Together with
The Future. Legendary Entertainment has evolved from a co-financier of blockbuster films to a full-fledged production studio that’s ruling Hollywood this year. Armed with plenty of cash and support from a huge private equity firm, expect Legendary to make a key acquisition in 2024 that could turn it into the next major studio like Warner Bros. Discovery or NBCUniversal.
Monster ambitions
Legendary’s next big story may be that it’s scaling its business ambitions.
- It’s behind the two biggest hits this year, Dune: Part Two and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (both distributed by Warner Bros.), which have racked up almost $700 million and $500 million, respectively.
- It may be the only studio with no net debt and with $500 million on its balance sheet — a major turnaround for a company that was bleeding $300 million a year before installing M&A attorney Josh Grode.
- Creatively, Legendary has focused on building its franchises across film, TV, comics, and video games — the MonsterVerse being a successful example.
And now it’s become a key player in Apollo’s bid for Paramount Global (Apollo acquired a minority stake in Legendary in 2022), with one of the firm’s strategies reported to be a merger of Paramount Pictures and Legendary (if it pursues a deal without Sony).
Even if Apollo isn’t successful in taking control of Paramount, Grode says that Legendary is now in the place where it wants to start making acquisitions itself.
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