Amazon Nears Deal to Buy Hollywood Studio MGM | Hacker News Reader

Amazon Nears Deal to Buy Hollywood Studio MGM

wsj.com

102 pointslunchbreak74 comments

Amazon tends to beat the creative parts out of the companies they buy. I bet it's related to the financial efficiencies they apply to them. Creativity is expensive without any guaranteed return.

Most of the new prime video content, that I've seen, seems to have a very safe tone to it. Yes, it's new but it's safe. No one will be surprised or insulted by it. It starts to get boring very quickly.

As new owners, I hope they don't have such a hard hand that they ruin the brand.

> Most of the new prime video content, that I've seen, seems to have a very safe tone to it. Yes, it's new but it's safe. No one will be surprised or insulted by it. It starts to get boring very quickly.

Overall I agree with your point and I'm extremely confident Amazon buying MGM will completely and utterly fuck over any creative potential that company has (similar to what's happening with AT&T and HBO), but - if you're looking for something good to watch on Prime, take a look at Invincible. I was actually about to give up on it and then I got to the end of the first episode and I binged the rest of the show in less than a day.

It's the first time in years I've looked forward to the next season of a show that isn't a comedy.

If you like Invincible, you should The Boys a try. It is fantastic, great cast, great cinematography, and great source material which is adapted in such a way that it is honestly better than the original comics it is based on.

Agree, I think the same thing happened when Disney acquired Fox film studios. Disney is notorious for low pay and alot of the fox execs/creatives were extremely worried after the acquisition, same thing going on with with Amazon/MGM.

I know amazon paid a fortune for Tolkien's Silmarillion TV rights and we haven't seen a single thing about that situation. My big worry is amazon screws around with the Bond franchise and ruins it, it seems to be doing extremely well with top directors and large blockbuster returns.

Amazon is very busy making it's LOTR First Age show still, it's just a big, multi year production.

Fleabag and Marvelous Mrs Maisel didn't seem very safe to me at all

Or The Expanse or Invincible or The Boys. I think there are plenty of examples of good content.

I really liked Fleabag. Maisel seemed too pretentious, watched only 2 or 3 episodes. Maybe should try again.

> Maisel seemed too pretentious

Opinion that you didn't ask for: I felt that it was both a good show and a terrible one at the same time and decided to stop watching it. It felt like it was 40% "haha these mega-rich Jews are mega-rich, Jews, and also out of touch", 40% "Gilmore Girls in New York", 19% "romantic nostalgia for Lenny Bruce and a young Joan Rivers", and 1%...I don't know...maybe "they showed boobs on screen that one time".

Amazon didn't produce Fleabag, they just have international rights.

Exactly I watched it on BBC.

If we're splitting hairs, BBC didn't produce it either.

I was surprised to learn that it was actually co-production between the BBC and Amazon

Often all this means is that they put $ in and trusted the BBC to oversee.

I disagree with this. The search for "safe" is by no means an Amazon problem exclusively and in many ways they do it much less than most.

Invincible is probably the "least safe" superhero show I've ever seen in terms of content and themes. It's tonally bizarre too.

> Most of the new prime video content, that I've seen, seems to have a very safe tone to it.

Watch Invincible.

> Yes, it's new but it's safe. No one will be surprised or insulted by it.

Are you sure? I was just watching the first episode of Solos where the character says that Trump has defected/escaped to Russia. I won’t call that a safe line..

Similarly they have Borat 2, again not very safe.

Perhaps you’re referring to some other type of content..

The Boys? Invincible? Fleabag? Transparent? Marvelous Mrs. Maisel? The Expanse?

I disagree with your premise entirely. I see them trying to unseat HBO as the resource for all the pop culture shows you remember twenty years from now.

I definitely believe them to be bolder than Netflix for their breadth of original libraries.

That might be a little bold, but that’s what I see them trying to do.

I enjoyed the series about the Romanovs

Totally agree. I don't watch much streaming these days but from my limited experience Amazon and HBO are the only ones where i can tune in to a random new show and have a better than even chance it's not total pap.

I beg to differ the Asian and Europeans content of netflix is quite different from the usual blockbuster hollywood content,

Yeah I'm not saying Netflix never has good stuff, just that it's few and far between in comparison to the others I mentioned.

