MGM is gone

[KcMsterpce]

Source from cnn.com:

The deal, expected to close on Friday, for a consortium of companies (including Sony Corp.) to purchase the MGM assets for some $4.8 billion reminds us that in today's entertainment universe, it's all about selling DVDs.

Ted Turner was right: It's the library, stupid. All 4,000 titles.

Truth is, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer -- the once-star-studded Tiffany studio that produced "The Wizard of Oz" and "Gone With the Wind" in 1939, and its United Artists studio, the great lotless indie founded in 1919 by Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and D.W. Griffith -- were long ago reduced to financial transactions. They had been dying little deaths for years.

So much history. So much talent.

We all have our fave MGM moments: Elizabeth Taylor racing her Pie in "National Velvet," Charlton Heston racing his chariot in "Ben-Hur," Judy Garland singing the trolley song in "Meet Me in St. Louis," Omar Sharif kissing Julie Christie in "Dr. Zhivago," the space shuttle twirling in "2001: A Space Odyssey," or Peter Finch exhorting New Yorkers to open their windows and yell, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!"

MGM produced "Network" during the hard-luck '70s after billionaire Kirk Kerkorian had squeezed its assets to buy a series of hotels, slap them with the MGM brand and then sell them again.

He had shrunk MGM into a small production company whose pictures were released by the powerful United Artists.

Remember UA? Back then you could walk the halls at 729 Seventh Ave. in Manhattan and see posters for Billy Wilder's "The Apartment," Milos Forman's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," Woody Allen's "Annie Hall," Hal Ashby's "Coming Home," Francis Coppola's "Apocalypse Now," Martin Scorsese's "Raging Bull" and Sylvester Stallone's "Rocky."

These were once mighty studios, packed with talented executives who knew how to nurture talent and release a full slate of movies every year, some of them bound for Oscar glory.

It takes years to grow a global production and distribution machine, which then thrives on forward momentum: Hits yield more hits; Oscars attract more Oscar-hungry stars and directors.

But it doesn't take much to bring these monoliths down. MGM's slide began when Kerkorian outbid Edgar Bronfman for the studio in 1969, cannily recognizing the value of the MGM brand.

Over the years, the library was packaged and repackaged, sold and resold. In the mid-'80s, Turner shrewdly bought MGM, then almost as quickly sold it, keeping MGM's pre-'86 library for himself, using it as a building block for Turner Network Television. (Turner Network Television, and the entire Turner Broadcasting holdings, are now part of Time Warner, parent company of CNN.)

Over the years, the famed Leo the Lion MGM logo was plastered on hotels, airplanes and an ill-fated Las Vegas theme park.

At UA, troubles began when longtime chairman Arthur Krim and president Eric Pleskow sold their studio to Transamerica in 1979 after an unprecedented four-year run at both the box office and the Oscars.

The matchup was disastrous: soon Krim and Pleskow moved on to found Orion Pictures. After hapless Transamerica insurance executive Andy Albeck took over UA, he supervised the megaflop "Heaven's Gate," and it was downhill from there."

In 1981, Kerkorian grabbed the struggling UA for a song and merged it with MGM; nine years later, he sold the MGM/UA combined for $1.4 billion to shady Italian financier Giancarlo Parretti, who eventually wound up in jail.

In 1996, Kerkorian reacquired the studio for $1.3 billion and brought in business executives Alex Yemenidjian and Chris McGurk to build the value of his MGM and UA assets. This they did.

Their cinematic legacy includes the execrable remakes of "Rollerball" and "The Mod Squad" but also the hits "Barbershop," "Legally Blonde" and the Bond films "The World Is Not Enough" and "Die Another Day."

As Kerkorian finally closes his latest deal to sell MGM Inc. to the Sony consortium -- including Providence Equity Partners, Texas Pacific Group and DLJ Banking Partners -- for almost $5 billion, he will make billions; Yemenidjian and McGurk make millions.

Nobody knows quite what will become of MGM and UA. About 250 out of 1,400 employees will stay on, mostly at the home video company, while the rest cash their severance checks, switch to their home e-mail addresses and join their Miramax brethren sending out resumes.

The CD press kit for the upcoming "Amityville Horror" remake, complete with MGM mailing label, is starting to feel like a collector's item.

Sony will divvy up the outstanding MGM and UA titles for release through its divisions including Columbia, TriStar, Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics. If MGM continues to co-produce films with Sony, it's mainly to keep the library refreshed, insiders say.

The MGM and UA labels will still show up on surviving franchises like "The Pink Panther," whose latest incarnation starring Steve Martin arrives in September. (The "Pink Panther," James Bond and "Rocky" franchises originated at UA.)

But after 20 films and New Line's smash "Austin Powers" spoofs, it's hard to see much life left in creaky old James Bond, even if sexy, broken-nosed Brit Daniel Craig ("Enduring Love"), the press-anointed candidate of the moment, does don the famous tuxedo for Martin Campbell's "Casino Royale."

New Sony corporate chief Sir Howard Stringer originally wanted to acquire the MGM/UA library outright but was forced by his Sony bosses to seek partners.

