The Frodo Franchise by Kristin Thompson
 
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March 8 : 2010

MGM announces deadline for second round of bidding

In an article posted today by Variety, David McNary reports that MGM has announced March 19 as the deadline for the second round of bids on its assets. He reads this as “a sign that it may be near working out a sale or restructuring.”

After a first round of non-binding bids, MGM invited half a dozen participants to a second round of offers, this time binding. The main contenders that have been repeatedly mentioned as among the bidders are Time Warner and Lionsgate, with Time Warner considered the most likely buyer. MGM is co-producing The Hobbit with New Line Cinema, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Time Warner has $5 billion in cash from its sale of its cable systems, and Warner Bros. was the top-earning Hollywood studio in 2009. Given that the price for MGM is not expected to go past $2 billion, such a purchase would obviously be feasible.

According to McNary, “MGM is facing repayment of its $250 million revolving credit line in early April and a $1 billion payment on its $3.7 billion debt in July 2011.” During the past few months, the studio’s lenders have suspended interest payments, but that suspension ends on March 31 and is not likely to be renewed a second time.

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    The Frodo Franchise
    by Kristin Thompson

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    Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007.
    hardcover 978-0-520-24774-1
    421 pages, 6 x 9 inches, 12 color illustrations; 36 b/w illustrations; 1 map; 1 table

    “Once in a lifetime.”
    The phrase comes up over and over from the people who worked on Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings. The film’s 17 Oscars, record-setting earnings, huge fan base, and hundreds of ancillary products attest to its importance and to the fact that Rings is far more than a film. Its makers seized a crucial moment in Hollywood—the special effects digital revolution plus the rise of “infotainment” and the Internet—to satisfy the trilogy’s fans while fostering a huge new international audience. The resulting franchise of franchises has earned billions of dollars to date with no end in sight.

    Kristin Thompson interviewed 76 people to examine the movie’s scripting and design and the new technologies deployed to produce the films, video games, and DVDs. She demonstrates the impact Rings had on the companies that made it, on the fantasy genre, on New Zealand, and on independent cinema. In fast-paced, compulsively readable prose, she affirms Jackson’s Rings as one the most important films ever made.

    The Frodo Franchise

    cover of Penguin Books’ (NZ) edition of The Frodo Franchise, published September 2007. The tiny subtitle reads: “How ‘The Lord of the Rings’ became a Hollywood blockbuster and put New Zealand on the map.”