Legendary Entertainment Eyes Lionsgate Studios
With Lionsgate Studios and Starz now officially two separate entities, it was perhaps inevitable that other M&A talk would emerge around one of the newly-minted businesses. While it’s still very early, with the two entities only finalizing their split from each other last month, it seems that Legendary Entertainment may be interested in Lionsgate Studios. We have Brandon Blake, one of the top entertainment law firms los angeles at Blake & Wang P.A., with the full story.
Co-Productions or Co-Piloting?
While M&A talk is still exploratory, we also know that Legendary and Lionsgate are in discussion to co-produce feature-length projects. However, many experts see this as a litmus test of sorts to trial how well the companies work together, and believe a merger may follow.
Legendary is not alone in this approach, at least if behind-the-scenes gossip from the industry is to be trusted. Lionsgate has, after all, been informally on the market for years at this point, and when Amazon first acquired MGM, Lionsgate was expected to follow.
Legendary Franchises
Legendary Entertainment has been the co-financier for several big franchises, but mostly through Warner Bros. Lionsgate, in turn, has a stable of notable franchises, including The Hunger Games and John Wick, as well as Saw and Twilight. It’s also backed by a very attractive 20,000 (or more) library of titles.
However, Lionsgate has historically avoided losing full ownership of its library titles, typically licensing their titles and selling off foreign films, keeping a (relatively) risk-free model that still generates significant profit. This may not be a deal breaker for Legendary, however. It already works regularly with partial rights.
Although the potential for a full merger is still
speculation currently, we can be certain that Lionsgate Studios, now that it
has formally split from its own streaming platform, will be an attractive asset
for many companies.
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