> The Boys? Invincible? Fleabag? Transparent? Marvelous Mrs. Maisel? The Expanse?

It is worth noting that major studios (or the BBC in Fleabag's case) make all of those shows and Amazon buys them.

But I still agree with the general point that it's unfair to argue Amazon "beats the creativity" out of productions it deals with.

When was the last time MGM did something truly creative? They pretty much just churn out the same formulaic franchise films every 2-3 years (James Bond, Rocky/Creed) or do pointless reboots (Robocop, Legally Blonde, Pink Panther). The studio has already gone through bankruptcy and layoffs and is on its last legs. There isn't too much left for Amazon to ruin.

This is exactly it. The goal of the sale is to own the rights to semi-famous original content and an interesting back catalog on the cheap. Amazon just sees the sale as better then bidding against Netflix for the same content.

Some of the Prime content (my point of view is as a consumer in India), seems to bank on portraying sex / sexuality in a more open manner (depictions of sexual acts, topless scenes, etc). Feels like there is a certain degree of planning to "exploit" this type of media, considering Indian society and media itself is fairly conservative.

Ya the violence and sex on some of the Amazon original content like Mirzapur is shocking!

In India, Amazon ran into troubles for a bunch of its show. It's another thing that India is becoming more and more politically volatile. But yea, Amazon did make bold enough stuff here.

I just want Jeff bezos to save Stargate like he saved the expanse. I can only hope that Amazon will protect The Stargate franchise from coming to the same fate as Star wars and Star trek.

The Expanse was cancelled and then saved by Amazon within a year, Stargate has essentially been a dead property for 10 years.

Stargate Origins came out in 2018

There is a difference between saving a show and saving a franchise.

The Star Trek movies saved the franchise which lead to TNG, DS9 and Voyager, they didn’t save the original series tho.

I only hope is that they won’t turn Stargate into Discovery like show.

Chevron 7 locked

"waaaaaaaaaa"

If they do make a new series, I think I care more about Walter getting a cameo than literally anyone else from the original show

Chevron 8 locked:

https://youtu.be/z72GiUz2VI8?t=104 https://youtu.be/QRJCpRPpT9U?t=250

Stargate is actually on the brink of returning. And that's super exciting. Amazon may give it that extra disposable money push needed.

Some newer developments you may have missed:

* Stargate Origins aired in 2018 [1]

* Brad Wright/Joseph Mallozzi are actively working to get a new project off the ground [2] and are looking to tap original cast members (to bootstrap)

* A new Stargate 4X strategy game was just announced [3]

---

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_Origins

[2] https://www.gateworld.net/news/2021/05/stargate-timekeepers-...

[3] https://www.gateworld.net/news/2021/05/stargate-timekeepers-...

Stargate is amazing. 17 seasons across 3 series (not counting origins), several tv movies, a few books... etc.

It started off cheesy, but the universe they built was so detailed and neat.

I'm definitely hoping Amazon buys them out and greenlights Stargate.

So when are we going to break up Amazon?

This purchase should be illegal yesterday

Monopolists are going to downvote you, but they're wrong.

These megacorps shouldn't be allowed to enter fifteen different industries and kill off the incumbents. This is absurd.

Amazon is internet services infra, shopping, logistics, fulfillment, consumer hardware, networking, a payments stack, publisher, grocery store, and now a fucking entertainment company.

They track us, turn us into non-owner subscribers, and prevent us from building companies that can compete with their scale. We're eternally subservient. It's not healthy for innovation!

Break up Apple.

Break up Amazon.

Break up Google.

But all those rich news paper /media moguls get a pass then

> Amazon is internet services infra, shopping, logistics, fulfillment, consumer hardware, networking, a payments stack, publisher, grocery store, and now a fucking entertainment company.

How many of these do they have a monopoly on? Keep in mind, the definition of monopoly is: "the exclusive possession or control of the supply of or trade in a commodity or service."

They can enter new industries well below market cost and destroy all of the existing businesses. They then soak up everything. In the end, everything becomes Amazon.

They did it to open source, bookstores, retail.

Maybe you don't see the end goal, where every restaurant is Amazon and you rent your home from Jeff Bezos?

Maybe you're not worried and you trust these people?

Maybe you don't want to compete and you just want to be an employee?

I don't know. But this is wrong. You can't compete with this, you're forced to work with it. It decreases degrees of freedom and angle of attack for everyone else.

