Acquisition of Amazon by The Walt Disney Company

On 22nd July 2025, The Walt Disney Company announced it acquired the online retail giant Amazon Inc for $10 million - according to the sources, which is due to be identified, relating to the matter - in an attempt to quickly recover the film media giant from the 2020-2021 Coronavirus impact on cinema. It includes film studios under Amazon, such as Amazon Studios and the historic Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio; which Amazon brought it for $8.45 billion in 2021. It comes over a year on from Amazon/MGM's streaming deal with Disney being struck in the UK in 2024 after the BBC stuck its Disney+ Doctor Who deal in October 2022.
Disney's CEO Bob Iger, who have returned to Disney and replacing Bob Chapek in November 2022, have issued the statement in relation to the acquisition. He said:
"Amazon have been the world's bestselling online retailer. Even had its own film studios as well. My sources told me that they have talked to its chief executive officer, Andy Jassy, about our interests in buying Amazon in the past - for example in 2016 - before moving on to our other interests in major acquisitions as it was out of the table at that time. Andy later asked me to visit both the Amazon HQ over at Seattle in Washington last week and the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) studio over at Beverly Hills here in California the following day. And yet i am so thrilled to say about MGM's libraries, such as the legendary James Bond film series and The Pink Panther as well as Rocky and Robocop, for over the past 100 years in cinema (Disney was created before MGM) but i'm also thrilled about the retail giant's profits by selling items; such as home entertainment and electrical; or anyone could sold their items (that used to own for years) to Amazon so people can afford to buy. At Disney, we are so thrilled about bringing Amazon Studios and MGM to the Walt Disney Studios as its divisions in order to recover ourselves quickly from the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic that it had on cinema in 2020 and 2021 respectively; and i can confirm that, compare to other studios we brought (e.g. Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, 20th Century Studios), Amazon Studios and MGM will be the first studios in the world to be "Disney-branded" in our company's history once our acquisition's due to be completed within the next six months. And since we brought 20th from Rupert Murdoch in 2019 (pre-Coronavirus), history will be made to rival Warner Bros. Discovery by becoming the world's biggest media empire that moviegoers will ever seen but will also change Hollywood forever."
Following the announcement, ITV in the UK announced that it would not renew its James Bond partnership with MGM Worldwide Television after 50 years and its broadcasting rights would passed on to the BBC. The deal was struck with immediate effect on 24th July 2025 with the Bond films later broadcast on BBC One in August 2025.
The sale was later completed on New Year's Day 2026. Amazon will continue to remain its headquarters in Seattle while MGM moved from Beverly Hills to Burbank (the main home of Disney since 1940) but its distribution company United Artists Releasing absorbed into Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures with its assists Amazon Studios and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer transferred to the Walt Disney Pictures film studio rather than being an originally announced separated divisions of the Walt Disney Studios like Marvel Studios and 20th Century Studios etc. Following Disney's acquisition of Amazon Inc, MGM announced on its YouTube channel that it will not renew its international deal with Warner Bros Pictures after the current agreement ends at some stage in 2026. On 14th February 2026, Disney acquires theatrical and home video distribution rights to Sony-distributed, WB-distributed, some of Paramount-distributed, and Universal-distributed MGM films from Sony, Paramount Global (formally Viacom-CBS) and Studio Distribution Services respectively. MGM will retain its television rights to the films and would passed on to Disney Platform Distribution.
Walt Disney Pictures released its first MGM-produced film, Animal, on 5th June 2026 in the UK under the Disney brand while Universal Pictures distributed the film elsewhere; and reprinted many of MGM's libraries in cinemas, home video and on Disney+; starting Casino Royale (2006) and Valkyrie (2008), replacing many of the logos from other studios; such as Columbia Pictures; which preceding with MGM logos over the years. Despite the Disney castle logo (which also reinstated the full "Walt Disney Pictures" name for the first time since 2011) appears at the beginning before MGM's lion logo, MGM will continue to be credited in the opening films without mentioning the name "Walt Disney Pictures" - similar to New Line Cinema's films which, although the Warner Bros shield appears at the beginning, WB itself was not credited. Disney will co-copyrighted with MGM on its future films but other studios, including Universal Pictures and Columbia Pictures, will continue to retain its co-copyright credit with MGM in future re-releases by the Walt Disney Pictures film studio for the foreseeable future. It was announced on 2nd July 2026 that Turner Entertainment, a division of Warner Bros Entertainment (part of Warner Bros Discovery), signs the deal with Disney to handover nearly all of its MGM's films; television; and cartoon library, that was released prior to 23rd May 1986, back to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer after 40 years of ownership. It also includes material from MGM's predecessors (Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures, and Mayer Pictures) post-1915 that did not enter the public domain as yet. The deal was completed by Disney a week later and finally gives MGM full control of its pre-1986 libraries for the first time in its over 100-year history, forcing Disney to re-release all of MGM's pre-1986 libraries since its acquisition from Turner. Ben-Hur, originally released in 1959, became the first pre-86 film and the only Academy Award-winning MGM film to be re-released under the Walt Disney Pictures film studio through MGM and was re-released in cinemas on Christmas Day 2026 in the United States and on Boxing Day 2026 in the United Kingdom. Poltergeist, a 1982 horror film, was also re-released by Walt Disney Pictures through Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer via home video with the 2000 Disney logo appears at the beginning before the MGM logo.
Beforehand, on 24th July 2026, Creed IV was the first official Rocky installment released by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures under the Walt Disney Pictures banner through Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Category:Mergers and acquisitions
Category:The Walt Disney Company