Is the MGM Lion headed for the Amazon?

According to a report Monday by The Information, Amazon.com Inc. is in discussions to buy MGM Holdings Inc, the studio behind the James Bond franchise, at a cost that is speculated to be around 9 billion dollars.

Besides Bond movies, MGM owns an extensive library of movies and TV shows, including the Rocky franchise, The Terminator, The Handmaid’s Tale, Fargo, and Survivor.

Deadline reports that its sources say that there’s been a weeks of talks between the tech giant and the Hollywood studio that included sales presentations. Naturally, MGM declined to comment on rumors, and Amazon also did not respond.

It’s not the first time there has been scuttlebutt about MGM being on the selling block; rumors of a sale have been afloat for years. Last December, the Wall Street Journal said that MGM had tapped Morgan Stanley and LionTree to explore the idea of a sale. At the time, it looked like another tech giant, Apple, was interested in acquiring the studio. MGM had been seeking $10 billion-plus, which was over what potential buyers seemed willing to spend.

Amazon seems to want to turn Prime Video into an even bigger time-suck for its customers worldwide by adding what MGM claims is one of the world’s “deepest libraries” of premium film and TV content to its catalog.

Even though media is a relatively small piece of Amazon’s behemoth empire, it represents a fast-growing business segment. In 2020, the company spent $11 billion on content for its streaming video and music services, up 40% from 2019.

More specifics include that the deal is said to be being orchestrated by Mike Hopkins, senior VP of Amazon Studios and Prime Video, directly with MGM board chairman Kevin Ulrich, whose Anchorage Capital is a major MGM shareholder.

This deal could herald a new round of corporate consolidation in the entertainment industry, considering that AT&T said Monday it will combine its massive WarnerMedia media assets with Discovery Inc. to create a new media heavyweight in a $43 billion deal set to close sometime next year.

That move unites media brands such as WarnerMedia’s HBO and HBOMax and CNN with Discovery’s HGTV, Animal Planet, Food Network, and TLC under one umbrella, and would make Discovery an imposing media conglomerate.

The combined new company would form one of the largest global streaming platforms in direct competition with Netflix and, yes, Amazon, which could increase the odds of the MGM acquisition going forward.