Amazon Said To Make $9 Billion Offer for MGM (variety.com) 66
Amazon is weeks into negotiations on a deal to acquire MGM for about $9 billion, industry sources tell Variety. From the report: Chatter that Amazon (and other tech giants) have been sniffing around MGM has circulated for some time. But sources indicated that Amazon's interest in acquiring the studio has taken on a new tenor beyond the usual rumor mill. The deal is said to be being orchestrated by Mike Hopkins, senior VP of Amazon Studios and Prime Video, directly with MGM board chairman Kevin Ulrich, whose Anchorage Capital is a major MGM shareholder. MGM had already effectively nailed up a "for sale" sign: Variety confirmed in December that the company was looking for a buyer.
Every restaurant is Taco Bell (Score:5, Insightful)
At some point you really need to wonder if you want a logistics company to also be your food provider, to also be your cloud hosting provider, to also be your smart home, to also be your music and movie provider, to also own your source of audiobooks, to also provide your streaming gaming content, to also own movie studios, ...
You think working conditions at Amazon are bad, just wait until they are the only company you can work for.
Re: Every restaurant is Taco Bell (Score:2)
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I did! Oh man I wish the developers put as much attention to detail into the core game as they did the tiny little world details.
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Re: Every restaurant is Taco Bell (Score:2)
Jokes on you, I work in China... after I worked at Amazon.
I think the bigger loss is to the consumer though if Amazon is a large employer in an area, the issue could be two fold and your basically defaulting into a state of the old "company store". I think the big red flag would be if they got into real estate but I doubt they are that stupid...
Re: Every restaurant is Taco Bell (Score:5, Informative)
I think the big red flag would be if they got into real estate but I doubt they are that stupid...
Funny you should say that, the only reason Amazon isn't in realestate right now is that their partner Realogy pulled the plug mid last year. Between 2019 and 2020 Amazon was also a realestate company in 15 cities in a partnership called "Turnkey".
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I think the big red flag would be if they got into real estate but I doubt they are that stupid...
Funny you should say that, the only reason Amazon isn't in realestate right now is that their partner Realogy pulled the plug mid last year. Between 2019 and 2020 Amazon was also a realestate company in 15 cities in a partnership called "Turnkey".
Funny enough, you know who is one of the wealthiest land owners on the planet?
McDonalds.
For someone who isn't "in" real estate, they certainly have one hell of a portfolio.
Re: Every restaurant is Taco Bell (Score:5, Informative)
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This is a great movie and a great scene.
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Sorry, but the wealthiest land owner on the planet is the Catholic Church.
The reason there is a separation between Church and State is because they are competitors for the same thing: Authoritarian domination of the World -- and the State is a johnny-cum-lately to that game.
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I don't think the GP meant equating "realestate" with owning prime land.
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Interesting. I never knew about this venture.
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Selling your soul to the 'company store'. In this case, the store is totally automated and you are living on benefits. If the Amazon store is the only one left then you have to pay their prices or starve.
How long before we get the AMZN cryptocurrency? Only valid in Amazon outlets and they take 50% on the currency conversion...
Bezos will truly rule the world. He'll be worth more than 50% of all nation-states by 2030.
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How long before we get the AMZN cryptocurrency?
Do you mean like this: https://www.coindesk.com/amazon-digital-currency-mexico [coindesk.com] ? :D
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It's already that bad. Here is a good breakdown that I'm sure is already out of date. http://www.convergencealimenta... [convergenc...taire.info]
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I was looking for an "In Soviet Russia ..." angle. But that might be hitting too close to the truth.
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Cycles (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a continuing cycle. Companies buy up other companies. After a few years, they realize managing an enormous organization is nearly impossible, and they sell off companies to become more manageable. GE used to own NBC. Gulf+Western used to own Paramount. In a 20-year span, Universal was owned by Matsushita, Vivendi, Seagram, partially by GE, then NBC. Westinghouse used to own CBS. Amazon will own MGM for a while, then sell them off after realizing what a headache running a movie studio is.
This has been g
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Except Amazon o
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What do these legacy studios even own besides some standing sets and back catalog? And they don't even own all of that catalog, as some things are co-prods or contract work.
Literally every single part of making a new TV show or movie in 2021 can be done independently of any of the old giant studios, their nifty sets or systems. I'm not sure I know a single person who has ever said they want to see an "MGM Movie" or a "Paramount Movie" versus wanting to see directors or actors or work by certain writers or
Jeff just wants to put his head (Score:5, Funny)
Any good MGM movies lately ? (Score:1)
Re: Any good MGM movies lately ? (Score:3)
Back catalog not included (Score:5, Informative)
MGM had to sell off most of its back catalog to Ted Turner (now owned by AT&T/WB/HBO) back in the 80s to keep from going under (Gone with the Wind, Wizard of Oz, etc). The primary value in MGM at this point is its "active" franchises (James Bond, Handmaid's Tale, Stargate, etc).
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Maybe Amazon will get them to manufacture SG-1 DVD sets without a third of the discs in every package being unreadable.
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We are more likely to get cars powered by our own ZPE generators than quality disc manufacturing.
