Amazon MGM merger brings 007, Robocop, more

Amazon officially closed the deal that it announced in May 2021 to purchase the major film and television studio MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). The deal closed following an announcement earlier this week from the European Commission that it would not oppose the purchase, as the EU regulator felt the deal would not cause any anti-trust issues. The US Federal Trade Commission did not make a decision either way, which allowed the deal to go forward.

Amazon MGM merger: What does it mean?

The Amazon MGM merger cost $8.45 billion. Now, the film and TV operations of the studio are officially under the Amazon Prime Video and Amazon Studios division. That includes the rights to over 4,000 classic and recent films, along with tons of TV shows that total over 17,000 episodes. Of particular interest to Amazon are the many popular film and TV show franchises that MGM controls. The biggest is the James Bond series of films (actually co-owned by EON Productions), but MGM also owns the rights to the Robocop, Rocky, Legally Blonde, and Stargate franchises as well.

Read more: The best James Bond movies

You will likely see a lot of older MGM shows and movies popping in Amazon Prime Video’s library of titles over the coming months and years. However, you can also bet we will see MGM produce new entries in their flagship properties now that they have the backing of Amazon’s huge amounts of cash. While we likely won’t see a James Bond streaming TV show on Amazon Prime Video anytime soon (the 007 producers want to keep it as a film series), we wouldn’t be surprised if we saw new films and TV series based on Robocop and Stargate debut as Prime Video exclusives.