Hollywood studios are getting ready to wine and dine Steven Spielberg as his contract with Paramount winds down.

The filmmaker has endured a bumpy ride at Paramount, but executives at the Viacom Inc-owned studio believe they have a shot at keeping him in the fold.

Spielberg's contract actually runs until 2010, but he has the right to terminate it at year's end. While top Paramount insiders say they don't expect him to decide until the summer, a window opens May 1 on his ability to talk to other studios.

Paramount acquired Spielberg's services in 2005 when it paid $1.6 billion for DreamWorks, the studio he co-founded with David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg. There's considerable consensus that while things might not have worked out as swimmingly as Spielberg had hoped, much has been done to address his most serious misgivings.

His first six months with Paramount proved a rude awakening, confidants suggest. But issues of money and, well, respect have been dealt with sufficiently to characterize the current situation as not so much Spielberg feeling driven to leave the lot as simply his wanting to take stock of what might be on offer from others. He flirted with Universal and Warner Bros. before the marriage with Paramount.

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