On Monday, Universal Pictures announced that they had closed a deal with Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks studio, in order to begin distributing the latter’s movies.

Execs for the two companies have informed that the seven-year partnership entailed that Universal distribute a maximum of six DreamWorks movies annually worldwide, except for India. The company that handles the distribution of the studio’s movies in the aforementioned country is Reliance Big Entertainment of India.

The deal did not come as a surprise to anyone, since the increasing tension between DreamWorks and Paramount had reached a point of no return, the two having recently decided to go on their separate ways. Since they made public their decision to split at the beginning of this month, everybody has had their bets on a new deal between DreamWorks and Universal Pictures.

The settlement agreement between Spielberg’s studio and Paramount leaves the door open for further co-financing and co-distributing a number of 30 movies that were being developed at the time the two companies parted ways.

In addition, DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg’s DreamWorks Animation will not separate from Paramount, their distribution deal being scheduled to end in 2012.

The partnership with Universal entails that the latter receives a fee consisting of 8% of DreamWorks’ revenue for the distribution.

Universal Pictures is a subsidiary of NBC Universal, a media and entertainment company that was founded in May 2004.

Viacom-owned Paramount Pictures, which is Hollywood’s oldest running movie studio, was set up only one month before the aforementioned one, back in 1912.