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Legendary Entertainment Makes A Bid For Lionsgate
Paddle up // Image by Kait Cunniff with DALL-E
Legendary Entertainment has reportedly made a bid to buy Lionsgate, the studio behind John Wick, The Hunger Games, and Saw.
The Big Picture: Lionsgate has been angling to be acquired for years, but made that ambition easier to achieve last year when it split from Starz. Hollywood is in the midst of major consolidation and transition, spurring even more M&A activity… so it’s possible Lionsgate (which has also been eyed by Netflix and a team-up of Banijay and Mediawan) will finally get the deal it’s been looking for.
Behind The Scenes: Legendary, the studio behind epic films like Dune and Godzilla, is looking to make an equally epic deal.
Per Bloomberg, Legendary finally submitted an official bid for Lionsgate, which would include its studio operations, management and production company 3 Arts Entertainment, and a library of over 20,000 film and TV titles.
The details remain undisclosed, but Lionsgate has a market value of roughly $3.7 billion and carries $1.9 billion in debt.
But that valuation could certainly grow if a real deal starts to materialize — Bloomberg’s story sent the stock soaring 21%.
That’s on top of Lionsgate already having a relatively good year, with $1 billion in annual revenue (thanks in large part to the blockbuster success of Michael).
Last Offer: A takeover of Lionsgate would be a major step up for Legendary, which has mostly been in the business of producing blockbusters but has relied on studio partners like Universal, Warner Bros., and, now, Paramount to release them. What Lionsgate would give Legendary is a lot of passive income (libraries are the real moneymakers in Hollywood) and a theatrical distribution division.
In other words, it’s the making of a new major studio.
Coming Soon: Netflix is also on the hunt to acquire a studio, so a bidding war could be in the cards.
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Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Nick Comney. Polled and Copy-edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar.