For those of us who grew up watching cinema and cartoons, the sight of the roaring lion inside the MGM crest was the announcement of entertainment and excitement to come. Metro Goldwyn Myer has now been acquired by Amazon for a mind boggling 8.45 billion dollars. This is good news for subscribers of Amazon Prime since this adds MGM-owned content to the library: about 4,000 films and 17,000 shows
Amazon Prime’s Twitter handle announced it like this.
Amazon is one of the five largest companies in the world. The fact that it is locked down this deal to acquire MGM is big news in financial circles.
The announcement of the MGM acquisition caused Amazon share prices to rise by 1%.
People helpfully redesigned the MGM logo. Jokes apart, here’s some envy-inducing trivia: if one had invested in Amazon back in 2011, this would have yielded a staggering 1,588% yield.
He is the richest man in the world and over the past decade, Amazon’s market cap has grown from $88.1 billion to $1.7 trillion. For many, such obscene riches are a form of villainy.
Some see Jeff Bezos as a hero and a financial genius to be emulated, some not so much.
MGM owns franchises such as James Bond and Rocky. Prime viewers expect to be able to access this content in addition to what is available for streaming right now.
#AmazonMGM was trending and it was raining James Bond jokes for a while.
This one was really doing the rounds.
I am famously not a Bond fan but I do look forward to re-watching the Pink Panther movies – the old Peter Sellers ones as well as the more recent Steve Martin ones.
People are wondering whether we will now see spinoff content on Prime, the reference here being to the fictional ice-skater called Bibi from the Bond film For Your Eyes Only.
Owning copyrights to MGM content means that people had ideas for reboots as well: classic films reimagined with enhanced new technology and filmmaking techniques.
Fans of specific series of franchises hope to access their favourite titles via Amazon Prime.
People expect to gain access to more entertaining content. For instance, the Disney Hotstar merger gave us access to all of the MCU movies and series.
Is it any wonder that a businessman as savvy as Jeff Bezos knows which acquisitions are the most profitable to make? With Amazon’s acquisition of MGM finalised, people are wondering what is next.
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