Author Profile: David Leigh

MGM’s management and creditors are reportedly divided over the best plans to take the troubled studio forward. Hedge funds control a large amount of the studio’s debt and are ignoring Time Warners bid that has been on the table since March. Meanwhile management want to go ahead with a restructuring plan to raise $1 billion. […]

Ian Fleming Publications has got people guessing after releasing a countdown timer to “Project X”.

The Wall Street Journal has reported that MGM’s creditors are close to deciding a strategic partner to help steer the troubled studio through its current crisis. Creditors are looking for a partner with experience in the movie business and would replace at least some of MGM’s top brass, including the current CEO. They plan on […]

In the photo above, Vesper’s Algerian Love Knot has been placed on top of the nine of hearts – according to Ian Fleming, known in gipsy magic as “a whisper of love, a whisper of hate”. The Algerian Love Knot didn’t appear in the book, although James Bond’s drink certainly did; three measures of gin, […]

Lenders agreed to extend the period for debt repayment for a fifth time to allow the troubled studio to arrange its affairs prior to a sale – or more likely now, a pre-packaged bankruptcy.

With MGM currently in talks to try and save the studio somehow many Bond fans are wondering why EON Productions needs MGM to make another bond film

Following the news last month that Bond 23 had been out on hold indefinitely, MGM’s lenders are expected to vote in favour of yet another debt extension

Fans reacted first with shock and then with anger following the announcement from Michael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli that Bond 23 would be delayed “indefinitely”.

Bad news was announced by Eon Productions on Monday, when they confirmed every Bond fans worst fear.

Last week we reported that Sam Mendes had departed The Preacher in favour of directing Bond 23, according to the producer of that film.

“We now have a terrific script that John August wrote. We were originally talking with Sam Mendes about doing the movie. Sam Mendes is going to go off and do the Bond movie, so there’s another director that we’re talking to right now.” So said Neal Moritz interviewed by Steve Weintraub on Collider.com seeming to […]

MGM has been offered $500 million by Ryan Kavanaugh’s Relativity Media LLC and Ridley and Tony Scott express their interest in running the studio.

The latest edition of MI6 Declassified has recently been published and is now available to order online. Although George Lazenby’s single Bond outing, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,was a box-office success back in 1969, it has sometimes been cast as a failure. However, it is now considered one of the most loved adventures in the […]

MGM’s steering committee has presented a plan to creditors to go it alone after bids came in disappointingly low.

In The Book of Bond, Kingsley Amis (writing as Lt-Col Bill Tanner after the Chief-of-Staff in Fleming’s novels) describes Bond’s library saying that it should be modest and that more extensive collections go with “serious criminal tendencies”. While Amis believed that Bond’s library was limited to a handful of books there is no evidence that […]

Three potential backers are understood to have participated in the second round of bidding for MGM, which closed yesterday after being extended from Friday 19th March. Lions Gate Entertainment, Time Warner and Access Industries are all understood to have participated in the auction, although the offers they have made fall some way short of what […]

Friday 19th March is the deadline for bids for troubled studio MGM. Six bidders were invited to take part, including Time Warner and Lionsgate, although it appears that two others – Liberty Media Corp. and hedge fund Elliott Management Corp. – have withdrawn. While pre-production on Bond 23 was put on hold until the auction […]

On Monday MGM announced a March 19th deadline for offers for the studio, with six parties expected to bid.However, according to a story on MI6 today quoting Wall Street Journal as its source, the studio is preparing a “plan B” in case the bids fall short. The plan is thought to involve existing creditors assuming […]

According to a story posted in Variety yesterday troubled Hollywood studio MGM has set March 19th as the closing date for bids on its assets. Six bidders were invited to participate in this second round of bidding after allowing them access to internal accounts. Two of these bidders are believed to be Time Warner and […]

Neatly dovetailing with our current series on the James Bond soundtracks, David Arnold was recently invited speak after a concert by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in which they played music from several of his film scores including Casino Royale, which is now available as a podcast. Arnold’s credits include Stargate, Independence Day, Godzilla, […]