Amazon to acquire MGM ↦
Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and MGM today announced that they have entered into a definitive merger agreement under which Amazon will acquire MGM for a purchase price of $8.45 billion. MGM has nearly a century of filmmaking history and complements the work of Amazon Studios, which has primarily focused on producing TV show programming. Amazon will help preserve MGM’s heritage and catalog of films, and provide customers with greater access to these existing works. Through this acquisition, Amazon would empower MGM to continue to do what they do best: great storytelling.
MGM has been shopping itself around for a while, and there was some speculation that Apple might be interested, but Amazon seems to have ponied up the necessary cash.
It’s interesting that the press release phrases this deal as allowing to Amazon to “preserve” MGM’s catalog and “empower” MGM in storytelling. What that means for the future of franchises like James Bond—which has been fairly conservative in how it approaches storytelling (movies every few years)—as opposed to the current media bonanza of the streaming market, is anybody’s guess.1
As per any deal of this significance, regulatory agencies will be giving it the eyeball before everything’s said and done.
- Finally an opportunity for me to pitch my James Bond/Jack Ryan crossover, I guess? ↩
