by Nate Hapke

MGM Logo courtesy of Google images

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer is an independent, privately-held motion picture, television, home video, and theatrical production and distribution company.

The headquarters for MGM is located in Beverly Hills, CA.

Key People:

Gary Barber- Co-Chairman, CEO

Roger Birnbaum- Co-Chairman, CEO

Jonathan Glickman- President of Film Division

Ken Schapiro- COO

After filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Novermber 3rd, 2010, MGM emerged from bankruptcy on December 20th, 2010 with the executives of Spyglass Entertainment, Barber and Birnbaum, as the Co-Chairmen and CEO’s.

History/Overview:

MGM has become synonymous with its roaring lion logo that debuted back on April 16th, 1924. It was created by magnate Marcus Lowe who orchestrated the merger of Metro Pictures Corp., Goldwyn Pictures, and Louis B. Mayer productions.

Courtesy of MGM.com

After the consolidation, all it took was the vision of Louis B. Mayer and the genius of Irving Thalberg, known best for his production skills, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer became a Hollywood giant with prolific artistry and film making expertise. This giant soon became famous for having “more stars than heaven.”

During the golden three decades of Hollywood, 1924 through 1954, MGM was able to produce at least one best picture nominee for twenty straight years. Today, MGM is famous for having won a total of 205 Academy Awards including 15 Best Picture winners. These winners are: Rebecca(1940), Best Years of Our Lives(1946), Hamlet(1948), Marty(1955), The Apartment(1960), West Side Story(1961),Tom Jones(1963), In the Heat of the Night(1967), Midnight Cowboy(1969), Rocky(1976), Annie Hall(1977), Platoon(1986),Rain Man(1988), Dances With Wolves(1990), The Silence of the Lambs(1991) [1]

Since its inception, MGM has produced over 4,100 films and 10,400 hours of television programming. The 4,100 films makes the MGM library the largest among the Big Five. MGM ownership interests in domestic and international TV channels reaching over 130 countries.

Movies today:

Enjoying recent success with the release of “21 Jump Street“, MGM anticipates the releases of the next installment in the James Bond franchise with “Skyfall“, the first of two movies adapted from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” and “G.I. Joe: Retaliation” which is the sequel to last summer’s blockbuster “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra”

MGM is excited about the 6 nominations that “21 Jump Street” received for the MTV Movie Awards and have started a twitter campaign asking fans to vote for the film on the MTV Movie Awards site.

As of April 30th, 2012, “21 Jump Street” has made $132 million in the domestic box office which has far exceeded its budget of $42 million[2].

“SkyFall”, the latest addition into the James Bond series has revealed the two new “bond girls” for the film: actresses Naomie Harris and Bérénice Marlohe will assume the roles of the femme fatales for Mr. Bond.

SkyFall movie poster, courtesy of imdb.com

30 years after the film debuted, “WarGames“, is now showing at the Tribeca Film Festival and director John Badham and actress Ally Sheedy will be in attendance to answer questions about the film and its relevance today network security, gaming technology, and hacking culture. [3]

“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” is the first ever major studio feature film to filmed completely using high frame rate cameras. The film was filmed at 48 frames per second. This new technology was met with mixed results at CinemaCon on April 24th, 2012 when director Peter Jackson screened 10 minutes of footage from the film that had never been seen before.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey movie poster, courtesy of google images

According to some film critics at the screening the footage had” that soap opera look you get from badly calibrated TVs at Best Buy.” [4] Other quotes reported in the Huffington Post included that “everyone hated (the footage)” and “The footage I saw looked terrible … completely non-cinematic. The sets looked like sets … sets don’t even look like sets when you’re on them live, but these looked like sets. The magical illusion of cinema is stripped away completely.” It will be interesting to see how MGM will respond to this criticism, however, at this point in the production process, there isn’t that much left that the filmmakers can change to combat the criticism that they received.

“G.I. Joe: Retaliation”, picks up right where the first movie left off. This time MGM was please to be able to add action stars Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Bruce Willis to the mix. Johnson takes on the role of ‘Roadblock’ and Willis steps into the role of ‘Joe Colton’.Colton is best known as the titular character of the G.I. Joe series. MGM is hoping that the additions of Johnson and Willis will be successful in bringing in a bigger box office for the sequel than the first installment. Willis has been in films that have exceeded a total of $2.5 million dollars in domestic box office alone [5]. Johnson is one of the most recognizable faces in action movies within the last 5 years.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation movie poster, courtesy of MGM twitter

One of the most recognizable MGM produced feature films, “Hoosiers“, is being released on DVD-Blu-ray on June 5th, 2012. MGM has created a facebook page to help advertise the release of the new special edition DVD.

Watch the trailer for “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” here:

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – Movie Trailer

Watch the trailer for “G.I. Joe: Retaliation” here:

G.I. Joe: Retaliation – Movie Trailer

Successful franchises in MGM history include James Bond, The Pink Panther, and Rocky.

MGM in 2012:  

(All news and links taken from MGM.com)

4-26-12 – Park Circus at Cannes Film Festival 2012

3-13-12 – Celebrate the 25th Anniversary of HOOSIERS on Blu-ray

3-13-12 – MGM Brings First Scripted Drama Series VIKINGS to HISTORY®