Morgan Creek Productions,James G Robinson's production and financing company which has been basedat Warner Bros for the last 13 years, has entered into an exclusive, three-yeardomestic distribution agreement with Universal Pictures.

Under the terms of the deal,Morgan Creek will produce and finance all its films for domestic distributionin all media by Universal. Morgan Creek International will continue to handleinternational territories.

Morgan Creek which iscurrently reworking its long-in-production horror prequel Exorcist: TheBeginning, has had a mixed run atWarner from the super-successful 1991 hit Robin: Hood: Prince Of Thieves and the Major League and Ace Ventura movies to a recent string of flops like Juwanna Mann, AmericanOutlaws, I'll Be There, Chill Factor, The In Crowd and The King And I.

Morgan Creek also fed astring of Franchise Pictures-produced movies through its Warner Bros domesticdeal including The Whole Nine Yards,the infamous Battlefield Earth, Get Carter, 3,000 Miles To Graceland, TheArt Of War, The Pledge, Heist and AngelEyes. The two companies are stillengaged in a lawsuit over profits from the films which Morgan Creek filedagainst Franchise in 2001.

Prior to 1990, the companywas based at 20th Century Fox and, under the aegis of Robinson andco-founder Joe Roth, delivered hits like Enemies-A Love Story and Pacific Heights. Morgan Creek International was formed in 1989 andhas in the past acquired third-party films such as The Last Of The Mohicans.

"We're verypleased to be in business with Morgan Creek," said Universal Pictureschairman Stacey Snider in a statement. ""This arrangement allows usto expand our domestic release schedule while providing our audience with themost interesting and diverse slate of movies possible."

Exorcist: The Beginning willbe released by Warner early next year, but other films in development whichwill fall to Universal if produced include Flying Tigers being written by DavidWard, Ace Ventura: Return Of The Pet Detective, Man Alive being written byLarry Cohen and a series of films based on Lawrence Sanders'O'Malley books.

Other senior executivesinclude Guy McElwaine (president), Howard Kaplan (CFO) and Brad Luff (presidentof production).