Hollywood Buoyed by the recent box-office success of The Birdcage, Goldeneye, Leaving Las Vegas and Get Shorty, and with Kingpin, House Arrest and Fled still to come over the summer, Monday saw the final deadline for bids to be placed on the table for the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio.

As of last weekend, MGM/UA held an 8.8% market share of the US box-office this year from its 14 releases.

The bids for MGM when opened are expected to be in the US$1.2 billion range, less than the hoped for US$1.5 billion, and the favourites to win control as of this week are PolyGram; producer James Robinson's Morgan Creek; former Drexel Burnham Lambert executive Peter Ackerman using the name of Capella Films; and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

The outsiders include the current MGM management led by Chairman Frank Mancuso and Arnon Milchan's New Regency. No date has been set for a final decision as to who will win control of MGM but 15 July is being spoken of.

Christopher Pickard

[Home ] [Content ] [The Sponsors ] [The Team ] [Comments ] [Help ]