477 replies to this topic

[Simon]

As per the recent article, "....Warners $1.5million high bid."

Million?

[zencat]

Million?

That can't be right.

Be hysterical if it was.

[RevolveR]

Million?

That can't be right.

Be hysterical if it was.

It was 1.5 billion as I recall.

I think production will start back up on Bond by the fall. If they're going to try to turn things around under new management without selling off assets, they have to get a Bond film out.

[Simon]

Indeed.

The disparity between what 'we' can daily afford and the figures recently being bandied about as to what makes for serious debt are poles apart.

Nevertheless, $1.5m almost sounds like something 'one' could cobble together in a heartbeat, if needs must.

The (any) country is £161bn in debt, MGM is up for sale at $1.5m (?), a home is $450,000 and an annual salary could be roughly $70k. Of the above, what precisely makes sense?

Anyway, if you really wany silly numbers, I recently heard about the latest sooper-computer. The Jaguar, built by the Cray company and housed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, has a top speed of 1.75 petaflops per second, according to a bi-annual top 500 supercomputer survey.

A petaflop is equivalent to 1,000 trillion calculations.

1 second of Jaguar time is comparable to 10 hours of PC time.

Gosh.

[jaguar007]

1 second of Jaguar time is comparable to 10 hours of PC time.

Gosh.

Yep, I know Jaguars are fast, but I didn't realize they could be that fast

[Cody]

Hunt for MGM CEO hits snag

MGM's parade of CEO candidates seems to have marched down a blind alley.

Jonathan Dolgen, Peter Chernin and Bill Mechanic each have made it clear he has no interest in taking the Lion's reins despite urgings from studio lenders and the prospect of a recapitalized new ownership structure. At the same time, lenders have been unable to work up much enthusiasm for others interviewed as prospective new CEOs.

Well-regarded executives at Summit and Spyglass have been consulted but failed to convince weary Lion debtholders that their management prowess alone could put the studio back on the path to prosperity. Burdened by a crushing debt load of almost $4 billion, MGM owners tried unsuccessfully to find a buyer for the studio and now seeks to fashion a financial and management restructuring.

The goal: to buy three to four years of solvency in the hope the studio's value will rise in the meantime.

In a bit of good news, investment films Qualia Capital, Anchorage Advisors and others remain interested in sinking $500 million or more into the Lion in exchange for an equity stake. That would get film chief Mary Parent back into action after movie development and releasing was halted because of the studio's woes.

An idea gaining currency in the absence of an obvious candidate would be to keep the "office of the CEO" arrangement that's been in place since Harry Sloan resigned as CEO in August to become non-executive chairman of MGM. Restructuring specıalıst Stephen Cooper would remain in place longer than planned, with Parent and CFO Bedi Singh maintaining co-CEO roles during a prepackaged bankruptcy to clean up debt.

In the process, studio equity would shift from a current group of owners to MGM lenders and any new equity investors. MGM's ownership consortium includes Providence Equity, TPG Capital, Sony, Comcast, DLJ Merchant and Quadrangle.

J.P. Morgan leads a steering committee representing more than 100 MGM debtholders, though consolidation of publicly traded Lion debt in recent months means one-third of the debt now is held by Highland Capital and a handful of other lenders. Lenders holding two-thirds of the studio's debt would have to approve any prepackaged bankruptcy.

MGM has the thriller "Red Dawn" set for release in November and the horror thriller "Cabin in the Woods" slotted for January. But no trailers have been shot, and it's assumed both will be pushed to later release dates.

The situation has been frustrating for those still in the trenches at MGM. But some see a silver lining in the incremental management shifts since MGM's financial woes reached crisis proportions.

Older-guard executives tended to be too laid back to address the Lion's increasingly dire challenges, some suggest.

"We'd be sitting in a meeting with all these problems and $4 billion of debt, and we'd be talking about that night's Lakers tickets," a studio insider recalled. "There was always two MGMs -- the old MGM and the Mary Parent MGM. If Mary Parent had her way, the Bond film would come out in November."

MGM's rights to the James Bond movie franchise represent its most highly valued asset, but the studio recently was forced to postpone development on the next Bond pic until its corporate problems were sorted. A planned co-production with Warner Bros. based on J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy tome "The Hobbit" also has been delayed.

[zencat]

The goal: to buy three to four years of solvency in the hope the studio's value will rise in the meantime.

Brilliant plan, geniuses.

[Matt_13]

God this sucks. They better get their together by the end of the year.

[bondrules]

I don't remember anyone/anything having such a hard time letting go since Kareem Abdul Jabbar refused to retire eons ago, when he was so old and slow that benches from mediocre teams where putting on a clinic on his .


MGM, why don't you just die?!

[DamnCoffee]

I can't wait till this is over. It's seriously annoying. When MGM finally go down, I'll be waiting to crack open the champagne.

