Pop Com

Pop.com, an Internet entertainment site backed by Imagine Entertainment and DreamWorks SKG, on Wednesday unveiled a division to solicit and acquire the rights to short films and animation for online distribution. The move marks the company's first invitation to filmmakers and animators to submit works that--if selected--would be shown on the Pop.com site alongside programming the company is producing itself, including expected contributions from co-founders Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard.

Nine months after five of Hollywood's most powerful players combined to create an online entertainment site, Pop.com is foundering so badly that certain partners are seeking a graceful way out before it has aired a single show, according to sources familiar with the venture. Announced with great fanfare last fall, Pop.

The founders of would-be Internet entertainment site Pop.com have found an exit strategy for their once much-balleyhooed but ultimately ill-fated venture. DreamWorks SKG and Imagine Entertainment plan to fold their 10-month-old Internet operation into IFilm, a leading portal that exhibits short films and provides services to the entertainment industry.

Pop.com and IFilm won't be merging after all. The parties broke off talks Friday after confirming two days ago that they were in advanced discussions to fold the unlaunched Pop.com Web site--founded nearly a year ago by DreamWorks SKG and Imagine Entertainment--into IFilm, an Internet portal and industry services company. Industry sources speculate that a major deal-breaker was control and distribution of ownership of the merged company.

DreamWorks SKG and Imagine Entertainment effectively scrapped their highly touted Internet venture Tuesday, pulling the plug on would-be entertainment site Pop.com before it was ever launched, and laying off about 70 of its 84 employees. The demise of the fledgling company comes just days after a last-minute attempt to merge with another entertainment site, Ifilm.com, was aborted, and marks the latest example of how thoroughly the Internet continues to vex mainstream Hollywood. Pop.

Former Walt Disney Co. executive Kenneth Wong on Sunday was named chairman and chief executive of Pop.com, an Internet entertainment company whose founders include filmmakers Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard. Wong will be the top executive of the company started by Spielberg's DreamWorks SKG, Howard's Imagine Entertainment, and Vulcan Ventures, the investment arm of Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen.