The name's Bezos . . . Jeff Bezos.
It's strange that one of the newest forms of entertainment now owns an old movie studio with a long history.
"Amazon is investing even more heavily in growing its position in the entertainment world. The company announced Wednesday that it made a deal to acquire MGM, the home of James Bond and one of the most iconic movie studios in Hollywood," CNN reports. "The deal, which is valued at $8.45 billion, gives Amazon an extensive library of film and TV shows that it can use to fill out its Prime Video content coffers. MGM has a catalog with more than 4,000 films and 17,000 TV shows."
Like Netflix and Hulu, Amazon has a big interest in online entertainment. It wants to keep its Prime members happy with new movies and shows. Now it owns MGM's library. (MGM is the one with the roaring lion in all the opening frames.) In the streaming wars, companies feel like they have to grow to compete with each other. So Amazon gobbled up MGM so it could look at the other streaming services and flex.
At some point, it might become pertinent to ask if these digital companies are getting a little too big. One has to wonder about the monopolization of entertainment here.
Then again, consumers don't seem all that upset. Whenever one streaming service buys a studio or another entertainment company, subscribers get access to more movies and shows. And it seems like everybody and their brother is starting a streaming service now. Maybe this is just the way entertainment has evolved in the digital age.
Folks will have to wait and see how it all shakes out. For now, two worlds have collided. Of course, our main concern right now is the new 007 movie. That's still coming out this year, right?