Mike Hopkins had barely gotten his Amazon employee badge when Prime Video, the streaming service he oversaw for the internet retailer, had a possible crisis on its hands.
Months after Hopkins joined Amazon in February 2020, one of the largest media and entertainment companies, WarnerMedia, started hinting it would no longer sell its television shows and movies to independent online outlets like Prime Video, instead keeping them for its own streaming service. Walt Disney had already made a similar move, as would others in the months to come. Hopkins’ solution was a bold plan to acquire MGM, the venerable studio that Amazon had previously balked at buying over its then $10 billion asking price.
Hopkins, a longtime entertainment executive more comfortable with spreadsheets than on the red carpet, spent hours analyzing the value of MGM’s film library and how much it would be worth to Amazon. Last summer, he pitched Jeff Bezos, then Amazon’s CEO, on a plan to bid for MGM, showing him data that argued Amazon would make its money back several times over, in part by producing spinoffs of Rocky Balboa and other MGM franchises.