[Simon]

This will be going on for years as each brilliant plan is superceded by another brilliant plan. Do they consider themselves practitioners of thaumaturgy?

I figured on something like the LTK to GE wait as soon as this hit the news.

[zencat]

Ironically, I just received a residual check from MGM/UA, which is the only screenwriting income I've earned all year, so maybe I shouldn't bite the hand that's feeding me.

Hang in there MGM! The industry needs you!!!

[jaguar007]

When MGM finally go down, I'll be waiting to crack open the champagne.

Hopefully it is a good vintage Champagne that will age well

[Bucky]

now it looks like "The Cabin in the Woods" is going to be put into development hell as the next casualty of the financial woes of mgm. this is pretty disappointing since it was supposed to be out this past february but they pushed it back to they could 3Dify it.

don't know how they plan to make money when they cant even release the movies they have.

Edited by Bucky, 17 June 2010 - 10:46 PM.

[zencat]

The latest:

Spyglass Beating Summit To Run MGM?

Beginning to think MGM might survive this after-all.

[Zorin Industries]

The latest:

Spyglass Beating Summit To Run MGM?

Beginning to think MGM might survive this after-all.

There is some poetry to Spyglass bankrolling spy films... if it ever gets that far.

[Matt_13]

The latest:

Spyglass Beating Summit To Run MGM?

Beginning to think MGM might survive this after-all.

I would say that this sounds promising, but if this article is true then we can be sure another debt extension is in the cards.

[SecretAgentFan]

Hey, I need some money too. Should I just say I work for MGM?

[mcdonbb]

Ironically, I just received a residual check from MGM/UA, which is the only screenwriting income I've earned all year, so maybe I shouldn't bite the hand that's feeding me.

Hang in there MGM! The industry needs you!!!

Did it bounce?

[zencat]

Latest (possible) twist. Not sure what this would mean for Bond.

MGM To Morph Into A Pure Production Play?

[mcdonbb]

Latest (possible) twist. Not sure what this would mean for Bond.

MGM To Morph Into A Pure Production Play?

Zencat I noticed in the comments that someone stated that if MGM went bankrupt that all the Bond rights went back to EON? Any thought?

..on and sorry about bounce check comment...nothing personal.

[zencat]

Latest (possible) twist. Not sure what this would mean for Bond.

MGM To Morph Into A Pure Production Play?

Zencat I noticed in the comments that someone stated that if MGM went bankrupt that all the Bond rights went back to EON? Any thought?

..on and sorry about bounce check comment...nothing personal.

Oh, I thought the bounce check comment was a good one.

Don't know anything about rights going back to Eon should MGM go bankrupt. That would be nice. But so many people claim to understand the whole Bond co-ownership thing. I don't. I think it's enormously complicated.

[Zorin Industries]

But so many people claim to understand the whole Bond co-ownership thing. I don't. I think it's enormously complicated.

Agreed. Massively so. I think it boils down to the actress playing the Bond Girl in every other Bond film has the rights for a week then her mother or nearest living relative has them for the next three films after that unless the character the actress is playing is killed after ten minutes of screentime - in which case the tallest crew member with a beard (man or woman) inherits the 007 film rights for as long in weeks as their favourite Bond film is in minutes. With an added 10% commission. Distribution rights are a different matter and rest on whose mother's maiden name sounds the most similiar to the last Bond film released (to keep some sort of creative continuity, I believe).

Quite simple really.

[zencat]

You've got it!

And I've had people who really DO understand it, like John Cork, explain it to me, and I still don't understand it.

[Trident]

But the basic question surely is valid, isn't it? There would surely be some kind of contractual regularisation for the unlikely case that one of the partners sharing the Bond rights should cease to exist. Which perhaps would go a long way to explain why the stipulatory consequences that a folding MGM would entail are avoided at all costs, wouldn't it?

[SecretAgentFan]

I also think that EON actually is only waiting for MGM to unravel so they can take Bond wherever they like.

[jaguar007]

IF MGM went bankrupt, wouldn't MGM's Bond shares divert to MGM's creditors to sell off?

[Trident]

IF MGM went bankrupt, wouldn't MGM's Bond shares divert to MGM's creditors to sell off?

I think precisely that would be a scenario EON probably has put much legal effort into the contracts to avoid at all costs. Just think about it, that would mean there
could be any number of 'partners' suddenly popping up in EON's boat. Out of the question certainly.

[Zorin Industries]

I also think that EON actually is only waiting for MGM to unravel so they can take Bond wherever they like.

It is not strictly "EON" that matters here. Eon Productions are the production house for the James Bond films, not the rights holders.

[zencat]

Yeah, we use Eon when what we should really use is Danjaq. I've tried to switch, but it's hard. "Eon" has become kind of the catch all for the "film people."