30 billion and has 48 million subscribers

No spokesmen for DreamWorks, were available for comment last night.

The personal contracts that Mr Geffen and Mr Spielberg signed as part of Viacom's acquisition of DreamWorks expire at the end of this year. Mr Katzenberg now runs DreamWorks Animation SKG, a separate public company with a market capitalisation of $2.81 billion.

The DreamWorks story

DreamWorks began in 1994 as an ambitious attempt by the media moguls Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen to create a new Hollywood studio

In December 2005 the founders agreed to sell the studio to Viacom, the parent company of Paramount Pictures

DreamWorks' animation unit was spun off as an independent studio in 2004, into DreamWorks Animation SKG. Its films are distributed by Paramount, but the animation studio is independent of Paramount/Viacom

In 1998, DreamWorks released Antz, its first animated feature

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