Amazon’s $8.45M takeover of MGM is good news not just for themselves, but for all agents, actors, writers & filmmakers.
As ultra-rich tech giants shrink the pool of content buyers and boost the money spent to create content to attract moviegoers and streaming subscribers, the pool of prime talent able to create that content remains constant. That means the cost of producing filmed entertainment is bound to escalate. The result should be more event films like (pictured – Daniel Craig) MGM/Universal/Eon’s NO TIME TO DIE (bigger budgets but more marketable product = less risk) & fewer mid-level pictures (now with higher budgets but still less marketable = greater risk).
Soaring budgets should also be good news for exhibitors because as movies become more expensive to produce, they also become more dependent on global theatrical distribution to recoup their bloated budgets.
Those rising production costs should also add up to good news for the media because it takes more marketing money to support more expensive products. No studio management – legacy or streaming — wants to risk its own survival by not spending enough to sell its tentpoles.