Well, not that kind of relationship. George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh, long time friends and business partners have parted ways, at least in the ways of business venture.

Clooney has walked away from their production company partnership known as the Section Eight Film Company. George will be starting a brand new company with another partner over at Warner Bros.

The reason for the move is purely a financial one. The company has had its share of up and down projects that have hurt them fiscally. Some of those ‘off’ films were “Solaris,” Jennifer Aniston’s “Rumor Has It,” a Julia Roberts film she and we would like to forget called “Full Frontal,” the current “A Scanner Darkly” which still may do well on DVD, “The Jacket,” which cost nearly $30 million and only grossed $6 million; “Criminal,” which took in less than a million bucks and had a feature budget of several million; and finally, “Syriana,” which was hopeful but also ended up losing money. Soderbergh will now run Section Eight by himself.

Clooney’s new partner is Grant Heslov. Grant is another longtime friend of 20 years, going back to Clooney’s old “Facts of Life” days in television. He made the critically acclaimed, Academy Award nominated “Good Night, and Good Luck” with Clooney and their new movie making enterprise will be called Smoke House Productions.

What makes this announcement interesting from a business and entertainment perspective is the “Ocean’s Thirteen” movie that is coming out of pre-production and is near ready for principal photography. Clooney is still very much attached to the project which is coming out of Section Eight, with Soderbergh now acting as his boss instead of his partner. It will be fun to watch how that chemistry will now work.