Seriously. Bad discs have been happening since the first laserdiscs were hit with rot. Nobody has consistently managed to get this under control despite decades of trying. Bad batches still escape beta testing and QA and go into mass production.
I love physical media. But quality is all over the place and nothing is ever going to improve when making it for the lowest cost is the goal. I know of boutique p
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Bad batches still escape beta testing and QA and go into mass production.
I wish I could blame bad batches. Not including the three sets I went through at Fry's, it took four sets from Amazon to get a single working set of DVDs, with the first three sets having about a 25% coaster rate, and the second set having maybe a 10% coaster rate. I'm pretty sure somebody either failed to UV-cure the epoxy, forgot the hardener, or didn't wait for it to harden before stuffing it into the cardboard sleeves. I've never seen anything like it in all my life. Seven sets, two different retail
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And yes, pics [gatwood.net] or it didn't happen. :-D
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Will this mean the major networks wont be able to air The Wizard of Oz during holiday season now? At least without having to pay his bald highness proper tax and swear fealty?
You're thinking of Apple.
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I think there's a peculiar effect that comes from being a "founder" CEO. They built the company from the ground up, which probably fosters a sense of omnipotence. The next generation of CEOs are either people that came up through the company, or are brought in from the outside, so there isn't nearly that sense of entitlement or need for worship that you find among the founders. I wouldn't call it a rule, since there are probably no lack of examples of founders who didn't get (or expect) endless adulation. I
Re: Any good MGM movies lately ? (Score:2)
They are going for the facilities and maybe the quality of thier production staff as an upgrade to their current movie production staff and what is probably a lack of facilities.
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That's the first thing that popped into my head when I read Amazon wants to purchase MGM. MGM has been sitting on Stargate for a decade, not doing anything with it at all, no plans, nothing. If it gets bought at least there's a chance of a new show. Wasn't the whole reason for stopping Stargate shows (Atlantis/Universe) that MGM went bakrupt back in 2010?
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CGI has gotten a lot better and a lot cheaper the past decade.
They could make some EPIC Star Gate shows.
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I don't have time or inclination to go searching 40 different streaming services for the thing I want - I don't even bother.
There are services that do that for you, you know. One I've used before is Just Watch [justwatch.com], which has support for lots of countries. It'll tell you who is streaming, renting or selling what movies and TV shows. You can configure your streaming providers, and then just search them for stuff. I don't use it much, as I prefer another service that's specific to the country I'm in.
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There are services that do that for you, you know. One I've used before is Just Watch
Interesting, it figures that someone would set up a service like this. Of course, it assumes that I want to pay 40 different streaming services for access to content that used to be centralized on Netflix ;) ... However, I went and searched for a few things and found none of them on that site, so I guess much of what I want is just too obscure I guess.
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Actually probably at least 2 movies a month. Which isn't bad considering the main reason most people have prime is for the free shipping and delivery.
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Looking through their catalog, Hot Tub Time Machine is my favorite and also the funniest.
Re: no one wants (Score:3)
I would kill for more new Stargate though the miniseries was okay. I don't think this is what you mean by SGC though..
World’s “deepest libraries” of p (Score:2)
From the article:
"MGM claims to own one of the world’s “deepest libraries” of premium film and TV content.
Its 4,000 film titles include the James Bond, Hobbit, Rocky/Creed, RoboCop and Pink Panther franchises, as well as movies like “The Silence of the Lambs,” “The Magnificent Seven” and “Four Weddings and a Funeral.” The MGM TV library includes approximately 17,000 episodes of programming, including “Stargate SG-1,” “Stargate Atlantis,
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You uncultured swine!
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It doesn't seem that great?!? Did you just blow right past In the Heat of the Night?
You uncultured swine!
The wokesters at Amazon may delete that show because Archie Bunker stars in it.
I wonder if the lion gets pee breaks... (Score:2)
Maybe it can eat Bezos.
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If anyone has the money to do it it's Amazon. They are literally launching money into space at this point, could at least throw us a bone and revive Stargate in some fashion. Hell, I'd probably pay a dollar or two per episode if that was a thing when they released.
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Megacorps (Score:4)
I always thought the mega corps portrayed in science fiction were plausible, I just never expected to see them during my lifetime.
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Good but Maybe Bad (Score:3)
As a consumer, this sounds good. I like the idea of knowing that all the MGM content should be streaming on Amazon. (It's unfortunate as someone pointed out that their older stuff was sold, but I suspect that's all part of the new AT&T spinoff/merger with Discovery.) The big concern that I have is that if Amazon's video service gets enough stuff on it, they may decide to treat it like Prime Music, where you get a small subset with your Prime membership, but then you have to pay for an additional video membership to get everything.
Google should buy it instead. (Score:2)
Along with the rest of Hollywood.
Split Amazon Prime streaming from the rest (Score:2)
There's a virtual studio hiding in there already, and a consolidation at that level won't be much of an issue. But let's force the programme production side to separate from the rest of Amazon as a separately floated company.
And I still can't find something worth watching (Score:2)
I spent about 20 minutes scrolling through a lot of content on Prime and Netflix last night and seriously could not find something worth watching. And when the hell are they going to implement the ability to filter out foreign language films with English subtitles? I want to be entertained. If I wanted to read, I'd pick up a book.