Bezos the Lion Tamer
In yet another display of tech giants’ vast amount of resources, Amazon has officially closed the long rumored deal to acquire MGM. I think this deal is incredibly interesting for its impact on the scope of filmmaking and content consumption movie forward.
For starters, MGM is one of the most historic studios in Hollywood, having been around nearly a century. It was one of the original majors in Old Hollywood, and was considered THE premiere studio in town. Now that didn’t last forever, and more recently it has been considered a mini-major at best. That doesn’t mean the MGM lion ever lost the respect of cinema lovers though. Its iconic place in film history can never be erased. However, this acquisition represents a definitive changing of the guard, from old Hollywood to streaming tech giants.
While this is usually the point in the blog where I lament about historic film institutions being destroyed by modern technology, that is not the case in this instance. I wholeheartedly believe that Amazon will keep the MGM brand and studio in tact, simply because it makes sense business wise. MGM’s content and IP is incredibly valuable, and Amazon won’t want to disrupt that. The James Bond Franchise, Rocky franchise, and all the excellent content that MGM has made will be preserved, and made readily available on Prime Video for our consumption. Additionally, Amazon Studios has never been a true production studio. Most of their “originals” are simply acquisitions they make of finished films. MGM is a true production studio, and is therefore incredibly valuable to Amazon. They are going to want to support MGM in all of its production endeavors moving forward and amplify the excellent work it is capable of doing already. It’s a win win, really. We get more money behind an excellent studio like MGM, and the content will be readily available on Prime Video.
Lastly, I don’t think this will have a noticeable impact on theatrical releases as some are speculating. While people may think a streamer buying a traditional studio will limit the theatrical releases of tentpoles such as Bond, that will not be the case. For starters, the Bond franchise rights are owned by the Broccoli family. Yes, you read that right. There is a family with the last name Broccoli, who own the rights to the Bond film and have final say on distribution strategy. They will almost certainly ensure that all Bond films moving forward have an exclusive theatrical release window before being made available for streaming. A nice little safe guard to support one of our favorite tentpoles being on the big screen instead of tablets at home.
Overall I see this as an awesome development and am happy that MGM will continue to have a prominent place in entertainment moving forward. Now hopefully they can give us NO TIME TO DIE soon!