Right, this is very technical and very figure based, so I’ll do what I can to simplify it.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, home to James Bond, The Hobbit, Jeepers Creepers, Agent Cody Banks, the Stargate franchise and Robocop, appear to be in some financial difficulty – one insider even goes as far as to say, “The implication was that it’s teetering on bankruptcy.” The studio appears to need around $20 million – and quick – to cover its overhead in the short term, while also needing a further $150 million to get through to the end of the year and begin financing Jackson/ del Toro’s The Hobbit – a bonafide cash cow if there ever was one.

The problem seems to come from former head Harry Sloan promising a lot more than MGM managed to deliver this year – as a result, a lot of money is owed to a lot of people. The only solution now is for MGM to convince everybody with money invested in it to hold off on calling the debts until at least next February. The total debt they’re about to try and talk their way through is a whopping $3.5 billion.

What this boils down to is that either a lot of people are going to say ‘no’, and lose a lot of money – about half of what they put in the company – or say ‘yes’ and risk losing even more money. Fingers crossed for MGM – after all, nobody likes it when they’re owed money.

A much more complex and number-heavy summary can be found on Nikki Finke’s excellent blog below.

Source: Nikki Finke