Fade Out: The Calamitous Final Days of MGM

A behind-the-scenes account of the decline and fall of a once great studio, tracing MGMs corporate convulsions from 20 years ago, when Kirk Kerkorian bought control to the present, the financial disasters of "Yentl", "Mrs Soffel" and "2010" and the final "take over" by Pathe. In 1983 MGM\UA was in the midst of a comeback. Under the new management of Frank Yablans the company had secured assurances of financial backing from CEO-financier Kirk Kerkorian and a series of dazzling new movies was in development. Top stars like Jack Nicholson, Barbara Streisand and Mel Gibson were on the programme, a sequel to the cult classic "2001" was planned and "Wargames" was in release. What nobody anticipated was that Kerkorian, ever the smart Las Vegas game-player, had evolved his own scheme to harness Hollywood's myth making machinery to his own personal ends. The end result was that Kerkorian emerged a billionaire and his companies emerged a shambles. The films anticipated to be immense successes - "Yentl", "Mrs Soffel" and "2010" - turned out to be financial disasters of immense proportions. The Nicholson movie never even got made and the success of "Wargames" couldn't compensate for the extent of the disaster.