Now that he heads the company, Stringer might eventually want to buy out the consortium to gain control over MGM/UA, which he could then spin off into a separate public company. MGM and UA already have had many lives.

Sir Howard could even decide to do the right thing. He could remove the Sony logo from atop the studio on West Washington Boulevard that many Hollywood insiders still consider the MGM lot -- with its Cary Grant Theater and Irving Thalberg, Katharine Hepburn, Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland buildings -- and let the MGM logo fly high again.

There's no place like home.

[bluesbrother965]

Wow.

[Jon Lyrik]

RIP.

[MacReady]

I like the films MGM used to make but this has been a long time coming. They make shitty films now that flop constantly. give shitty DVD treatments to all of UA and Orions great movies while keeping a vice like grip on them so that Criterion can't give an infinetely superior. They also gave away some of their greatest films they prodcued on their own (like Ban-Hur, Singin' In The Rain and 2001: A Space Odysee). Maybe now someone will give their films better treatments (I'd like to see the better version of all those Woody Allen movies).

[outsyder]

Send his widow a ham.

[James Logan]

I read somewhere they might still keep the name. Is that true, or did they axe the name definitely?

I'd say RIP, and it's sad to see MGM go, but hey...that's change for ya. World goes round, everything has an end.

[Tayzlor]

Originally posted by MacReady
[IMG]
I like the films MGM used to make but this has been a long time coming. They make shitty films now that flop constantly. give shitty DVD treatments to all of UA and Orions great movies while keeping a vice like grip on them so that Criterion can't give an infinetely superior. They also gave away some of their greatest films they prodcued on their own (like Ban-Hur, Singin' In The Rain and 2001: A Space Odysee). Maybe now someone will give their films better treatments (I'd like to see the better version of all those Woody Allen movies).

Ditto. (although I would have spelled Odyssey corrrectly)

No one ever really pays attention to a film studio anyways, how anyone can lament the passing of a business studio is beyond me. I can't imagine Biff and Spike exclaiming "did you hear about the new MGM movie?". This is good news.

[James Logan]

Originally posted by Tayzlor
Ditto. (although I would have spelled Odyssey corrrectly)

Well, as long as we're on spelling, "correctly" only has two Rs.

[MacReady]

Originally posted by Tayzlor
No one ever really pays attention to a film studio anyways, how anyone can lament the passing of a business studio is beyond me. I can't imagine Biff and Spike exclaiming "did you hear about the new MGM movie?". This is good news.

Hmmm, perhaps not. It looks like Sony's gonna for the throat and get alot of their titles. If it was Universal or Fox things would be better sice they've sold titles to Criterion before. I don't about Sony thought. Can anybody confirm some deals?

Anyway, with MGM's aforementioned vice-grip now removed, there's a possibility of some Orion-made OOP titles coming back on the market (like Sid & Nancy and The Silence Of The Lambs). However this would displease me since I paid a vast fortune for them and it make it seem for naught.

[morricone]

Originally posted by James Logan
Well, as long as we're on spelling, "correctly" only has two Rs.

It was obviously (to me anyways) a joke on MacReady's misspelling.

[Tayzlor]

Originally posted by morricone
It was obviously (to me anyways) a joke on MacReady's misspelling.

It was actually a typo.

[James Logan]

Ah-HA!

*starts a victory dance parade, naked with his briefs on his head*

[miguel_montes]

So, does this mean "The Hobbit" will finally get made??

[BubbaStrangelove]

Well, wait now. There's also a theme park in Orlando that's part of Disney. Does anyone know what will happen to that? I don't really care, as it was one of the weaker ones - well, aside from the Twighlight Zone's Tower of Terror!!! Woooooeeeeeee!


No one ever really pays attention to a film studio anyways, how anyone can lament the passing of a business studio is beyond me.

I agree. (Except with your usage of a run-on sentence)


EDIT:

[James Logan]

Originally posted by BubbaStrangelove
Well, wait now. There's also a theme park in Orlando that's part of Disney. Does anyone know what will happen to that? I don't really care, as it was one of the weaker ones - well, aside from the Twighlight Zone's Tower of Terror!!! Woooooeeeeeee!

Hey, I used to work at the Great Movie Ride there. Did you call my theme park "weak", you bastard?

But it's actually a good point raised. I'd hate to see the park renamed the Disney -- Consortium including Sony Corp. Studios theme park. I don't think that name conveys the same magic.

[BubbaStrangelove]

Haha. I almost directly addressed you in my post, Logan. I was expecting you to have more of the skinny on the whole situation.

I agree that name wouldn't work too well. Probably would be hard to fit on a fridge magnet.

But really, aside from Tower of Terror, what am I missing at MGM? (I've only been during those park hopper days, and only went there to eat (cool movie-themed restaraunt, and for the ToT)

[BubbaStrangelove]

Coincidentally just saw the MGM DVD version of Rain Man.

The comment about them ruining the art for DVD releases was right on.

[dannywalker17]

Originally posted by miguel_montes
So, does this mean "The Hobbit" will finally get made??

Not necessarily. It's not going to be any easier to for New Line to negotiate with Sony than it was for them to negotiate with MGM--maybe harder.