Amazon Is Deep In Negotiating A Deal To Buy MGM For $9 Billion
Towards the end of last year, we learned that MGM was exploring a possible sale to the highest bidder. Along with getting one of the oldest studios names in Hollywood, the buyer would also get the rights to valuable titles like James Bond, The Hobbit, Rocky/Creed, RoboCop, The Pink Panther, Stargate and The Silence of the Lambs. Now it sounds like Amazon may be the one who ends up landing MGM in a deal that's currently being negotiated around $9 billion.
Variety has news on the potential of Amazon buying MGM for $9 billion. Right now the corporate giant is "weeks into negotiations" on the deal that would give them over 4,000 films and over 17,000 hours of television shows. Along with adding that huge chunk of entertainment to their streaming library comes the potential of expanding it with sequels, remakes, reboots, reimaginings, and whatever else they might want to do with these titles.
Along with the aforementioned film franchises, MGM also includes all the Stargate TV shows, Fargo, Vikings, Teen Wolf, and the series adaptation of Get Shorty. They also have a hand in big unscripted titles such as The Voice, Survivor, Shark Tank, and The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. It doesn't sound like the most thrilling collection of titles, but there's a wide variety of programming here and a lot of potential for Amazon to expand their audience reach even further.
Amazon Prime is exactly hurting for subscribers with over 200 million members worldwide. Roughly 175 million of those subscribers streamed content through Amazon Prime Video in the past year, but that's also a year when everyone was streaming something at home. Amazon is rather notorious for having one of the least impressive streaming libraries, despite the fact that they have some solid originals, so they're likely hoping to have more titles to offer current and new subscribers.
More recently, Amazon has been making great strides to improve their movie offerings by snagging major Paramount Pictures movies like Coming 2 America starring Eddie Murphy, Tom Clancy's Without Remorse with Michael B. Jordan, and The Tomorrow War with Chris Pratt. Plus, they also found great success with Borat Subsequent Moviefilm last year. So they're clearly trying to get ahead in the streaming wars, and may end up helping.
As of now, Amazon is still in negotiations to buy MGM, and there's always a chance that the deal could fall apart. But if Amazon has been working on this deal for weeks, then it's clearly something they want to make happen, so it probably won't be too long until it's official. We'll keep you posted as more information becomes available.