The reason it’s taken so long is because of MGM’s troubles: The prepacked bankruptcy, and then the Spyglass team taking over.
For those out of the loop (or who could really care less, but figure, Eh, what the hell, might as well read on), MGM has been stumbling and tumbling because of financial woes, until it was finally maneuvered into a pre-pack BK so as to sort out its debt issues, whereby $4 billion in debt was swapped for 95% equity in the new, improved MGM.
Why new and improved? Spyglass Entertainment’s (Seabiscuit, The Sixth Sense, a truckload more hit films) management team took over the troubled studio, and is finally turning it around. They organizesd the pre-pack, and wound up with 5% equity in the New & Improved Lion.
Apart from this Bond film (the 23rd in the franchise), they are also in on The Hobbit, the two-part prequel to the $3 billion successful The Lord of the Rings trilogy, which is about to start shooting in New Zealand, under Peter Jackson’s production and direciton.
So looks like for late 2012, MGM will have a sure-fire winner . . . assuming MGM still exists in 2012. The Lion Studio has gone through so many bankruptcies and financial ups and downs—or rather, downs and downs—that odds are 70/30 that the studio will need another round by late 2012.
So stay tuned!
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