Well, it happened. Amazon finally got tired of all the other tech giants buying up movie studios and decided to get one itself, buying MGM Studios for $8.5 billion. MGM had been trying to find a buyer for years amid a rapidly shifting market, and Amazon is trying to get taken more seriously in Hollywood, so the deal almost seems like a good idea from a bystander's view. Then again, $8.5 billion is a lot of money that could be spent on a lot of different things, even when it comes to studio shopping.
After all, Disney bought Marvel for $4 billion in 2009 and Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion in 2012, then spun them together with Pixar, Disney, and National Geographic for Disney+ in 2019. That seems like a bargain next to the $71.3 billion Disney paid for 20th Century Fox's movie studios and non-news television networks — and it also underscores how MGM, one of the oldest movie studios in America, has squandered the lead it once had in the industry to be sold for less than ten billion. WarnerMedia is being sold off and merged with Discovery for $43 billion to better compete with Disney+, Netflix, and Universal's Peacock, after AT&T bought the brands in the $108 billion Time Warner acquisition back in 2018.
All these numbers are pretty abstract, though, so let's take a look at what $8.5 billion can get you in more meaningful terms!
Buy like Bond, James Bond
The Amazon acquisition might change No Time To Die's release plans — I've lost track of how many times that'd make it, honestly — but it also means that the James Bond collection will likely land on Prime Video after being scattered on different platforms for the last decade. If you wanted to spend those sweet, sweet billions on the ultimate Bond experience, here's what that would get you:
- 6,470 Aston Martin DB5 spy cars
- 9.4 million 9mm Walther PPK pistols
- 314.8 million shaken vodka martinis at Dukes Bar in London
- 1.6 million tuxedos
Now all you need are some cat-stroking supervillains and some henchmen to chase you through the Alps or a Russian forest or the crowded streeks of Bangkok.
Time for a banquet!
Of course, what's a trip to the movies without some good food to eat while you watch and whisper to your friends about where they've seen that actor before. From decadent feasts to fast food, here's how you could literally eat $8.5 billion
- 60 billion homemade chocolate chip cookies
- 1.7 billion cheeseburgers
- 950,000,000 large movie theater popcorns
- 1.3 billion large cokes
- 3.5 billion breakfast tacos
- 413 million pounds of Texas barbeque brisket
- 1.2 million pounds of beluga caviar
60 billion cookies would be 7 cookies for every man, woman, and child on Earth, which might not mean much, but I swear warm, fresh-baked cookies are the first step to achieving world peace.
Amazon shopping spree
Amazon is one of the largest retailers on the planet and sells a ridiculous amount of things at all price points on its store. Here are just a few of the many ways you could spend $8.5 billions within Amazon
- 70.8 million 1-year Amazon Prime memberships
- 851 million months of Amazon Music
- 105 thousand Tesla Model X
- 42.5 million Echo Studio speakers
- 28.3 million Nintendo Switches
- 21 million Lenovo Flex 5 Chromebooks, one for every high-schooler in America
- 17 million PlayStation 5 consoles
Or, Amazon could give $6,500 to each of its 1.3 million U.S. employees, which is the least they could offer after spending the last year overworking them and intimidating them against unionization while reaping record profits amid a global pandemic.
But what you you spend $8.5 billion on? All the food you could ever eat or the super-luxurious life of an international spy? Or would you buy the whole family new houses and matching supercars? I'd buy myself a library full of manga and some chaise lounges to read them on in between my trips to Disney.
