Wednesday 3 February 2010

Hollywood Babble On & On #448: Murdoch Goes Metro?

Welcome to the show folks...

Apparently Rupert Murdoch's News Corp is making an offer to buy the struggling MGM, and not only buy it, but the offer declares an intent to keep the venerable MGM independent and viable as a movie company.

There's a similar offer from the Qualia Capital investment firm, but it's the wily Rupert's offer that catches my eye. You see, despite what you might think of old Rupert, he's one sharp customer and he doesn't make offers like that lightly.

It can only mean that he sincerely thinks that he, or to be more exact, someone he assigns, can turn the long struggling company around and make it a success. He's the kind of person who looks at all the angles, and doesn't make a move unless he's going to make a lot of money off of it.

Personally, I suspect that Rupert might want to get MGM for his daughter Elisabeth Murdoch and bring her back into the family/News Corp fold. She'd be an inspired choice, starting Shine Ltd. in 2001 and in 9 short years transforming it into a major television production success story. So far she's been pretty adamant about her independence from the Fox/News Corp empire, but having her British based TV powerhouse merge with a major Hollywood studio, one that would take a tough, intelligent leader to turn around may be too tempting to pass up.

Also it fills in nicely with News Corp's existing businesses, since 2oth Century Fox studios is currently distributor of MGM's home video and international releases. No need to renegotiate with outsiders when that contract runs out, though I'm pretty sure she can drive a hard bargain as good as Daddy.

That's what I think. What do you think?

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