Amazon snaps up MGM in a deal worth $8.5bn, with a Prime membership presumably thrown in as well.
In an entirely expected turn of events, regulators have let through Amazon’s acquisition of one of Hollywood’s oldest names. That’d be the MGM movie studio, that the online giant has been circling thanks to having an $8.5bn bid accepted last year. But then there was the small matter of regulatory approval from both the US and the EU. This has now been given, and Amazon has announced the completion of the deal in the last 24 hours.
The benefits for Amazon are obvious, as it attempts to buff up its Prime Video service against tough competition from Disney and Netflix. It now gets the rights to over 4,000 films and 17,000 episodes of TV shows, that presumably it now begins the process of uploading to its services.
What it also gets are some core franchises. It’s now part owner of James Bond on the big screen – although it still needs sign off from Eon Productions for whatever it’s got planned there, as well as titles such as Rocky, The Pink Panther and the little-seen 90s superhero film Meteor Man.
The benefits for MGM? Well, it’s a studio that’s infamously wrestled financial crisis after financial crisis across the last few decades, and so it will remain in existence. Whether that’s as a theatrical entity remains to be seen. But there’s an inherent sadness that a name dating back to the 1920s has been snapped up by a company whose heart isn’t in the business. It’s not the first, it won’t be the last.
The official announcement, posted on Amazon’s site, . The proof of this one though is some way ahead: will Amazon just absorb MGM, as Disney has done with Fox, leaving behind ashes of the company behind? Or will Amazon really make a go of it? We wait and see…
