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Amazon is in talks to acquire MGM, the film studio behind the James Bond franchise, for about $ 9 billion, according to people who know the subject.
After a wave of mega-consolidation, MGM is one of the few Hollywood studios that hasn’t been swallowed up by a larger conglomerate, with Warner Bros. operating at AT&T; Fox under Disney; Universal within Comcast; and Paramount within ViacomCBS.
This consolidation of the sector was reactivated on Monday with the merger of Discovery and WarnerMedia, as traditional media groups compete to build more scale to compete with large technology companies in a network-run entertainment business streaming.
Like other film studies, MGM has been severely affected by the coronavirus pandemic. As cinemas have remained largely empty in the United States and Europe over the past year, MGM has postponed the release of the blockbuster film Bond There is no time to die four times.
With the film on hold and Covid-19 last fall, Netflix held talks with MGM about the acquisition There is no time to die for a streaming release, but the price the studio wanted became prohibitively expensive, said people who were familiar with the issue. It is scheduled to premiere on September 30 in the UK and October 8 in the US.
MGM has an extensive library of movies and shows, included Fargo, The maid’s story and the Hobbit and Bond franchises.
MGM’s main shareholder is hedge fund Anchorage Capital, which began buying the firm’s debt in 2010 as part of a bankruptcy plan in the wake of the financial crisis. MGM reported net income of $ 29 million for $ 403 million in revenue in the first quarter.
Amazon declined to comment. MGM did not respond to any requests for comment.
The e-commerce giant is in the midst of recharging its entertainment plans, after last week it told staff that Jeff Blackburn, a lieutenant CEO Jeff Bezos, would return to the company to lead a new “global organization of media and entertainment ”. The unit will incorporate the breadth of Amazon’s entertainment content, from the Prime Video service to the Twitch game streaming site.
Last year, Amazon spent $ 11 billion creating, acquiring, or licensing music and video content for Prime subscribers, up from $ 7.8 billion in 2019. The company has also handled acquire live sports rights, including a deal with the NFL, worth about $ 1 billion a year, to air Thursday night football.
In a recent letter to shareholders, Bezos announced that Amazon had surpassed 200 million Prime members.
The information first reported on Amazon’s conversations with MGM.
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