| Media & Marketing: MGM Studios Keeps Gaze on UA's Pot of Gold | The Wall Street Journal August 27, 2008 | Who is calling the shots at United Artists?
MGM owns two-thirds of the historic UA movie label, which holds access to a coveted $500 million in financing raised by Merrill Lynch & Co., but now administered by J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. That is money that MGM Studios could use to help dig itself out of its current financial struggles.
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| | MGM Looks at the Debt Picture | | Evening StandardAugust 26, 2008 | Aug. 26--Hollywood studio MGM says it is exploring "enhancements" to its long-term capital structure that could include a stock offering or debt refinancing, but does not plan to put the company on the market.
MGM has retained Goldman Sachs to explore options for dealing with its $3.7 billion (£2 billion) of debt.
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| SAG, Studios -- Action! | | Los Angeles TimesAugust 26, 2008 | The entertainment industry is reputed to be recession-proof, but in the current downturn even Hollywood isn't firing on all cylinders.
It's still mired in the labor turmoil that began when the Writers Guild of America walked out in November.
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| | MGM Studios 'Not for Sale' Despite High Debt | | Los Angeles TimesAugust 26, 2008 | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. said Monday it was "not for sale" after BusinessWeek magazine said MGM's owners wanted to sell the movie company for $5.2 billion.
The company said its owners were committed to growing the studio and denied there was an asking price.
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| L.A. Film Shoots on Hiatus | | Los Angeles TimesAugust 26, 2008 | If not for an epic struggle between alien robots, the streets of Los Angeles might be devoid of major studio drama.
Filming of big-budget movies has ground to a virtual halt across the city and much of the county, a slowdown partly driven by scheduling decisions studios made a year ago to prepare for a possible actors strike.
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| | Warner Bets on Fewer, Bigger Movies | | The Wall Street JournalAugust 22, 2008 | Emboldened by this summer's success with "The Dark Knight," Warner Bros.' movie studio is setting a new strategy.
But the studio, known for making more big, expensive movies than most rivals, plans to make even more of those -- some centered on properties from its DC Comics unit, such as Batman.
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| Warner Bros. May Put Studio in Old Wixom Plant: Film Execs Visit Ford Site Monday | | Detroit Free PressAugust 20, 2008 | Aug. 20--Warner Brothers executives visited Ford's idle assembly plant in Wixom on Monday, state and studio officials confirmed Tuesday.
Warner Brothers spokesman Scott Rowe said the Burbank, Calif., company was in the "exploratory stage at this point," adding that "as a matter of practice, we are consistently scouting out places all over the world."
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| | MGM Seeking Financing | | Los Angeles TimesAugust 20, 2008 | Movie studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., which is controlled by private equity firms, is raising as much as $600 million to produce some of its biggest films, including "The Hobbit."
The financing will be completed in about three weeks, a spokesman for Los Angeles-based MGM said.
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| Studio's Growth Focuses on 3-D | | Los Angeles TimesAugust 18, 2008 | DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc., creator of the hit "Shrek" films, is bulking up in a big way.
The company this week will begin an $85-million project to expand its 13-acre Glendale studio, adding 100,000 square feet of new production space and more than 500 jobs in the next two years.
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| | Ndtv Lumiere Partners With Jaman.Com to Provide Movie Downloads. | | AsiaPulse NewsAugust 13, 2008 | (BW)(CA-JAMAN/NDTV-LUMIERE) NDTV Lumiere Partners With Jaman.com to Provide Easy, Efficient and Secure Movie Downloads
MUMBAI, India --(BUSINESS WIRE) - Aug. 13, 2008-- World cinema aficionados across India and the SAARC territories now have a chance to experience and enjoy true cinematic delights at their leisure.
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| | Starz's Film Download Service Shuts | | Los Angeles TimesAugust 13, 2008 | Liberty Media Corp.'s pay TV subsidiary Starz is pulling the plug on its Vongo movie-download service in favor of letting Verizon Communications Inc. and other affiliates market a similar service.
Starz said it had notified visitors to Vongo's website that it was no longer accepting new subscribers as of Aug. 1 and that the Vongo service would cease after Sept. 30.
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| | China Film Industry Box Office Takings May Hit New High. | | AsiaPulse NewsAugust 07, 2008 | BEIJING, Aug 7 Asia Pulse - Box office takings in China may hit a new high by exceeding 4 billion yuan ($US590 million) this year, according to an official with the country's movie regulator.
The box office reached a record 3.33 billion yuan in 2007, but the film industry was expected to rake in more this year, topping four billion yuan, said Zhang Hongsen, an official with the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT).
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| Marvel Profit Rises 60% on Interest in Films | | The Wall Street JournalAugust 06, 2008 | Marvel Entertainment Inc. posted a 60% increase in second-quarter profit and boosted its full-year forecast due to contributions from its films "Iron Man" and "The Incredible Hulk."
The comic-book maker, which saw strong box-office sales for both films, said the quarter's figures don't include the films' box-office results but said media and consumer interest in the films drove strong results in the licensing division.
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| | MGM's Sloan Signs New Deal | | Los Angeles TimesAugust 05, 2008 | Speculation that his job might be in jeopardy was dashed when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios announced that Harry Sloan had signed a new three-year deal to continue as chairman and chief executive of the struggling studio.
Sloan was hired in October 2005 after the studio was sold to an investment consortium that includes Sony Corp. of America, Comcast Corp., Providence Equity Partners and Texas Pacific Group.
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| Partnership With MGM to Offer Network | | Chicago TribuneJuly 29, 2008 | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, impressed with what Chicago-based Weigel Broadcasting has done in packaging vintage TV shows under the Me TV and Me Too brands, is partnering with the parent of local outlets WWME-Ch.
26 on a national offering called This TV Network.
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| | 'Father of Surf Films' Fearless in the Water | | Los Angeles TimesJuly 29, 2008 | Bud Browne, a onetime Venice Beach lifeguard who became known as "the father of surf films" after he began showing his 16-millimeter surf movies commercially up and down the California coast in the early 1950s, has died.
Browne died in his sleep Friday at his home in San Luis Obispo, said his close friend Anna Trent Moore, daughter of surfing legend Buzzy Trent.
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