Amazon acquires ‘Spy 007’ and ‘Tom and Jerry’ studios

MGM Studios, the studio behind hit franchises like ‘Spy 007’ and ‘Tom and Jerry’ will be acquired by Amazon for $8.45 billion.

Amazon has acquired Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM), a long-standing Hollywood studio. Amazon has reached an agreement to own movie studio MGM for $8.45 billion, the company announced on May 26. This is considered a significant step forward for the e-commerce giant when Amazon will add to the available content store about 4,000 titles and 17,000 hours of TV series. The deal helps Amazon attract more Prime users, in order to compete fairly with rivals that own a diverse stock of original movies like Netflix or Disney Plus. MGM is the Hollywood studio behind hit franchises like James Bond and Rocky, but also modern adult series like The Handmaid’s Tale and Vikings. In addition, this studio also owns popular TV shows such as The Voice (Vietnamese Voice) and Shark Tank (Billion Billion Deal). However, the most famous and best known by Vietnamese people is the animated series Tom and Jerry. “The real financial value behind this deal is the IP treasure (copyright) that we plan to renew and grow with the talented team of MGM,” said Mike Hopkins, vice president. in charge of Prime Video and Amazon Studios said. Amazon’s television business is still only a very small slice of an e-commerce empire worth $ 1,650 billion. However, to date, there are more than 200 million subscribers to use Amazon Prime monthly service, with a service fee of 5.99 USD/month. News of Amazon’s acquisition of Hollywood’s 97-year-old studio emerged in mid-May. On May 24, the Wall Street Journal revealed that Amazon was very close to a deal to acquire MGM. MGM is owned by a group of investment funds including Anchorage Capital Group, Highland Capital Management, and Solus Alternative Asset Management. Reports about investors wanting to sell MGM to recover capital have surfaced since the end of December 2020. Currently, Hollywood film studios are in a fierce race to fight against the powerful forces of the day like Netflix or Disney. Last week, telecommunications giant AT&T also planned to merge WarnerMedia with Discovery to create the world’s second-largest media giant, after Disney mouse house. At that time, AT&T ambitiously merged HBO Max and Discovery Plus to create a video-on-demand service with a rich content store that could beat the competition. Phuong Nguyen (according to TheVerge)