Early last month we asked: Should Apple Buy MGM and gain 4,000+ movies including Bond? You can follow the link and read/re-read that piece, but to summarize: we actually think Amazon is a more likely suitor than Apple simply because Apple doesn’t seem to want to be a studio. They want to be what they are: a tech company that owns things.
Now, they could buy MGM and keep it functioning separate from Apple, but that’s not really the Apple way either. Not historically anyway.
Meanwhile, MGM is ratcheting up it’s efforts to sell. Leaving us to think about where the current streaming suitors fit into this possible MGM sale puzzle.
MGM has recruited Morgan Stanley and LionTree LLC to advise on the process of a formal sale, according to the Wall Street Journal. LionTree has worked with MGM in the past. Based on privately traded shares, the company has a market value of $5.5 billion, including debt.
MGM Explores Selling Studio – Variety
Bond is the big name IP play here. Who wants to own Bond? Netflix is the obvious answer, but they don’t have the cash and not sure they want to pull an AMC and leverage themselves deep into debt for 4,000 or so movies including James Bond and some TV shows. Even if some of those movies and TV shows are very rewatchable.
So, here we come back to the other available suitors. Not WarnerMedia, they just sold Crunchyroll to Sony. They are clearly in the selling mode themselves, save for promoting HBO Max as their entertainment future.
Amazon. I just keep coming back to them. $6-8 billion is a fraction of what Bezos made himself in one month in 2020. They are sitting on boatloads of cash and seem the most poised to outright buy a studio.
Apple might jump into the game if Amazon shows interest. Sometimes when you want to compete, you wait to see who is competing. Something tells me if Amazon wanted to buy MGM that Apple instantly would be more interested. We’ve seen bidding wars for movies over the last year and it seems like Amazon and Apple almost enjoy the bidding process against each other.
(purely perceived by articles on the two companies, no insider knowledge)
Who is left? NBC Universal with Peacock? Don’t think so. Disney? Maybe. James Bond isn’t exactly family friendly, but they could always buy it and make it another (mostly) adult content center for Star and Hulu (in the United States).
With MGM ramping up their selling interest, allegedly, is there any chance a sale is done before No Time To Die comes out in April? Seems like long shot, but the way the last year has gone almost anything seems possible. Any thoughts?
Movies, Movies, Movies 
I’m curious what this means for the future of the Stargate property
LikeLiked by 1 person
Just read another article that Apple was seriously considering buying them, but they passed. Price tag is $5 billion, according to the article.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Stargate or MGM in general?
I’m just not invested in Bond anymore. I once worshipped that series.
LikeLike
Bond is becoming like too many other new takes on classic IP: too focused on agendas, identity politics, SJW, etc. I hope we don’t see a female James Bond but fear that’s the direction we’re headed.
(and just for any drive by readers, I don’t want to see a male Lara Croft Tomb Raider either. I just want the sexes of characters to not be swapped out like it just doesn’t matter)
LikeLiked by 1 person
I miss the fun of the older Bond films. That was part of the charm from the beginning. They were escapist fantasies about saving the world. Now they are about Bond’s dysfunctions
LikeLiked by 2 people
Yeah, they tried to over-humanize him. He’s supposed to be a bit like a superhero. Ian Fleming was clearly having fun with the character and the grand adventures including the names (Pussy Galore! lol). A lot of that has been lost through the years.
LikeLiked by 2 people
They decided to appeal to a broader market and ignore the fans that kept it around for so long. That meant dumping things like the naming convention that gave us Pussy Galore or even the later Christmas Jones.
Like you say, Bond is a superhero. He has his problems but he is more together than Craig’s version is-at least on film.
LikeLiked by 1 person
As for Stargate. You know, I really, really got into Stargate: Atlantis at one time. Strangely, I wasn’t as into Stargate as the spinoff, I need to rewatch though. Might be more into it now.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I feel Atlantis is one of the best spinoffs of any property. It took the basics of what it was based on and became its own thing yet still fit in nicely with its predecessor.
SG1 is just a fun ride and I still very much enjoy it. It fixed what I felt were very minor flaws/issues with the film. And it took that movie and organically developed a rich mythology
LikeLiked by 2 people