From Amazon's perspective, their moat becomes an ocean. That's hard to swim in.

Why the downvotes. A mobile operator named Jio did this in India.

Amazon employees and shareholders.

Please follow the rules. You broke them here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

They are the dominant player in only a few of those, and even in those dominant markets, they are far from a monopoly.

Now, if they use a dominant position in one industry to gain advantage in another, that is a different story, but also a harder thing to show.

The only companies they're competing against are also monopolies.

Competition is great(for innovation, pay, creativity) anything that interferes with competition, is a bad net for society and good for a very small number of incumbent players.

Except that the biggest company buying up other players is highly anticompetitive?

I don’t think subsubzero was disagreeing with you. Their comment reads like it is supporting you.

Yes. The classroom example of a vertically integrated monopoly has always been the big movie studio systems in the 40s. They not only made the movies but also distributed them and then owned the theaters they were shown in. This monopoly was broken up in 1948. It resulted in better films and paved the way for television.

Amazon will make the movies, host them on AWS, stream them to their Firesticks, shows them through Amazon Prime on glowing rectangles bought in their store and monetizes it all with their ad service. How is that not a vertical monopoly?

> How is that not a vertical monopoly?

Because vertical integration is neither a necessary or sufficient condition for a monopoly.

It’s a non sequitur.

It seems like a vertical merger; not confident that an antitrust issue would meet the bar in this transaction.

When they do something anti-consumer. As it is now, they are saving consumers so much money, the federal reserve has blamed them for keeping inflation low.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/01/new-fed-chairman-says-amazon...

What I don't understand is why Netflix hasn't been doing this already – use their vast wealth to buy some legacy entertainment companies. Gives you both the opportunity to get their legacy content library into your streaming service, and also existing stories to use as a basis for new content (Disney seems to be pretty good at doing the later recently)

They're betting on filling 5000 niches hunting for the next Stranger Things-level breakout hit.

> Amazon.com Inc. is nearing a deal to buy the Hollywood studio MGM Holdings for almost $9 billion including debt, said people familiar with the matter, a pact that would turn a film operation founded in the silent era into a streaming asset for the e-commerce giant.

What surprises me is that at $9 Billion, why hasn’t it been acquired by now?

Right now, video streaming is pretty much a solved problem, and it is content that differentiates one service from another.

If you are an Internet giant, $9 Billion seems like a pocket change to get access to a huge catalog.

Good point - you'd think Netflix would have been buying this stuff up.

how many originals can they pump out at 9B though?

Owning proven stuff is probably a more reliable investment than hoping one of your darts in the wall develops the cultural cachet of any of these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer_f...

How many Netflix productions come even close for all the tens of billions they've poured into it? Reliable names mean customer retention.

As attractive as catalog content can seem, it's not the reason why new customers join, and stay with, a streaming service. New content is King.

Tell that to the owners of The Office.

Peacock making anything new and relevant?

Is Peacock the embodiment of streaming success? For every Office and Friends there are 100s of duds that people just don't care much about after the final season.

> Tell that to the owners of The Office.

Tell that to Netflix, which hardly lost any subscribers when they lost their most popular catalog show.

The biggest IP is Bond and the Broccoli family own 50% of it and have creative control over the movies (and whether or not it can be a tv series).

I imagine that's the complication, you buy MGM but don't really have full control over the crown jewel so to speak.

What does Amazon get if they buy a Hollywood studio, besides the content library? Is MGM just a holder of copyright for various popular franchises or does the company actually make things?

Strategic power against other content creators. They need some can’t miss content similar to HBO/Disney/Netflix.

You’ve just answered your own question. A huge catalog of classics as well as franchises that can be developed into new shows and movies.

The Bond franchise alone probably is worth half of what this deal is gonna cost.

>The Bond franchise alone probably is worth half of what this deal is gonna cost.

Probably not. MGM doesn't "own" Bond in the same way that Disney owns Star Wars. There are complicating factors to the Bond movies that reduce the brand's value to MGM and any new prospective owner.

Right, Bond is controlled by the Broccoli family (Eon Productions)

Previous discussion from when it was reportedly rather than near: "Amazon is reportedly negotiating to acquire MGM for about $9B" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27194167

So Tom and Jerry gonna be available on Prime now?

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