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标题/出处
Licence to content:Amazon's MGM takeover gives it access to Bond and beyond
内容许可:亚马逊收购米高梅,获得邦德以及更多内容的使用权
The Guardian《卫报》26 May, 2021
文章导读
亚马逊近日宣布收购老牌影视公司米高梅,进而获得了包括邦德系列在内的众多经典影片的内容和形象使用权。不过,这也可谓是“几家欢喜几家愁”:亚马逊手握几张王牌的同时,也令影迷们颇感担忧。毕竟亚马逊是凭借非个性化的电商产品出圈,而影视业,特别是经制作人之手的独立影视,追求博人眼球的创新型内容,尽管这一点在影视行业有日薄西山之势。亚马逊此次对影视行业的涉足究竟是输是赢,让我们拭目以待吧。
正文
Just over two years ago, the Disney takeover of most of Twenty-First Century Fox created an even bigger monster out of the two existing monsters, and pushed the movie business further towards a de facto monopoly of two or three humongous corporate entities gradually merging together to make a great big amorphous mass, spawning endless content. Now the white-hot process has gone further, with Amazon snapping up MGM for $8.45bn (?5.97bn).
That's a hefty price, according to some, considering the debt that MGM carries and the fact that MGM's star property James Bond, the global cash cow that keeps on giving milk, is in fact partly owned by Eon Productions, perhaps the last boutique franchise player in the world. Eon's right to control every aspect of 007 is fiercely defended by its owners Barbara Broccoli and Michael G.Wilson from their handsome offices in Piccadilly.The suits at Amazon will have to consult Broccoli and Wilson over everything to do with 007.
There was a time of course when a classic Hollywood studio such as MGM could be associated with a particular kind of film:in this case, the gorgeous musicals of the golden age.In the last century, they
were associated with their talent——“more stars than the heavens”was Louis B. Mayer's boast, and after this era, MGM's capital would reside in its back catalogue.That's certainly what Amazon is buying now.
But of course, it's about more than just getting a few bucks every time someone streams Thelma and Louise on Prime.Amazon is buying intellectual property.It has been in the business of high-profile, high-class original production, certainly—and a case in point is its lavishly cinematic, 10-episode streaming TV adaptation of Colson Whitehead's novel The Underground Railroad, directed by Barry Jenkins.But it wants to hit the commercial sweet spot of something excitingly new based on something reassuringly old;it is buying IP,intellectual property, the brand-name development rights to those much-loved movies and characters who can be rebooted for new generations.New Creed movies, new Legally Blonde movies and are make of the Thomas Crown Affair, with Michael B.Jordan following Steve McQueen and Pierce Brosnan in the role.These are not movies or talent being bought, but DNA stockpiles:the cultural HeLa cells that can be endlessly ge stated in many different ways.
It's pretty depressing, of course, and Amazon did not get to be the retail colossus it is by specialising and indulging individual creativity.Its raison d'etre is to give you everything, to deliver anything you want, something that someone else has created.And so of course the real danger is that studio movies will become even b lander and more uniform than before, and that they will no longer in fact be studio movies in that sense, no longer individual films from film-makers, but iterations of content.Hollywood was always commercial though, always in love with genre, always liable to be smitten by Amazon's“If you like this, then you'll like this...”nudging.The danger is that individual artistry will be squeezed further out, and the human factor will lose out to the algorithm.
全文翻译
就在两年前,迪士尼收购了21世纪福克斯的大部分业务,在现有的两个怪兽中创造了一个更大的怪兽,并将电影行业进一步推向了事实上的垄断——两三个巨大的公司实体逐渐合并,形成了一个巨大的无定形体,由此衍生出无穷无尽的内容。如今,竞争白热化加剧,亚马逊以84.5亿美元(约合59.7亿英镑)的高价收购了米高梅。
一些人认为,考虑到米高梅背负的债务,以及米高梅的明星资产詹姆斯·邦德(使得财源不断的全球摇钱树)实际上部分归可能是世界上最后一家精品特许经营公司的永世制片公司所有,这一价格十分可观。永世制片的所有者芭芭拉·布洛柯里和迈克尔·G.威尔逊在位于皮卡迪利大街的精美办公室里极力捍卫其对007各方面的控制权。关于007的任何事情,亚马逊的高级管理人员都必须咨询布洛柯里和威尔逊。
当然,曾经有一段时间,米高梅等经典好莱坞电影公司可以与某种特定类型的电影联系在一起:在这种情况下,就是黄金时代的华丽音乐剧。上个世纪,各影视工作室与其才华交织——路易斯·B.梅耶尔曾夸耀说“这里群星荟萃,堪比天际",而在该时代之后,米高梅的资本将成为过往云烟。这便是亚马逊现在的收购之物。
当然, 这不只事关每次有人在亚马逊Prime会员服务上点播《末路狂花》时收益的几美元。亚马逊购买的是知识产权。当然,该公司一直都是高姿态、高水准的原创制作——由巴里·詹金斯执导、改编自科尔森·怀特黑德的小说《地下铁道》的10集流媒体电视大片便是一个典型的例子。亚马逊希望在可以放心使用的旧内容的基础上,创造出新的令人兴奋的商业爆品;它购买的是知识产权,是那些备受喜爱、可为新一代重新启动电影和角色的品牌开发权。新《奎迪》、新《律政俏佳人》,以及翻拍的《天罗地网》——迈克尔·B.乔丹是继史蒂夫·麦奎因和皮尔斯·布鲁斯南之后出现的角色。亚马逊购买的并不是电影或这些优秀演员, 而是DNA储备:可以通过许多不同的方式无止境地孕育的文化意义上的海拉细胞。
这个消息的确令人沮丧,而亚马逊之所以能成为现在的零售巨头,靠的也并非其专业性以及对人创造力的鼓励。其成功之道是提供你所需的一切,交付你想要的一切,而且其中一部分还是由第三方创造的。当然,真正的危险在于,电影工作室的作品会比以往更加乏味和千篇一律,从这个意义上看,这些电影已经不再是电影工作室的作品了,也不再是出自电影制作人之手的独立电影了,不过是“旧酒装新瓶”罢了。然而好莱坞从来不乏商业化,总是钟爱类型片,且易受到亚马逊的“如果你喜欢这个,那么你就会喜欢这个……”的推荐算法的影响。但其危险在于,独立艺术会进一步受到排挤,人为因素迟早会输给算法。
特殊词汇
takeover n.接管
reside v.居住在;定居于
monopoly n.垄断
buck n.(一) 美元
humongous adj.巨大的
lavishly adv.丰富地
amorphous adj.无固定形状的
reassuringly adv.安慰地
spawn v.引发
gestate v.孕育
hefty adj.很大的;可观的
colossus n.巨人;巨物
boutique n.精品店
blander adj.平淡无味的
franchise n.特许经营权
iteration n.迭代;重复
gorgeous adj.华丽的;灿烂的
smite v.重击;猛打
boast n.夸耀;夸口
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