UPDATE: Summit & Lionsgate Merger?

COMMENTS (12)

• Hey Nikki … you are normally totally spot on with your intel, but this time your rumor mill appears a bit rickety. One franchise (“Twilight”) does not a mini-major make. With Ortenberg off to TWC hell, Lionsgate/Mandate is now Joe Drake’s baby, so why would he merge with his #1 sales competitor (Patrick Wachsberger)? Icahn loves to thump his chest, but overall LGE is a prudently run company that is going through the typical growing pains experienced by all outfits (like New Line and Miramax before it) when they try to step up from safe, low-risk/moderate reward genre fare to competing as a studio level player. Please elaborate on how this would make sense to any of the players involved?

  P.S. Those of us old enough to remember Stratosphere clearly know that Icahn doesn’t know diddly about the film biz. He’s better off vollying tennis balls over at Indian Creek than stepping back into Tinseltown.

  Comment by EFhuttonspeaks — Sunday February 1, 2009 @ 7:41pm PST  Reply to this post

• Summit’s equity investors know that they got lucky and were bailed out by Twilight. The company will never be worth as much as it is now. They merge with Lionsgate, get some public stock, and get a shot at getting out whole or even with a profit.

  Comment by damoney — Sunday February 1, 2009 @ 8:50pm PST  Reply to this post

• Well, it makes sense, considering they’re right next door to each other in Santa Monica…

  Comment by Edward Havens — Monday February 2, 2009 @ 1:22am PST  Reply to this post

• Once the Twilight franchise runs its course (either by finishing the series or succumbing to hyperinflated budgets), I anticipate several mismanaged disasters that will leave Summit dead in the water. It already appears to be happening to the Walden Media “empire”.

  Such is the fate of the little studio that suddenly strikes it big: Carolco, Cannon, Orion, Embassy…

  Comment by uninformed observer — Monday February 2, 2009 @ 7:10am PST  Reply to this post

• I feel old school economists turning over in their grave. What ever happened to buy low, sell high.

  However, Twilight could stretch out its run like the Harry Potter series and not have to worry about their stars going through puberty. I think the author would sell out and sign off on prequels and spin-offs a lot easier than Rowling and her precious Harry. Summit could be a bank for ten more years.

  Comment by Jason — Monday February 2, 2009 @ 9:38am PST  Reply to this post

• Good points, guys. I stand corrected as I too have heard that Summit escaped financial ruin by the hair of its chinny chin chin by cashing in on “Twilight” and that they simply lack the follow up product to seize on their initial success. Plus, there’s also word that Wachsberger has a buy-back provision if they sell the company (basically, he can peel his sales outfit off and go back into biz for himself). Furthermore, Lionsgate does need a hit commercial franchise to bolster their stock. So it does make sense from that perspective. Bet Yari wished he had done this after “The Illusionist” and “Crash”.

  Comment by EFHuttonspeaks — Monday February 2, 2009 @ 10:39am PST  Reply to this post

• Summit does have one of the most buzzed about titles that they bought last year at Toronto-THE HURT LOCKER. Two of the actors were nominated for Indie Spirit Awards and many believe that the actors and film could potentially get some major award buzz. Shows that they may indeed have a vision beyond Twilight.

  Comment by Observer — Monday February 2, 2009 @ 11:28am PST  Reply to this post

• Lion’s Gates marketers will make the TWILIGHT franchise into something VERY special. Summit would be very wise to make this move.

  Comment by sg1117 — Monday February 2, 2009 @ 11:30am PST  Reply to this post

• @ sg1117 You think Twilight’s problem was MARKETING?

  Thanks, I needed some lulz today.

  Comment by Susie Q — Monday February 2, 2009 @ 4:24pm PST  Reply to this post

• Hearing this is indeed true

  Comment by F. — Monday February 2, 2009 @ 6:25pm PST  Reply to this post

• Anyone who’s done business with Patrick and Bob (Hayward) knows that they are a formidable team. Patrick & Bob turned Summit from a small international sales agency that was barely worth the $150K they paid for it, to a multi million dollar company. They’ve had plenty of offers to buy the company over the years but haven’t done the deal for a myriad of reasons. Patrick can be an absolute asshole (who can’t in this town?) but he’s a super smart man. I’d never bet against him.

  Comment by reach for the summit — Thursday February 5, 2009 @ 7:10pm PST  Reply to this post

• LG needs to pull an EPIC outside the box project that will target the entire spectrum of audience. A great historical fiction that America can grab a hold of and hug and that the world will recapture for us the respect that we have lost. Put those Ichan billions into a 200 million dollar blockbuster that will both entertain, and get us to stop and think, that alone will spin off so much more, in communication and documentary and the only way we are going to find out where we are is to better understand the greatest generation and what they gave us, hope. In times like these Films need to get bigger, and better. Kind of like Saving Private Ryan did but deeper still in story… When economies go down, movie going goes up, people don’t want scary, they want hope. CNN does scary, Wall Street is scary, Bankers are scary!
  We need DEPTH in times like these. It is why so many classics came from the 1930′s and again in the cold war. Lionsgate needs to rumage in the scripts and pull out an epic that the world can embrace with characters that people can identify with. They are a smart company, they will come up with something big, something original, something to entertain and more…
  Had enough of vampires, look at our economy! we want a better metaphor

  Comment by RR — Tuesday February 24, 2009 @ 4:23pm PST  Reply to this post