Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. raised a $400-million fund with Pride Pictures to finance a slate of 23 movies.

Lions Gate and Pride jointly own the fund, which is also bankrolling forthcoming releases including the comedy feature “Good Luck Chuck” and a remake of the western “3:10 to Yuma,” starring Russell Crowe. The fund also financed “Bug,” which hit theaters last month.

The news, announced by the independent studio in an SEC filing, shortly preceded the company’s quarterly earnings report, in which Lions Gate posted a lower fourth-quarter profit. The company did beat Wall Street estimates on the revenue line with stronger contributions from television licensing and its video library.

Net income fell to $25 million, or 19 cents per share in the fiscal fourth quarter ending March 31, from $38.9 million, or 27 cents per share, a year earlier.

Revenue rose 6 percent to $331.5 million

Last year, the company posted year-end revenue of $945.3 million and earnings of 6 cents per share.

Lions Gate forecast it would end fiscal 2007 with revenue of more than $950 million and pretax income of $32 million.

The company’s shares have moved between the $8.48 and $12.11 range over the last year.