By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com
MGMess: Episode 292
I just had to laugh when reading Nikki “Things Are Looking Up At MGM” Finke’s latest, “MGM Begs Creditors For Stand-Alone Studio.”
It’s like watching Dr Drew’s Studio Rehab. “Hey man… just $500 million more… this time, we’re going to make it work and save the whole studio! I swear, dude. I’ll never ask for anything else again!”
They have been begging for this for years now. It was Harry Sloan’s dream. Of course, he didn’t seem to be aware that the primary value of MGM, the library, had become an anchor instead of wings. He tried an end-run using Tom Cruise as bait, but that funding fell out soon enough as well… and the funders for UA certainly didn’t want to double-down on MGM, with all due respect to Mary Parent.
Thing is, if you wanted to launch a studio with Mary Parent as your studio chief and what is left of the rest of the team over there, the creditors would surely take 100 of your 500 million to make the production arm and whatever titles may already have shot film for the company go away. They might even license you the studio name and logo to put in front on your films when distributed by other studios for another $10 million. Cough up another $150 million today and you can have all the Bond and Hobbit rights you want!
Or… you could just get the creditors to cancel MP’s contract and allow you to hire her – and most of her team – outright.
The point is, if you want to spend $500m to start a new production business, why would you want to be encumbered by the weight of a troubled former major?
Here’s a better idea… spend $200 million… get MP away from MGM… set up an output deal at Paramount or Sony… and make some money. She could do that for you.
Regardless, someone is still going to have to eat more than $2 billion in lost value on this library. $250 million less to eat would likely seem mighty appetizing about now.