US STOCKS-DreamWorks, Athlon rally on deal news

* Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures all down 0.6 pct

By Ryan Vlastelica

NEW YORK, Sept 29 (Reuters) - DreamWorks Animation SKG (NasdaqGS: DWA - news) and Athlon Energy (NYSE: ATHL - news) were among the biggest movers in the premarket session on Monday, with both names rallying on deal news.

Shares (Berlin: DI6.BE - news) of DreamWorks soared after a person with knowledge of the situation said Japan's SoftBank Corp (Xetra: 891624 - news) was in talks to buy the company. The talks were first reported by the Hollywood Reporter, which quoted an unidentified source as saying a buyout would value DreamWorks at $3.4 billion.

The film studio's share price surged 23 percent to $27.50 and was one of the Nasdaq's most active premarket names. If the scale of the rally holds, it will be the biggest one-day advance for the stock since April 2009. Despite that, the rally will not be enough to push the stock into positive territory for the year; it is down 37 percent in 2014.

On the New York Stock Exchange, Athlon jumped 24.5 percent to $58.18 after Encana Corp agreed to buy the company for $5.93 billion in cash.

Athlon is on track to have its biggest one-day advance in its history, and the stock has been a strong performer this year, up almost 55 percent.

Futures snapshot at 7:47 a.m. EDT:

* S&P 500 e-minis were falling 12 points, or 0.61 percent, with 178,153 contracts changing hands.

* Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 25.5 points, or 0.63 percent, in volume of 31,737 contracts.

* Dow e-minis were down 97 points, or 0.57 percent, with 28,631 contracts changing hands. (Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Chizu Nomiyama)