Amazon just made waves when it shelled out $8.45 billion to purchase the legendary film studio MGM, acquiring 4,000 movies and 17,000 hours of television! But certain movies that MGM produced before 1986 will not be available to stream on Amazon Prime Video, including the classics The Wizard of Oz, Gone With the Wind, and Singin’ in the Rain. Here’s why.
It appears that in 1986, Ted Turner purchased the rights to these and other MGM classics to air on his cable networks TBS, TNT, and perhaps most importantly, Turner Classic Movies (TCM). At the time, Turner was attempting to compete with AMC which at that time stood for American Movie Classics. But in 1996, Time Warner purchased all of Turner’s entertainment holdings, so now WarnerMedia owns those films. As a result, The Wizard of Oz and other older MGM movies are now available to stream on WarnerMedia’s HBO Max.
In 1981, MGM, under the leadership of Kirk Kerkorian, acquired United Artists and all of its assets, including the James Bond/007 franchise, which does transition over to Amazon. Following the Turner shopping spree, Kerkorkian sought to rebuild MGM’s library and went on a bit of a spree himself. In 1996, MGM and Kerkorkian bought Orion Pictures, Goldwyn Entertainment, and Motion Picture Corporation of America. That gave them the rights to The Silence of the Lambs, Sid and Nancy, and Dumb and Dumber among others. Then, in 1997, MGM snatched up PolyGram, which gave them the rights to Fargo and The Graduate.
Among the other series that Amazon has acquired in this deal are the Rocky, Legally Blonde, Pink Panther, and Robocop franchises.
At this point, if you’re like me, you subscribe to so many streaming services you can’t even remember them all. So it’s likely that whatever movie you want to watch, you have it readily available on one of them. But if not, are you upset that you won’t be able to watch classics like The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind on HBO Max? Or frankly, do you not give a damn?
