Sony/MGM possible sale of UA (1 Viewer)

[dana martin]

http://www.latimes.com/business/cust...business-enter

Has anyone heard anything about this, and what studios are looking into the acquisition, god i hope it's WB,

 

[Steve JD]

Would anyone know exactly what the list of 100 movies is?

 

[Mike Wadkins]

everything but bond and rocky

 

[Charles H]

Sony/MGM recently cancelled KID MILLIONS (a Goldwyn film from MGM) and PAPER LION (a UA release) from their dvd releases. I notice that the Goldwyn film library has been very visible on the TCM schedule in the past few months. I wish WB had control of the UA library.

 

[dana martin]

Ok to make this more interesting, United Artist has the 3 Kubrick titles, that is my biggest concern in the list, then there is the Eastwood Man with no Name Trilogy, we have one SE for TGTBTY, but the other two haven't been addressed yet.

 

[AlanBrom]

I would also love to see old UA horror classics like RETURN OF DRACULA, THE NEANDERTHAL MAN, THE BLACK SLEEP, CURSE OF THE FACELESS MAN, THE VAMPIRE, VAMPIRE AND THE BALLEINA, DR. BLOOD'S COFFIN, etc. Hopefully stuff like this is on the list since Sony shows no interest in them.

 

[Jay E]

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Warner will buy the UA library...or Criterion

 

[Joe Caps]

The LAST thing I want is for Warners to acquire more films. ONe of their problems is that theyhave too many films already and can't do everything.

 

[John Kilduff]

How about selling it to the Walt Disney Company?

I think that they could do pretty well with it...Then again, their transfers for the Roger Corman titles haven't gone that well.

Sincerely,

John Kilduff...

If they were to do this, maybe they might change the park name from Disney-MGM Studios to Disney-United Artists Studios.

 

[dana martin]

While granted, i think that the choices of Sony/MGM will not bode great things on the 100 or so films, i just have this bad feeling about this, I dont think that Criterion is in the business of running a studio, but that said, what ever the get therie creative hands on is always a treat to enjoy. But for those who dont know how important united artist is , here is a little readinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Artists
Kind of odd that after all of there years that one of the studios from the beginning is treated this way.

I understand the comment about WB, i think that the biggest reason that most would like to see it go that rout is there dedication, to restoration, and willingness to release catalog titles, more so than most of the other studios.

All one needs to do is look at the selected releases at the bottom oof the article to see where this could be of some merit. If only the Powerball was at this level right now huh???

 

[Andy_Dursin]

It's ironic how the "big movies" that are part of the MGM label now aren't MGM movies at all...they're UA films like 007 and the Pink Panther franchises. And now UA is being sold, but the "big" UA films won't be part of it...and I'm assuming lesser *MGM* properties will.

So the new MGM is mostly the UA library -- and the new UA will be mostly old (or bad) MGM titles.

Weird how the world works sometimes.

 

[dana martin]

it could very well end up that way, then depending on what Sony wants to do i might never get a great release of The Apartment.

 

[Mark Edward Heuck]

I suspect that what this sale really would encompass would be the UA name, and films less than ten years old from both MGM and UA -- almost all the classic UA titles that we love, not just Bond movies, would likely stay in the consortium controlled by Sony.

Remember, SONY DOES NOT OWN MGM! They are the majority shareholder in the consortium that owns the company. Sony is controlling the assets by virtue of "eliminating redundant departments" -- they chose to reduce MGM to a library firm and take over the distribution for the time being. So they call the shots on operational things like print restorations and DVD releases, but at the end of the day they are merely caretakers. As such, with enough money, Sony could be paid off and the studio could go independent again.

Let us pray to our movie-loving gods that this happens and not this small UA sale -- the MGM/UA library has been piecemealed enough over the decades, for once let it stay intact.