Lionsgate Studios CFO Jimmy Barge says his company has become an attractive pure-play studio asset after its breakup with Starz.
“We see what’s happening in the world of consolidation. Everybody wants studios, we’ve got a scarce asset here already completely separated,” Barge told the Morgan Stanley Investors Conference after Paramount Skydance prevailed over Netflix in a winning bid for Warner Bros. Discovery.
“I think we’re just extremely well positioned, with our business hitting on all cylinders at the same time – we’re a pure play studio which has got great scarcity value, great on that industry consolidation point,” he reiterated about the John Wick studio having separated from the Outlander premium network to create two standalone companies.
Barge said the formal separation of Lionsgate and Starz “took a while,” before being completed nearly a year ago with an eye to unlocking value for investors by allowing them to evaluate each business separately. Job done, he added on Wednesday, as Lionsgate gets credit for its 20,000-plus-title library just as industry consolidation pushes up price tags for original content.
“We’re very cognizant of those values and the ability to create outsized valuations for our shareholders in the world of consolidation,” Barge said. Specifically on content, the Lionsgate financial chief on the movie side talked up Mel Gibson’s Resurrection of the Christ to now be two films, as may happen to Michael, the Michael Jackson biopic.
“You have a Resurrection Part 2, likely Michael 2 and you have a Housemaid’s Secret. So right there you’ve got three tentpoles moving into ’28 and so fiscal 2028, so you got great carryover coming out of ’26 into ’27,” Barge said.
On recent analyst calls, Lionsgate executives have talked about a second Michael movie now in development, but no official announcement on a second film has been made as the studio looks to see whether the original movie will do as well at the box office as projected.