477 replies to this topic

[zencat]

Is James Bond Keeping MGM Out Of Bankrupty Court?

Studio seeks capital restructuring for $3.7 billion debt

MGM Studios passes audit

James Bond studio in full compliance with debt requirements

MGM Studios replace CEO Harry Sloan

Struggling home of James Bond shakes up management

MGM battling bondholders and bankruptcy; James Bond in limbo

Troubled studio home in desperate need of funds for production slate

MGM studio buys more time with lender agreement

Breathing room for beleaguered James Bond studio

MGM Studio headed for sale

Studio library, logo may be auctioned off soon

Lions Gate expresses an interest in MGM

...but only if the price is right

For sale: MGM Studio

Studio home of James Bond officially on the block

Variety: What's next for MGM?

Struggling James Bond studio sits on the auction block

Time Warner, News Corp reported interested in MGM

Studio's price will determine level of interest

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Let the MGM bidding begin

James Bond studio sends confidentiality agreements to interested parties

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MGM sale expects to elicit half-dozen bids

James Bond studio's next debt-service deadline is 31 January

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News Corp. said to be at impasse on possible MGM bid

Twentieth Century Fox owner considering James Bond studio

MGM sends out prospectus, process going slow

Confidentiality agreements slow down sale process of James Bond studio home

MGM: We won't sell to just anybody

Studio restricting potential bidders to serious buyers only

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MGM bids expected soon

Variety: James Bond studio's future, potential sale or revamp, to get closeup

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MGM likely to draw bids as 15 January deadline looms

Warner Bros., Lionsgate and AT&T interested in the James Bond studio

Low bids for MGM cloud fate of studio

First-round bids for James Bond studio due by end of week

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MGM continues to solicit bids

James Bond studio home has received at least two bids thus far

MGM suitors await second-round invites

Warner Bros., Lionsgate, Elliott place bids for James Bond studio

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MGM buyer sure to seek bankruptcy plan

Several companies reportedly interested in 007 studio home

MGM studio gets extension on interest payments

James Bond studio given two month reprieve on debt payments

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News Corp. said to offer cash, debt help to keep MGM running

Studio continues to evaluate preliminary bids

Nikki's got the scoop...

MGM FIGHTS TO SURVIVE: Desperate To Restructure Crushing Debt Due In 2012: Hires More Financial Advisers To Help; MGM Considered Selling United Artists

[Tarl_Cabot]

It's the eye of the tiger...UA should let Sly save the studio with .....Rocky VII !

[zencat]

It's just amazing to me how MGM is still around. They've been on the brink for 30 years.

Was just at a meeting at HBO today, which I discovered is now housed in MGM's old Santa Monica headquarters. I asked if this was the MGM building and they said, "Yeah, we gutted it!" Made me laugh.

(I've had a love hate relationship with MGM over the years.)

[Turn]

It's just amazing to me how MGM is still around. They've been on the brink for 30 years.

I'm amazed as well, but hasn't it been closer to 40 years? Wasn't it around 1970 or so they had that big sale and sold off the back lot and all the props and everything?

I think it stays around on name recognition alone as it links it to the grand old days of Hollywood.

[Napoleon Solo]

It's just amazing to me how MGM is still around. They've been on the brink for 30 years.

I'm amazed as well, but hasn't it been closer to 40 years? Wasn't it around 1970 or so they had that big sale and sold off the back lot and all the props and everything?

I think it stays around on name recognition alone as it links it to the grand old days of Hollywood.

You could argue it's closer to 50 years. MGM rolled the dice on Ben-Hur in 1959, and won. Had the movie flopped, the studio would have liquidated then. But the good times didn't last long. In the early- to mid-1990s, TNT had a multiple-part documentary about MGM. In it, Richard Chamberlain, star of the 1961-66 Dr. Kildaire series (based on an MGM film series) said the place had an air that its best days were behind it.

[Bryce (003)]

What happened to the "Last one out, please turn off the lights" sign?

*looks over stock portfolio and holdings*

How much they asking?

[Blofeld's Cat]

Buyers named "Tom Cruise" need not apply.

Buy MGM!?

Would rather buy an MGB instead. I'm sure it would last longer too.

