As we continue getting closer and closer to a few massive companies controlling all the media we consume, we’ve learned this morning that Amazon has officially purchased Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, spending a whopping $8.45 billion to acquire the legendary studio’s assets.
The plan? Amazon is looking to do two main things. First, “preserve MGM’s heritage and catalog of films.” And second, we can likely expect reboots of popular MGM properties.
As Mike Hopkins, senior Vice President of Prime Video and Amazon Studios, explained this morning (via THR), “The real financial value behind this deal is the treasure trove of IP in the deep catalog that we plan to reimagine and develop together with MGM’s talented team. It’s very exciting and provides so many opportunities for high-quality storytelling.”
In other words, we can expect to see MGM’s past titles find an exclusive home on the Amazon Prime streaming service, with Amazon Studios likely creating a wealth of original content based on some of the more popular properties in that legendary library. Franchises under the MGM banner include James Bond and RoboCop, as well as Rocky and The Hobbit.
THR notes, “MGM boasts a film library of around 4,000 titles and 17,000 hours of TV programming.” One of the big horror properties that Amazon has now acquired as part of the MGM deal? Killer Klowns from Outer Space, which MGM has been dragging their feet on rebooting for decades now. MGM is also involved in Nia DaCosta’s sequel to Candyman.
It’s also worth noting that MGM owns Orion Pictures, which was recently relaunched with genre movies including The Belko Experiment, The Prodigy, Child’s Play, and Gretel & Hansel.
You can read more about the historic merger over on The Hollywood Reporter.
Nia DaCosta’s ‘Candyman’