Gary Marenzi

Co-President, Worldwide Television

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

World Screen Weekly, November 13 2008

Earlier this week, MGM announced an important partnership with YouTube. The world’s most popular video-sharing site has been courting major content producers and MGM was the first Hollywood studio to sign on. YouTube gets to provide its viewers with several of MGM’s full-length TV episodes and feature films, and MGM gets a number of channels on YouTube that will familiarize the file-sharing generation with classics like The Magnificent Seven and Rocky.

The studio also gets to promote its VOD channel Impact, first launched with Comcast in August. Now there will also be an Impact channel on YouTube (www.youtube.com/impact), offering MGM’s action programming, and American Gladiators (www.youtube.com/americangladiators), a channel, which showcases highlights and full episodes from the classic show from the 1980s and 1990s.

"The on-demand world certainly is going to grow and we are doing a lot more business with iTunes and with Xbox and all these new-media companies," says Gary Marenzi, the co-president of worldwide television at MGM. He also points out that in doing both new-media deals and traditional media deals, the MGM team is quite streamlined. "We know where our TV rights and digital-media rights begin and we know every deal in between. That gives us great flexibility and great power that allows us, with fewer people, to move quicker than some of our bigger competitors."

Marenzi also notes that as important as new-media platforms are, traditional media remains the core business for MGM. "We will continue to do business with new media, there is no question about it. But linear channels, so-called old media, aren’t going away any time soon. They have invested millions of dollars into their infrastructure, into their branding, into their platforms and into their programming. They are not going away without a fight. So when you have a broadcaster, or a platform, or a bouquet of pay-TV channels, and you can marry them with both content and a channel, like we have at MGM, we represent a safe haven. We can offer a lot of turnkey solutions, a lot of one-stop shopping."

Marenzi points to the slate of feature films and television shows coming down MGM’s pipeline. "We’re fortunate we’ve got Mr. Bond back," he says referring to Quantum of Solace, the new James Bond movie being released this month. "We’re fortunate we’ve got Inspector Clouseau coming back and we’re very fortunate we have Valkyrie," the upcoming movie based on the an actual plot to assassinate Hitler, starring Tom Cruise and Kenneth Branagh. "People are going to be very pleasantly surprised by that movie, they will sit up and take notice," adds Marenzi.

Also on MGM’s slate are the films Cabin in the Woods [a thriller/horror movie written by Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon] and The Matarese Circle starring Denzel Washington, as well as the Robocop and Hobbit movies.

"On the television side we have the new Stargate series coming, Stargate Universe," notes Marenzi. "We’re starting to shoot it in February and it will be on the air in July. We have Pink Panther and Pals, which will be on the air next fall on Cartoon Network, and we have Spaceballs: The Animated Series, adult animation with Mel Brooks, airing on G4 right now."

Also in the works is Madso’s War, a 2-hour pilot directed by Walter Hill for Spike TV, starring Matthew Marsden, "which is about contemporary Irish gangsters in Boston, a little bit like The Departed," explains Marenzi. "We’re also working on Ronin with the BBC and on The French Lieutenant’s Woman as a mini-series with the BBC.”

Marenzi feels MGM is in a very good position. The studio is attracting top talent and is focusing on high-quality projects. "A lot of A-list producers have found us," he explains. "They know we have a good distribution arm and that we can cut them a good deal, probably a better deal than some of the other studios, in terms of back end. So we are using that to our advantage in a market where a lot of producers and writers have been cut loose from their deals at other studios."

Compared to other studios and content creators that focus on large volumes of product, Marenzi feels that MGM and its clients, in today’s challenging economy, are better served by a “less is more” strategy. "Our model is fewer, higher-quality films and a handful of high-quality TV projects a year. Right now we think a nice little bite-size offering is what the market wants."