[RivenWinner]

It's sad and it's pained me how over the past few decades MGM/UA management has essentially raped the company. I too I'm surprised that it's still around today, although I always smile and feel relieved when I read an article saying how MGM is being revived or saved once more. MGM/United Artists are two storied names in Hollywood, responsible for so much history and so many important films. Hell, you guys all the know the spiel. It's just amazing how a company of this importance has been completely mismanaged, plundered, raped and abused for over three decades.


As always, I wish it the best in the future, but this time I have serious doubts that the outcome will be a positive one. The credit crisis and the global economic recession really makes things difficult for them to come out of this alive.

[triviachamp]

So what would happen to Bond if MGM were to go under? I guess Sony would snatch it?

[mccartney007]

It's just amazing to me how MGM is still around. They've been on the brink for 30 years.

Was just at a meeting at HBO today, which I discovered is now housed in MGM's old Santa Monica headquarters. I asked if this was the MGM building and they said, "Yeah, we gutted it!" Made me laugh.

(I've had a love hate relationship with MGM over the years.)

Isn't the old MGM complex in Santa Monica that Yahoo! Building now or something? I know Irish Dreamtime still has it's offices there.

[Safari Suit]

My client Mr M. Cimino has a project he assures me will lift any ailing film company out of the dumps...

[zencat]

Isn't the old MGM complex in Santa Monica that Yahoo! Building now or something? I know Irish Dreamtime still has it's offices there.

Yep, the old MGM complex is now Yahoo and HBO. Maybe some other stuff. Some producers kept their offices there. In fact, I think Danjaq might still be there. It didn't occur to me yesterday to look around and see.

[DLibrasnow]

(I've had a love hate relationship with MGM over the years.)

Well, the studio has only been in the James Bond business for 27 years (I believe the first 007 picture they had a hand in was 1983s Octopussy) so I have had a love/hate relationship with them now for a quarter century.

I think the worst decision they made was selling their pre-1970 film library to Ted Turner in the early 1990s. Hey, it hurt the Bond business because Cubby was so busy in court trying to stop MGM from selling the Bond franchise off piecemeal that EON did not make a movie for 6 years.

[Aris007]

It's just amazing to me how MGM is still around. They've been on the brink for 30 years.

What makes you think that now it's the time for bankruptcy?

[mccartney007]

Isn't the old MGM complex in Santa Monica that Yahoo! Building now or something? I know Irish Dreamtime still has it's offices there.

Yep, the old MGM complex is now Yahoo and HBO. Maybe some other stuff. Some producers kept their offices there. In fact, I think Danjaq might still be there. It didn't occur to me yesterday to look around and see.

Yeah, I think you're right about Danjaq. I'm pretty sure it's still in there.

[zencat]

Interesting article at Double O Section (by way of THR) about how Bond may be a factor in what's happening to MGM.

http://doubleosectio...-where-are.html

[TheSaint]

My client Mr M. Cimino has a project he assures me will lift any ailing film company out of the dumps...

Good one!

[Qwerty]

Is James Bond Keeping MGM Out Of Bankrupty Court?

Studio seeks capital restructuring for $3.7 billion debt

[Zorin Industries]

Perhaps MGM could add a "T" to their name and make some money as a psychadelic indie-pop tribute band?

[Blofeld's Cat]

Perhaps MGM could add a "T" to their name and make some money as a psychadelic indie-pop tribute band?

Or lose more money by being sued by the band for stealing their name.

[Donovan]

My head spins trying to make sense out of who "owns" what, studio-wise, where Bond is concerned. Between MGM and Sony/Columbia not to mention Tom Cruise's UA. I daresay the Hollywood lawyers who have all that figured out might actually have earned their otherwise exorbitant hourly fees. And then there's Saltzman's share which was owned by UA and maybe Danjaq bought it from MGM (or settled for it), but maybe that was only regarding future productions since the time of the transaction. I don't think the library of existing films is cut-and-dry, either. If I remember correctly, Dalton's two films still display a UA logo. It's just...well, whatever.

