Saturday, January 7, 2012

Lionsgate/Summit Merger Very Close!


Woah surprise! The main worry among Hunger Games fans when it came to this possible merger news was that Lionsgate might relinquish any kind of control to Summit, thus affecting The Hunger Games franchise. But if everything is what Deadline is reporting, we needn't have worried at all, in fact it turns out that Lionsgate would be acquiring Summit. Not only that, but if this deal goes through, it may be  that Lionsgate acquires the success of Twilight and that no one from Summit will have a say in any creative control. Given this is all speculation at this point, but this merger situation seems to be looking a little brighter than it did when the news first came out.

Check out what Deadline is reporting:

The hard-fought Lionsgate purchase of Summit Entertainment now looks about to consummate with insiders telling me it’s a $700 million deal consisting of $400M in equity plus an assumption of $300 million of debt...  First, behind the scenes, Lionsgate toppers Jon Feltheimer and Michael Burns have no interest in continuing to let Summit make movies. But also in recent days the negotiations between the two indie studios became so rough and tumble that insiders now feel there is no possible way that Summit chiefs Patrick Wachsberger and Rob Friedman and the Lionsgate pair could ever work together far beyond the obvious transition period. “It’s gotten very rough recently. Burns and Feltheimer rolled over these guys hard. The odds of Rob and Patrick staying on is nil. I don’t give them 30 days.” [UPDATE: Other sources claim the two Summit chiefs plan to work "within the Lionsgate structure".]
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