LOS ANGELES — J.J. Abrams, the co-creator of Lost and director of Mission: Impossible 3, signed a five-year deal with Paramount Pictures and a six-year contract with Warner Bros., together worth more than $55 million US, it was reported Saturday.

The two deals, completed early Friday, made the 40-year-old writer-producer one of the industry's highest-paid directors, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Abrams has been at Walt Disney Co.'s Touchstone Television studio, where he based his production company and created several ABC series.

"An opportunity presented itself, and we went for it," Peter Roth, president of Warner Bros. Television, told the newspaper. "J.J. is such a unique and extraordinary talent, someone whom I've admired from a distance for years."

An e-mail message left for Paramount and a phone call left for Warner Bros. weren't immediately returned Saturday.

Roth declined to discuss financial details, but two sources told the newspaper that Abrams would get at least $4 million a year for six years and overhead costs that would average about $2 million a year for his Bad Robot production label.

The deal also allows him at least 35 per cent of what's known as the "back-end," or the revenue from DVD sales, Internet downloads and syndication sales.