$8.45 billion is a lot of money for any company to spend. But when you’re Amazon and you’re trying to get a leg up in the Streaming Wars, spending nearly $8.45 billion on one of the most storied film studios in the history of Hollywood, MGM, seems like a bargain. So, with that mindset, you can totally understand why the tech company vastly overpaid for a library of classic films and the chance to make some future franchise features and TV shows.
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According to Variety, the rumored sale of MGM to Amazon has been confirmed, with Jeff Bezos’ tech company spending $8.45 billion to own MGM. Interestingly, there are reports and speculation that claim Amazon spent roughly $3 billion more than what people thought MGM was worth and what other companies would have offered. Obviously, this is due to Amazon being a massive, trillion-dollar company with seemingly endless pockets, but also because the deal to secure thousands of films and TV shows for Prime Video and the possibility of making James Bond films is worth a lot when you’re competing with the likes of WarnerMedia, Disney, and Netflix.
Sure, this isn’t an apples-to-apples comparison, but the amount of money that Amazon paid for MGM is more than Disney paid for Lucasfilm and Marvel combined ($4.05 billion and $4 billion, respectively). Now, that was years ago and Marvel alone would probably be worth twice that number right now, but it does go to show just how much Amazon desired the library from MGM.
We still don’t know the nuts and bolts of the deal, such as what it means for MGM leadership for Amazon Studios executives. We also don’t know what it means for franchises like James Bond, “Rocky,” “RoboCop,” and the various other IPs that MGM holds in its library. But it appears that Amazon is positioning itself to not just be the place that sells you toilet paper and also sometimes a place for a decent film or TV show. Prime Video is truly a major streaming force and one of the biggest film/TV studios in Hollywood.