Assessing MGM Under Amazon Rule

Mike De Luca Pam Abdy
The 10 films left on Amazon’s doorstep by De Luca and Abdy have grossed $538 million worldwide. Photo: Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic
Scott Mendelson
August 27, 2024

Given the challenges facing adult-skewing, non-franchise studio films, it’s almost a miracle that anyone showed up for Blink Twice, one of the last greenlights of the Mike De LucaPam Abdy regime at MGM before they decamped for Warner Bros., in March 2022, and Courtenay Valenti stepped in to run what is now the film unit of Amazon MGM Studios. The thriller, directed by Zoë Kravitz and starring Naomi Ackie and Channing Tatum, grossed $7 million domestic during its opening weekend. (The film made $14 million globally.)

From August 2022, when Amazon acquired MGM, through this past weekend, the studio released copious theatrical features of varying shapes and sizes, with 10 greenlit by De Luca and Abdy before they left. (Two more remain: The Fire Inside, a biopic of Olympic boxing champion Claressa Shields, and Preparation for the Next Life, a drama about a Chinese Muslim immigrant smuggled into America, set for some time in 2025.) How did the slate perform?