From “Gone With the Wind” to “Ben-Hur” to James Bond, the long-lasting MGM film studio, symbolized by its roaring lion, has a storied historical past worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster.
Within the newest chapter within the up-and-down saga of the practically century-old firm, MGM is being purchased by on-line buying large Amazon for $8.45 billion.
Metro Goldwyn Mayer was created in 1924 with the merger of Metro Photos Corp., Goldwyn Photos and Louis B. Mayer Productions.
Mayer and producer Irving Thalberg, often called “The Boy Surprise,” seized the reins of the studio and helped usher in what got here to be often called the Golden Age of Hollywood.
MGM’s wealthy historical past spans from the early days of black-and-white silent films to the primary movies in Technicolor to the digital period of at the moment.
Its heyday was within the Thirties, ’40s and ’50s when it dominated the Hollywood scene with a galaxy of stars that included Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Katherine Hepburn, Mickey Rooney, Spencer Tracy and Elizabeth Taylor.
The corporate’s unofficial motto: “Extra stars than there are in heaven.”
Its official motto — in lettering above Leo the Lion — “Ars Gratia Artis,” or “Artwork for artwork’s sake.”
In 1939, MGM films “Gone With the Wind” and “The Wizard of Oz” have been each nominated for Finest Image on the Academy Awards.
“Gone With the Wind” received.
Lavish musicals resembling “Singin’ within the Rain” additionally grew to become an indicator of the studio that includes such stars as Judy Garland, Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly.
In 1959, MGM produced one in all its greatest field workplace hits, “Ben-Hur” starring Charlton Heston, which went on to win 11 Academy Awards.
– Inventive hunch –
MGM went right into a inventive hunch starting within the Sixties although it nonetheless produced such classics throughout the decade resembling “Physician Zhivago” in 1965 and “2001: A Area Odyssey” in 1968.
After years of decline, the fading studio was purchased by billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian in 1969.
Kerkorian would go on to purchase and promote MGM twice extra over the subsequent few years, together with as soon as to Ted Turner, who would take management of a lot of the corporate’s pre-1986 catalog of movies.
One other main studio, United Artists, as soon as residence to Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and different early silent film stars, merged with MGM in 1981.
In 2010, MGM filed for chapter and resurfaced below new possession.
MGM’s present archive contains greater than 4,000 films together with Finest Image winners resembling “The Condo,” “West Aspect Story,” “Midnight Cowboy,” “Rocky,” “Annie Corridor,” “Platoon,” “Rain Man,” “Dances With Wolves” and “The Silence of the Lambs.”
Among the many movie franchises nonetheless owned by MGM are James Bond, Rocky and The Pink Panther.
In response to MGM, 007 alone has earned the corporate practically $7 billion in worldwide field workplace receipts whereas the Rocky and Creed collection has pulled in one other $1 billion.
MGM’s present tv archive of greater than 17,000 episodes contains such widespread collection as “The Handmaid’s Story” and “Fargo” in addition to actuality TV reveals resembling “Survivor.”
Like different film studios, MGM was onerous hit over the previous yr by the Covid-19 pandemic and was compelled to delay the discharge of its newest money-spinning Bond flick, “No Time to Die.”
The motion movie starring Daniel Craig was initially scheduled to hit theaters in March 2020. It can now be launched in September.
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