Amazon has agreed to buy MGM, the storied film studio behind James Bond and Rocky, for $8.45bn, propelling media dealmaking so far this year to its highest level since the turn of the century with more than $240bn worth of transactions announced.
The ecommerce giant’s deal, its biggest acquisition in the media sector, follows AT&T’s decision this month to combine WarnerMedia with Discovery to create a movies and TV company with an enterprise value of more than $130bn. The combined group hopes to compete with Disney, Netflix and Amazon in the streaming race.
The MGM deal is Amazon’s largest since the $13.7bn purchase of Whole Foods in 2017, and the latest signal that it is willing to spend heavily on content for its streaming services. Earlier this year the company signed an agreement worth around $1bn per year to stream the NFL, one of several recent sporting rights acquisitions.
“The real financial value behind this deal is the treasure trove of IP in the deep catalog that we plan to reimagine and develop together with MGM’s talented team,” Mike Hopkins, senior vice-president of Prime Video and Amazon Studios, said in a statement Wednesday. “It’s very exciting and provides so many opportunities for high-quality storytelling.”
Amazon spent $11bn on content in 2020, up from $7.8bn in the previous year, as it doubles down on its effort to attract and retain new members to its $119-a-year Prime membership scheme.
In a recent shareholder letter, chief…
