MGM/UA dies (1924-2005)

by Todd Lipska · Published April 8, 2005 · Updated

Well, it’s finally happend. The studio that gave us Wizard of Oz, Gone
with the Wind, Ben Hur, and many more classic films has closed it’s
doors and it’s assets are being sold to a number of companies.

For a long time the lion has been financially limping. It’s gone thru
many owners, including media mogul Ted Turner, who kept a library of
MGM titles from before ’86 to build TNT. As for UA, after some
ill-fated bombs in the early eighties, (in my opinion) the only thing
keeping it alive really was the James Bond series. MGM & UA merged
in 1981 only to be sold to a guy that ended up in jail. In 1991, the
guy that sold it in ’81 bought it back and brought in some business
executives to get MGM/UA back on it’s feet, but it never returned to
it’s former glory.

Movie franchises like the upcoming Pink
Panther movie (with Steve Martin) will still show the MGM/UA label.
Otherwise, the majority of the pieces will be distributed mostly to
Sony companies (Columbia, Tri-Star, etc.) There’s talk of the
possiblity MGM co-producing films with Sony, but at this point it’s
just speculation.