3 European Companies to Back Warner : Film: The deal culminates the studio’s months-long search for foreign investors. The new partners expect to make at least 20 films.

Three European media companies have agreed to put up more than $600 million for film production at Warner Bros., a division of Time Warner Inc.

Warner’s partners in the deal, said to be the largest such pact between an American studio and European companies, are Arnon Milchan of the Dutch-owned Regency International Pictures, Germany’s Scriba & Deyhle and France’s Canal Plus.

The partners expect to make at least 20 films, which Milchan will develop and produce. Warner Bros. will pay the distribution and marketing costs. The Burbank-based studio also will retain the distribution rights in the United States and Canada, as well as the international theatrical and home video rights. Rights to foreign television and other markets are still unresolved.

The agreement expires in five years. Warner Bros. President Terry Semel, however, said that the partners have the option to extend it at any time. Warner Bros. can also invest in those projects that appeal to the studio. Semel said the studio’s distribution division can easily handle the additional films that will be produced.

“This financing . . . will not in any way, shape or form replace the financing for movies that Warner will make,” Semel said. “This will simply give us more product to market.”

Time Warner Inc. has been actively seeking foreign investment partners for several months. Warner Bros. executives said the agreement underscores the new “worldwide thrust” of movie making. Foreign interests are playing a larger role in Hollywood through an array of investments, including Matsushita Electric Industrial Co.’s recent purchase of MCA Inc.

Entertainment analyst Jeffrey Logsdon of Seidler Amdec Securities said the Warner Bros. deal is a wise move in the current economic climate.

“Theatrical filmed entertainment is a capital-intensive business,” he said. “In this day and age, it behooves Warner or anybody else to look for the cheapest sources of capital they can find.”

Warner Bros. captured 13.1% of the domestic box office last year, placing third among major studios in a tie with MCA’s Universal Pictures and Fox Inc. Walt Disney Co. was first and Paramount Pictures was second.

Regency International’s Milchan, a veteran Israeli-born producer, had a hand in such films as “Once Upon a Time in America,” “War of the Roses,” “Q&A;” and “Pretty Woman.” He also produced the landmark TV miniseries “Masada,” in conjunction with Universal. A division of Regency has offices on the Warner Bros. lot.

Canal Plus operates France’s largest pay TV company. It also has an interest in pay television stations in Spain and Belgium. The company reported net profit of $160 million on $1 billion in revenue last year.

Scriba & Deyhle is a Hamburg-based entertainment company involved in movie and television production and distribution. It co-produced “The Never Ending Story II,” in association with Warner Bros., and has a library of more than 1,300 films and 600 hours of television programs.

Concurrent with the film financing announcement, Time Warner revealed that Warner Bros. has entered into a joint venture agreement with Neue Constantin of Munich to build and operate at least 10 multiplex movie theaters in Germany and Austria during the next five years.