Sep 25 2009There's Not Enough Money To Buy Hobbits and James Bonds!
In news that could jeopardize our future supplies of James Bond and J.R.R. Tolkien films, MGM reportedly held a conference call with bondholders (something business people do) informing them that, despite the studio's early success of dressing up dogs and dubbing funny voices over them, now they're super broke:
MGM made a desperate plea for money because the studio had missed its numbers and was going to be out of funds very soon. "The implication was that it's teetering on bankruptcy," one source told me. MGM said it needed $20M in short-term cash flow to cover overhead, and an additional $150 million to get through the end of year and continue funding its projects, and to start Peter Jackson's Hobbit.So the bondhholders said to MGM, in essence, that they were going to let the studio go bankrupt and collect their money since they'd be first in line to get paid. But Cooper explained that this would be the worst possible outcome for the creditors and the company. Because if MGM were forced into bankruptcy, then it would lose James Bond and the studio doesn't think it can stay alive without 007.
Strangely, the article makes no mention of how this could affect production of MGM's upcoming Jeeper Creepers 3: The Creeper Walks Among Us. That's still going be OK, right? RIGHT?
Reader Comments
1. Jason G - September 25, 2009 4:33 PM
Any word on where the LOTR Billions went?
Nevermind, I see that they handled the pink panther movies.
2. Og - September 25, 2009 8:09 PM
The last 007 cost 175 million and I walked out of the theatre wondering where they spent all that money. It looked like a 30 million dollar movie. On the flip side, I walked out of District 9 thinking that it looked like a 175 million dollar film and it only cost 30.
Solution? Give 50 million to Neil Blomkamp to make the next Bond movie and take the extra 100 million they would have spent on making Bond super ordinary and give it to Jackson to continue his Hobbit fetish (only this time pay him proper).
3. Brandon - September 26, 2009 2:51 AM
As long as MGM losing the rights to Bond doesn't mean no more Bond movies I don't care.
4. CMan - September 26, 2009 4:29 AM
I'm sure as an investor you like to hear that the company is broke and they want you top invest more money. Great strategy.
5. gman - September 26, 2009 12:52 PM
what about stargate??????? MGM own stargate :(
6. scrotumbagmonkeyflicker - September 27, 2009 4:33 AM
No more Bond movies..... eeeeeeexcellleeeent.
7. paula - September 28, 2009 6:00 AM
I'm sure as an investor you like to hear that the company is broke and they want you top invest more money. Great strategy.
8. Captain - September 28, 2009 8:19 AM
Must See!!!
http://alturl.com/obg7
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9. BringbackBabalu - September 29, 2009 10:45 AM
Maybe if they didn't make James Bond movies that fucking suck it wouldn't be a problem. It is beyond me how they can ruin a James Bond movie, but they did...twice...and thats not easy to do
10. frank - October 1, 2009 5:00 AM
@2: That sounds... strangely brilliant.
The hobbit its on a deadline! Sir Ian can only go climbing mountains and riding horses for so long before he's too damn old. You can't CGI that shit with a motion-captured Andy Serkis.