Amazon makes official the purchase of Metro Goldwyn Mayer, the legendary film studio, for 8.5 billion dollars

The Metro Goldwyn Mayer lion will arrive at your home in record time thanks to Amazon Prime. In May 2021 it was announced that Amazon had started the process to acquire the legendary lynx studio that has given us movies like ‘Rocky’ or ‘Thelma & Louise’, and which is home to James Bond. As reported by Variety, the purchase has already been completed, so MGM is already part of Jeff Bezos’ company.

The acquisition has amounted to 8.5 billion dollars. This is a very strong investment in catalog for Amazon Prime Video, since MGM has given birth to more than 4,000 movies and 17,000 television series since its foundation in 1924. The jewel in the crown is, without a doubt, the saga of agent 007, which at the moment was impossible to find in streaming. But they also include such beloved movies as ‘Basic Instinct’, ‘Robocop’, ‘The Magnificent Seven’, ‘Tomb Raider’ and series like ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ or ‘Vikings’.

From Amazon they celebrate the news by welcoming “the employees, creators and talent of MGM” and they claim to be wishing “work together to create even more opportunities to deliver quality storytelling to customers”. From MGM they affirm that they want to continue with “the tradition” to create “so well-known and critically acclaimed films and series”now from the hand of Amazon Studios. What they have not revealed yet is how Metro Goldwyn Mayer will be integrated into the company’s fabric.

What will happen now?

We also do not know what the first steps of this agreement will be, nor when we can expect the landing of the MGM catalog on Amazon Prime Video. On the future of sagas like that of James Bond, the producers of the franchise already commented long ago that Amazon still saw it as a franchise first for the big screen. We will see if they keep their word and if we get to see an explosion of series or spin-offs on the character of Ian Flemming as has happened with other franchises in their landing on streaming.

Metro Goldwyn Mayer was one of the biggest studios in classic Hollywood, with more than 180 Oscars throughout its history, including 12 statuettes for Best Picture. It went on sale at the end of 2020. The 8.5 billion dollars that it has cost, yes, pale in comparison to the 71.3 billion that The Walt Disney Company paid for 21st Century Foxalthough it was a media conglomerate that encompassed much more than film studios.