Paramount Pictures is tapping into another two private German film funds to raise $1.25bn for more of its feature line-up.

Germany's giant Deutsche Bank has finally jumped on the private film fund bandwagon with its own product called "Motion Picture Production GmbH & Co. Erste KG" (MPP). It has been prepared in collaboration with the HypoVereinsbank subsidiary Bayerische Immobilien-Leasing (BIL) to finance up to seven international productions by Paramount.

The films have a total production and marketing budget of $1.02bn (Euros1.19bn), but the fund's total investment in them has not yet been fixed. However according to MPP's prospectus, a placement guarantee by HypoVereinsbank and DB Export-Leasing will ensure that at least $153m (Euros178m) is available to finance production and marketing one of the projects on the MPP slate. Some 92% of the total is expected to be channelled into the production and marketing budgets with most of the rest covering start-up and other "soft costs" such as the administration of the fund .

In a separate move Paramount has drawn on the services of fund specialist Alcas to launch another of its Munich Film Partners funds. This latest one, entitled "MFP Munich Film Partners New Century GmbH & Co. HAM Productions", will be tap private individuals to invest at least $43,000 (Euros50,000) in the $122m (Euros142m) production and p&a fund. Titles covered include Richard Benjamin's Marci X, starring Lisa Kudrow and Damon Wayans, and Stephen Gaghan's thriller Abandon with Katie Holmes and Benjamin Bratt.

The projects being lined up for financing through the MPP fund are Jonathan Frakes' Clockstoppers, starring Jesse Bradford, French Stuart and Paula Garces; William Friedkin's cat-and-mouse thriller The Hunted, starring Tommy Lee Jones and Benicio Del Toro; Roger Michell's Changing Lanes with Ben Affleck and Samuel Jackson; Randall Wallace's untitled Vietnam war drama with Mel Gibson in the lead role; Jeff McGrath and Cathy Malkasian's screen version of the animation series Wild Thornberries; an adaptation of Michael Crichton's bestselling novel Timeline; and the sci-fi drama The Core.

Past MFP funds for Paramount were launched to finance such films as Bless The Child, Shaft, Mission Impossible: II, Along Came A Spider, Zoolander, Guam Goes To The Moon, and I Was Made To Love Her.

Paramount also raised $72m (DM163m) via LHI Leasing's MFF Feature Film Productions fund in 1999 for Curtis Hanson's Wonder Boys and Chris Koch's Snow Day.