[Publius]

I'm just praying this doesn't turn into another Dalton era situation. So many other things, like the style of Craig's movies, are eerily similar. Thank God the franchise has been consistently profitable since Goldeneye, but even then it's a wonder that such an international financial juggernaut could be at the whim of forces other than the Broccolis.

[Qwerty]

MGM Studios passes audit

James Bond studio in full compliance with debt requirements

[danslittlefinger]

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio ousts Sloan as CEO

By RYAN NAKASHIMA, AP Business Writer Ryan Nakashima, Ap Business Writer – 1 hr 47 mins ago

LOS ANGELES – Struggling Hollywood studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is turning to a turnaround expert who has helped businesses from energy to doughnuts to help it dig out from billions in debt.

The studio said Tuesday it hired Stephen Cooper, the former CEO of such ailing businesses as Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Inc. and Enron Corp., to join an "Office of the CEO," which replaces Chief Executive Harry Sloan.

Cooper, named vice chairman, joins Mary Parent, the chair of MGM's worldwide motion picture group, and Chief Financial Officer Bedi Singh in the CEO office and has as his main task "to lead MGM's efforts to evaluate alternatives to improve its balance sheet," the studio said.

Sloan will continue as chairman.

The announcement comes as the studio faces the payback of $3.7 billion in debt by 2012, and a $250 million revolving line of credit that matures in April.

The debt was amassed when the studio was taken private for nearly $5 billion in 2005 by a group led by Providence Equity Partners, Texas Pacific Group, Sony Corp. and Comcast Corp., DLJ Merchant Banking Partners and Quadrangle Group.

In May, MGM told its lenders it was in compliance with its debt agreements as of March 31, but that it had hired financial adviser Moelis & Co. to help it restructure.

The studio has made about $500 million a year in revenue from its library of 4,000 movies and TV shows including a range of James Bond classics, but declining DVD sales have cut that by about 5 percent this year.

It also abandoned talks last year to continue selling its movies to CBS Corp.'s Showtime pay TV channel and instead took a 28.6 percent stake in Epix, a fledgling pay channel to be launched in October with Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. and Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures.

Epix has so far struck just one deal with a distributor, Verizon Communications Inc.'s FiOS network, which has 2.5 million customers.

The last movie MGM released in theaters was "Valkyrie," starring Tom Cruise, in December. It plans a handful of new releases in the coming months, including "Fame" next month and "The Cabin In The Woods" in February.

Sloan began his tenure at MGM in October 2005 and agreed last August to continue as CEO through October 2011, but was an apparent casualty of the collapse of the credit markets and an industrywide decline in home video revenue.

The studio has had a number of disappointments since its rebirth under private owners.

It brought in actor Cruise and producing partner Paula Wagner to head subsidiary United Artists, but their first movie, "Lions for Lambs," flopped and was estimated to have lost $30 million. Wagner has since left the label to pursue projects independently.

[Qwerty]

MGM Studios replace CEO Harry Sloan

Struggling home of James Bond shakes up management

[Moderator's Note: Topics merged]

[ChandlerBing]

Oh, how I wish Bond had a studio that was worth a damn. Might as well be Golan and Globus.

[scaramunga]

Sounds like it could be a rough ride for Bond 23 and also for James Bond blu rays for a while? Hopefully we are not looking at a post LTK situation again....

[DaveBond21]

Does anyone have any inside knowledge on what this could mean to UA and the Bond franchise?

[scaramunga]

Does anyone have any inside knowledge on what this could mean to UA and the Bond franchise?

Apparently no one knows anything about MGM these days.

From the articles that I've read MGM has a ton of debt due now and coming in 2010. This may limit their ability to finance more films?

I hope things work out, but am starting to fear the worst too.

The lack of more James Bond films on blu ray is very odd and I wonder if the financial problems have MGM scrapping their home video plans a bit?

I know the Rocky set is coming and they have a few other titles out this month..


Hope I'm wrong.

[DR76]

Isn't the old MGM complex in Santa Monica that Yahoo! Building now or something? I know Irish Dreamtime still has it's offices there.

What I find even more ironic is that the old MGM studio lot in Culver City is now owned by Sony Pictures (aka Columbia Pictures), the very studio that had released "CASINO ROYALE" back in 2006.