WWE Studios Get $35 Million In New Deal

WWE is getting a nice chunk of change to help out their film division, WWE Studios. According to Deadline.com, the sports entertainment giant closed a deal for a revolving credit facility worth $35 million with Bank of America Merrill Lynch. The money will allow WWE to branch out a bit and work with other companies to produce films. Here's what WWE Studios President Michael Luisi had to say about it:

€œThis new relationship with Bank of America Merrill Lynch gives us the opportunity to be involved in higher profile films and expand talent relationships. Our audience craves larger-than-life stories, and we€™re looking forward to using this new facility to bring even more of those stories to the big screen.€

Getting involved with higher profile films is the key reason for WWE to do a deal like this. When WWE helped to produce The Call starring Halle Berry, which also featured WWE superstar David Otunga, it became their most profitable film venture. WWE also recently signed a deal with Gene Simmons and Erebus Pictures, which is going to produce horror movies. Whether that leads to huge profits or a waste of money, only time will tell. The WWE Studios department is pretty busy with movies being shot all the time. The Miz and Paige have recently shot a movie for the Christmas season. Mark Henry is in an upcoming release called Incarnate. We've also seen stars like Dean Ambrose, Randy Orton and Lana take time off to shoot other WWE films. They've also got another Scooby Doo/WWE movie planned with Hulk Hogan involved in that one. A lot of WWE fans may not care about WWE films or watch them all, but it's good experience for the superstars and divas to work on movies because it could help them become better actors on WWE programming as well. It's also something that could lead to a WWE superstar breaking out into the mainstream. It's good for WWE to get some money to help finance films. Anything to raise the company's profile is a positive.