World Cinema almost would have had its first Indian James Bond if not the struggling Hollywood studio MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) had rejected Sahara India Pariwar’s bid of more than two billion dollars for a takeover. Way back in April, the entertainment industry worldwide was shocked when reports were released informing about the fourth extension that creditors gave the renowned studio to pay off debts that amounted to four billion dollars.
While several companies have been bidding to take over this ailing studio, it was quite a surprise move when the Sahara India Parivar announced recently that it was going to bid to acquire the world-famous studio that has the rights to the James Bond franchise and owns half of the upcoming movies based on J R R Tolkien's The Hobbit. This attempted bid almost reminded us once again of how Reliance Entertainment finally struck a deal with Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks that marked a potential power shift in Hollywood.
However, interestingly a couple of days ago, Sahara admitted that its offer to buy out MGM had been rejected. It was reported that Subrata Roy, the company's chairman, had a conference call with creditors last week. The company added that the offer was rejected within hours.
It is also being said that the studio’s creditors are working on an alternate plan to bail it out. Interestingly, several international media groups also reported that the sequence of events culminating in the rejection of the bid was quite predictable. They also reported on a “leaked memo” that indicated that the MGM buyout wouldn’t go through.
As soon as the news of Sahara bidding for MGM was announced, speculations were on if the studio that has rights to the James Bond franchisee would see an Indian actor playing Bond. In fact there was further speculation if the trademark line that the character of James Bond says while identifying himself, “My name is Bond…James Bond” would become “Mera naam hai Baand…James Baand.” For movie buffs in India who had rather hoped that a contemporary Indian actor would get to fill in Bond’s shoes (Hollywood hunks like Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig have played Bond over the years), the failure of this bid has brought in a lot of disappointment. Almost there, and yet so far away!
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