With the entire country in a recession, the movie industry is making even more money than it was last year. Paramount, one of the oldest studios in the industry, is sitting on top the biggest movie of the year, Star Trek, and has another coming with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. And yet a financial analyst quoted at Forbes.com is predicting that Paramount might merge with Sony or Universal before the end of the year.

Why? How? He's not saying, of course, just suggesting that Hollywood needs to start cutting corners and streamlining things, and a merger between Paramount and another major studio would be the most likely solution. Honestly, I'm not buying it-- Paramount seems way, way too big to get swallowed up by another company, unlike, say, MGM, which Latino Review mentions as a precursor to this kind of event.

For now consider this kind of speculation just some random inside baseball talk that may or may not have anything to do with reality. And don't start hoping for some weird Angels & Demons- Transformers crossover movies.