Legendary Entertainment Revives Takeover Bid for Lionsgate Studios

Legendary Entertainment has submitted a new takeover offer for Lionsgate Studios Corp., reviving talks that first surfaced more than a year ago, according to a Bloomberg report published Tuesday and corroborated independently by several entertainment trade publications. The offer sent Lionsgate shares sharply higher and renewed speculation that one of Hollywood's few remaining independent studios could soon change hands.

Lionsgate shares rose more than 15 percent during Tuesday's trading session, according to TheWrap, which put the stock at roughly $12.20, giving the company a market capitalization of about $3.6 billion. Neither Variety nor Deadline reported specific deal terms, and estimates of the offer's value varied across outlets, with some pegging it in the $3.5 billion to $3.6 billion range before accounting for roughly $1.9 billion in assumed debt. Lionsgate and Legendary both declined to comment, and representatives for Legendary's majority financial backer, private equity firm Apollo Global Management, did not respond to requests for comment cited in the reporting.

A deal years in the making

Legendary first explored acquiring Lionsgate Studios in July 2025, not long after Lionsgate completed a corporate split that separated its film and television studio from the Starz premium cable network. That separation became official on May 7, 2025, when Starz announced it had completed its formal split from Lionsgate and began trading on its own as a standalone company, with the studio business continuing to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker LION. The two sides have held on-and-off discussions since, according to The Hollywood Reporter, without reaching a formal agreement until this week's reported offer.

Legendary, the studio behind the "Dune," "Godzilla" and "King Kong" franchises as well as the "Minecraft" movie, has been majority-controlled by Apollo-managed funds since 2022, when Apollo announced a $760 million investment in the company, taking a stake alongside Legendary's founding management and China's Dalian Wanda Group. Apollo has since taken a larger role in the company. A combination with Lionsgate would pair Legendary's library with Lionsgate's catalog of franchises including "John Wick," "The Hunger Games" and "Twilight," along with distribution infrastructure Legendary does not currently operate at scale. Lionsgate's recent public filings, including its most recent quarterly disclosures filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, show no mention of the Legendary talks, consistent with both companies' refusal to confirm the offer publicly.

Pressure from an activist investor

The renewed approach comes as Lionsgate faces pressure from at least one shareholder to consider a sale. Anson Funds, an activist investor that built a position in Lionsgate last year, sent the studio's board a letter arguing that the company needed to either monetize its roughly 20,000-title film and television library for use in artificial intelligence training or put itself up for sale outright, according to a letter reviewed by Semafor.

"The rise of generative AI has led the market to sort companies bluntly into 'AI winners' and 'AI losers,'" Anson Funds portfolio manager Sagar Gupta wrote, arguing that investors had begun treating Lionsgate as a likely casualty of the shift.

The fund had previously pushed Lionsgate toward a sale or asset divestitures following the Starz split. Lionsgate's leadership has pushed back publicly on the idea that artificial intelligence threatens the company, with a vice chairman describing AI on an earnings call as a potential source of new revenue rather than a threat, though the stock has fluctuated alongside broader market anxiety over AI's effect on traditional content businesses.

Other suitors, and what happens next

Legendary is not the only party that has circled Lionsgate. French media conglomerate Bolloré Group, which controls the pay-television operator Canal+, and the television production company Banijay have both been reported as having considered bids, though neither has made a formal offer, according to reporting cited across the trade press. Netflix was also linked to a potential acquisition earlier this year but has denied interest, a point that resurfaced after its separate bid for Warner Bros. Discovery's studio and streaming assets collapsed.

Any combination would have direct consequences for Lionsgate's roughly 20,000-title library, its film and television production slate, and employees across its Santa Monica headquarters and production operations. The studio's most commercially significant recent release, the Michael Jackson biopic "Michael," became the first biopic in box-office history to cross $1 billion worldwide earlier this year, underscoring the kind of asset a buyer like Legendary would be acquiring alongside the back catalog.

No deal is finalized, and people familiar with the talks have cautioned that Lionsgate could still remain independent if terms cannot be agreed upon or if its board determines the offer undervalues the company relative to peers. Lionsgate is scheduled to report its next quarterly earnings on Nov. 5, a date that could bring further clarity on the board's posture toward a sale. Until then, neither company has committed to confirming whether formal negotiations are underway, leaving the outcome of what would be one of the year's largest entertainment-industry transactions unresolved.