MGM’s Top Executives Facing a Hard Battle under Amazon Leadership

The executives of the studio are right to be nervous. “When studios acquire other studios, it eventually creates a great degree of upheaval for people and content despite the buyers’ clichéd statements that it intends to leave the acquired company alone,” Gene Del Vecchio, an adjunct professor of marketing at USC’s Marshall School of Business said. “And so we can expect some jockeying for position in both the executive suite and the slate in the near future.”

Amazon did not respond to this story. MGM didn’t respond to ’s request for comment.

As the company revealed at Friday’s town hall meeting, De Luca, Burnett and COO Christopher Brearton will all report to Amazon Studios and Prime Video SVP Mike Hopkins, while Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke will continue to report to Hopkins separately.

The temporary leadership of interim leaders should be viewed as such: temporary. According to Hollywood insiders, the first town hall held after a merger/acquisition is meant to calm employees regarding changes that could affect their jobs. Amazon saying that MGM’s top execs will be part of the leadership structure during this transition phase meant to dampen anxiety.

Amazon stockholders may not be as concerned about the interim executive roster as they are with the creative community in Hollywood. One analyst asked not to be identified said that many Hollywood professionals may be confused about whether a project is better pitched to Salke or to one the MGM execs.

The MGM acquisition — and the subsequent executive shuffle — led to a slight uptick in Amazon’s stock price, from $3,052 to $3,144 on Friday. Even Amazon’s announcement of the $8.45 billion acquisition last May didn’t cause much of a ripple in the stock price, which According to The Motley FoolOther sources pushed up just.2% after the news.

At the time, analysts speculated that stockholders were concerned that $8.45 billion was too much to spend, even for Amazon — currently valued at a staggering $1.6 trillion — and might not do much to further Amazon’s goal of luring new Amazon Prime subscribers who might be just as interested in online shopping as quality streamed entertainment.

However, those who are concerned about Amazon Studios and its future will be worried about the new executive structure. While the greenlight power still rests with the current Amazon team, the tech behemoth will want to take advantage of everything about its new acquisition from MGM’s rich library of 4,000 filmsAnd 17,000 TV episodes to the executive team responsible for developing new content.

De Luca, who took over as chairman of MGM’s Motion Picture Group in January 2020, has been defined by his relationships with talent, paying a premium to land projects from Ridley Scott and Paul Thomas Anderson for “House of Gucci” and “Licorice Pizza,” respectively — the latter of which landed a Best Picture nomination and acclaim, if not box office returns.

A budget of $75 Million “Gucci”Gross $157 Million WorldwideWhile the $40 million “Licorice Pizza”Earned only $29.8 million at global box office

But one producer predicts De Luca may struggle to adapt to Amazon and Salke’s more data-driven “rigorous process”His traditional talent-focused approach to setting up content deals is preferable to his method of creating content deals. “Can these people’s different approaches work together? Mike De Luca is very talent-friendly, while big tech throws money at things,” Stephen Galloway, dean of Chapman University’s Dodge Film School, told . “Amazon has been moving beyond those indie movies that were made pre-Salke. She wants big. So you have to ask whether De Luca has a future there.”

That said, De Luca is a film guy who could help shepherd some of MGM’s existing franchises, including “Creed,” “Tomb Raider”And “Legally Blonde”There are already sequels for these shows. Salke, a former NBC entertainment head who overseen Prime originals such as “The Simpsons,” could be a good addition to his TV expertise. “Jack Ryan,” “The Boys,” “Reacher”And “The Underground Railroad”She joined the streamer team in 2018

Burnett on the other hand has a track record of success with MGM. “The Apprentice”And “The Voice”NBC, among other companies. However, his unscripted hits on MGM have slowed down in recent years after he was appointed chairman of the TV group in 2018. “The Handmaid’s Tale”And “Fargo” have become prestige hits for the studio, but there have been reports that he’s Butted heads with other MGM execs, and most don’t expect him to stick at Amazon.

“Jen is really liked by her team, and Mark has a lot of detractors,”One veteran agent, who requested not to be identified, told that.

“I would be surprised if Mark Burnett sticks around for a long time — very surprised,”Galloway stated.

Until a permanent leadership structure at Amazon emerges, questions will linger about how the cultures of MGM and Amazon will mesh — and whether MGM will maintain any autonomy as its own division with greenlight authority within certain budget parameters. This approach can be modeled in many ways, including the way Searchlight operates within Disney.

MGM has produced everything, from big-budget films like James Bond to art-house fare such as The Avengers. “Licorice Pizza,”It might be more difficult to make clear distinctions between MGM Studios (AMZN Studios) “How do you delineate who makes what movies?”Producer added, “Without a specific lance for either group,” “that’s usually when the drama happens.”

One possible dividing line is in dollars. Amazon was the largest retailer last year. The combined cost of content between music and video was $13 billionThis is far more than the $8.5 billion that Amazon paid for MGM and its vast library of filmed material. That doesn’t even include the James Bond franchise, which Amazon will still only have a 50% stake in due to the unique nature of the Bond rights with EON Productions.

“Take away the library of some 17,000 episodes and 4,000 movies and it’s a small company that doesn’t make that much. Sure, they had ‘Handmaids Tale’ and a few movie hits, but the real future lies in developing their IP a whole lot better than the current leadership has done,”Galloway stated. “They must be looking at the IP and saying, ‘What do we have here that we can build, and who can build it?’”