Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Sony buys MGM

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Posted by Mike Olpin (Member # 1115) on 09-14-2004, 08:27 PM:

http://www.animated-news.com/archives/00002321.html

quote:
In an end to a long-wrangling bidding war between Time Warner Entertainment and Sony (Columbia) Pictures Entertainment, trade paper Variety is today announcing the sale of Metro Goldwyn Mayer to Sony. Variety reports that "A group led by Sony Corporation agreed in principle to terms with Metro Goldwyn Mayer to acquire the studio, hours after presumed frontrunner Time Warner ankled the bidding. Time Warner pulled out of the auction early Monday, saying the bidding for The Lion, which owns the James Bond, Rocky and The Pink Panther film franchises, had gotten too high. The deal gives Sony the biggest library in Hollywood with more than 8,000 pics. MGM sold for $2.94 billion, plus $2bn debt assumption".

What this means for film - and animation - fans is that MGM is "going home". When the company was facing financial difficulties in the 1970s, the original owners of MGM sold off the lot and soundstages to Columbia Pictures, who were then bought out by...Sony! So now MGM will join Columbia back on the original MGM lot, something that would make perfect sense, if it were not for the fact that Warners owns all of the pre-1980s MGM features, through their acquisition of Ted Turner's company (who had bought the MGM film library) in the 1990s. A deal with WB would have seen the entire library back together again, as well as the MGM-owned United Artists titles. For Sony, this represents a real coup, as it gives them considerable leverage in the upcoming high-definition DVD format war, as well as their long-term hopes of producing the James Bond series. For Warners, their loss is more severe: not only do they not get the library to match up, but now the deal has added another partner to the table in complicated negotiations to bring Peter Jackson's take on The Hobbit to the screen. Hollywood just got a lot more interesting, folks!

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 09-14-2004, 09:07 PM:

That sucks! I've never liked Sony, even before they developed SDDS.

Wow, developed, there's an overstatement! [Big Grin]

Posted by Ron Yost (Member # 1850) on 09-14-2004, 11:59 PM:

Truly sad that so much of our film heritage is in foreign hands, in my opinion. There oughta' be a law against foreign ownership, and thereby control, of our cultural treasures. [Mad]

Ron Yost

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 09-15-2004, 12:51 AM:

What does MGM do besides James Bond? All I really remember about MGM are the really cool Tom and Jerry cartoons from the old days. Those were great because they were violent, and everyone loves and endorses violence!

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 09-15-2004, 01:05 AM:

quote: Ron Yost
Truly sad that so much of our film heritage is in foreign hands, in my opinion.

The MGM brand has seen foreign ownership previously, such as the French company Pathé as well as some other European investment banking firms, etc. They may still have a sizeable interest even after the Sony deal.

In my humble opinion, MGM was a pretty good studio until Kirk Kerkorian got hold of it nearly 30 years ago. He's not the only thing that helped take down what was once the greastest studio in Hollywood. In the 60's and 70's MGM was still putting out good product. The "Pink Panther" movies, "Apocalypse Now" and a number of other interesting pictures were made under the MGM/UA banner.

But the combination of financial disasters, such as "Heaven's Gate" in 1980, and Kerkorian's spin-offs into the airline business, casino business and real estate business are the things that really brought the end to the REAL MGM.

It would have been something if the WB deal had gone through. I would like to have seen the entire MGM/UA library reunited.

I remember when MGM was changing ownership back and forth in the 1980's and early 1990's. I can't quite make sense of how the company got to this point. The whole thing has parallels similar to Atari and how it relates to the video game business. Some other company is using the Atari brand name now and doesn't have a damned thing in relation to the original company Nolan Bushnell built. That's kind of how I think of MGM now.

I don't know if Sony will try to keep the MGM brand name intact or if it will just plaster Columbia, Sony or Tri-Star logos all over the original James Bond films and other MGM/UA films made over the last 20 years (like "Rainman" or "Ronin"). I guess we'll see.

Posted by Kyle McEachern (Member # 2250) on 09-15-2004, 03:26 AM:

[removed]

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 09-15-2004, 11:31 AM:

I wonder if this means that EVERY MGM movie will have SDDS now instead of every third or fourth movie like it is now.

Posted by Dean Kollet (Member # 1789) on 09-15-2004, 11:52 AM:

quote:
What does MGM do besides James Bond? All I really remember about MGM are the really cool Tom and Jerry cartoons from the old days. Those were great because they were violent, and everyone loves and endorses violence!

Duh Joe....MGM Studios
Tower of Terror, Aerosmith Rocking Rollar Coaster......Star Tours
and to think you only thought of James Bond

...oh yeah and a nice hotel in Vegas

Posted by Ron Yost (Member # 1850) on 09-15-2004, 01:16 PM:

Actually, my concern isn't for any of MGM or WB's current product, or themeparks. My concern is for their 'classic' films of the past in their archives. Including the classic "Toons", of course. [Big Grin]

This coming from a (modest) film collector's perspective, you see. I'm much more interested in older films than recent.

And, you're right, Bobby. It doesn't matter, really, who owns the film vaults. An 'American' owner can make just as bad choices with the film vaults as anyone else. And certainly have in the past. I hope Sony takes good care of them and hopefully will strike a few new prints of the classics, what remains of them.

Since I'm thinking of old films:

There's a fascinating book on early Hollywood called: "An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Built Hollywood", by Neal Gabler (1998). OOP now, but it's a completly absorbing read, IMHO. I find this book especially interesting because it delves into the motivations, ambitions, etc., of the three men who would later be called 'Moguls', Adolph Zucker, Louis B. Mayer, and Carl Laemmie, who built Hollywood from the ground-up. We'd have no entertainment industry at all, were it not for them. [Eek!]

Ron Yost .. ranting, as usual. [Smile]

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 09-15-2004, 02:53 PM:

The only real jewels in the package are the United Artists titles. From the 50's-70's like "Some Like it Hot", "James Bond...", "Pink Panther...", "West Side Story", "The Great Escape", "Magnificent Seven", The Good Woody Allen collection, "Rocky...", "Apartment" and a few dozen more. The MGM library also features titles from Canon Films (Golan Globus),
Orion Pictures (after WB), Hemdale, American International and MGM titles from 1985 or so to the present day and hundreds of hours of TV product. All the great classic MGM titles are own by Warner Bros, when Ted Turner bought the library. Sony and Comcast plan a video on demand service soon. Sony has been very respectful in treating their classics, by re-striking new prints and releasing titles for home video. Remember "Lawerence of Arabia", "The Guns of Navarone", "The Bridge on the River Kwai"

Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 09-15-2004, 02:57 PM:

What goes around comes around.

The Sony/Columbia Studio lot is the old MGM Culver City studio, minus the back lot which was sold off for development years ago.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 09-15-2004, 04:53 PM:

I think Kirk Kerkorian is the one who sold off the original back lot (along with lots of other MGM assets).

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 09-15-2004, 07:47 PM:

If you want to read the book about the final days at MGM. As told to by a former Senior Vice President at MGM from 1983-85.
Read "FADE-OUT: The Calamitous Final Days of MGM" by Peter Bart. Yes, he is one of the hosts on the AMC channel show "Sunday Morning, Shootout" with Peter Guber. Remember before Kirk owned United Artists, it was owned from the late 60's till early 80's by The Transamerica Company.

MGM/UA paid very well for projectionist to do home runs for their executives. I had three of them on my Bel-Air run calendar(Peter Bart, Lee Rich and Mr. Kerkorian)