Hollywood’s most recent trend is by far its most confusing one to date, the acquisition of big studios by even bigger corporations is more popular than anything at the moment.
Of course, acquisitions have been a part of the industry for ages now, which was first shown with the acquisition of New Line Cinema at the hands of the Turner Broadcasting System and Time Warner Corporation. Though everything is a bit different now, we have bigger players in the arena and all of the corporations have something new to offer their viewers.
The new studios such as the Walt Disney Corporation, Warner Bros’ HBO Max, Netflix and Amazon are producing series and films for streaming platforms. Their main purpose is not only to provide exciting cinema experiences, but to bring those experiences to worldwide homes as quickly as they can.
This is precisely why the acquisition of Metro Goldwyn Mayer by the industry powerhouse ‘Amazon Corporation’ is so jarring. If you know the name Hollywood, you know the name of Metro Goldwyn Mayer, aka MGM, and their humongous library of films and television series.
Metro Goldwyn Mayer is a company best known as one of the founding fathers of Hollywood. This was the largest company at the height of Hollywood from the 1920s to the 1970s, producing incredibly high quality and large-scale motion pictures that have been a huge part of people’s lives in that era. There are over 4000 films in the Metro Goldwyn Mayer catalogue, with movies that range from all kinds of genres and age ratings. However, what’s even larger is their series catalogue, with over 17000 different television episodes that they have under their belt.
Every single piece of that content now belongs to Amazon, and they are planning to bring all of that content to the world-wide audience with their Amazon Prime Video subscription service. This will be a HUGE boost to their portfolio, they will undoubtedly have the largest streaming service catalogue in the history of cinema with this particular move.
Bezos’ Amazon Prime Video isn’t just going to put all of the existing Metro Goldwyn Mayer content on their platforms. Instead, they will also be utilizing the studio to create a certain kind of film that is highly beloved by almost everyone in the world. Metro Goldwyn Mayer has had a constant track record of making films and franchises that are lovable to everyone.
You might know them best for their incredibly popular 007 Franchise, which began back in 1962 with the release of “Dr. No”. This franchise is immensely popular, and can singlehandedly become a HUGE money-making ordeal for Amazon Studios. They also have other franchises such as “RoboCop”, “Rocky”, “The Addams Family”, “Stargate”, “G.I Joe”, “Tomb Raider”, “Legally Blonde”, “The Pink Panther” and “The Thin Man”. These franchises are all widely popular, and are very varied in terms of their styles. They are both conventional blockbuster films, along with decent action thrillers and some really fun comedies.
Metro Goldwyn Mayer has always remained a worldwide sensation as a film studio, however, their work in Hungary hasn’t been the best. The most prominent film they shot in Hungary was perhaps the 2014 Dwayne Johnson starrer “Hercules”.
This was an underwhelming film with nothing much to love, though it did have some decent production design which did showcase how incredibly perfect Hungary is as a nation when it comes to fantastic production design. Origo Studios’ prowess as a studio has been showcased more and more recently, with the release of films such as “Dune” and “Blade Runner 2049”, along with “Moon Knight”.
Though Metro Goldwyn Mayer’s track record with the amount of content they’ve shot in Hungary isn’t great, they’ve still got a FANTASTIC Television Series under their belt. “Fleming”, if you haven’t heard of it, is a spin-off of the classic James Bond film franchise and is somewhat of a docudrama series that truly puts a unique twist on the character and the writer of the novels themselves. There’s also more content sure to follow now that Amazon has control of the Metro Goldwyn Mayer assets, and they’ve already announced a 007 Themed Game Show as their very first project titled “007’s Road to a Million”.
There isn’t much that can be said about this acquisition other than the fact that it is absolutely massive. It is truly remarkable seeing Amazon going from a company that simply delivers products, to being the company to take over Metro Goldwyn Mayer, one of the very first TRUE powerhouses in the history of cinema. They now have control of over 4000 films, and around 17,000 television episodes, with a huge amount of some widely popular intellectual properties that are sure to bring a ton of success to their corporation.
As compared to Disney+, Amazon Prime Video features more than enough mature content already. This means that Amazon Studios MIGHT genuinely have the most amount of content out of any streaming services in the world. This is by far one of the largest acquisitions in the history of cinema, coming at a VERY close second to the incredibly huge acquisition of 20th Century Fox at the hands of the Walt Disney Corporation. Though somehow, this particular acquisition feels like it might be much more fruitful in the long run, simply due to how much variety Amazon can bring to their content with Metro Goldwyn Mayer’s intellectual properties.
Now, it’s simply a waiting game as the legalities are finally formalized and finished, and content begins to slowly roll out. That is the only thing left for spectators and audiences alike to do, and if all goes to plan, your Amazon Prime Video subscription will be more valuable than it has ever been before.
