Activist investor Anson Funds is once again pushing for Lionsgate to sell itself or adjust course in the “AI era.”
According to Semafor, a letter to Lionsgate in July urged the studio to either align more with the oncoming rush of generative AI content or look to sell. As we now live in a world with “AI winners and AI losers,” it’s apparently time for the movie distributor to figure out which path it is heading down.
“The rise of generative AI has led the market to sort companies bluntly into ‘AI winners’ and ‘AI losers,’” Sagar Gupta reportedly wrote in a July letter to Lionsgate’s board. “Lionsgate’s stock has reacted sharply – and negatively – to the release of new AI video models, including Sora and Seedance, which we believe reflects a default market assumption that a studio is more likely to be an AI casualty than an AI beneficiary.”
A Lionsgate spokesperson declined to comment.
This is not the first time Anson Funds has pushed Lionsgate to sell itself. In 2024, it urged Lionsgate to pursue an outright sale or asset sales following its split from Starz, which occurred the following year. TheWrap also previously reported that Legendary Entertainment was mulling a potential acquisition of Lionsgate last year.
The letter in July came as others expressed interest in Lionsgate and its film properties – which includes “The Hunger Games,” “John Wick” and “Twilight,” among others. Banijay, the TV production company behind shows like “Big Brother” and “Survivor,” is among the interested parties that have mulled a bid for Lionsgate. Their interest comes after Banijay Entertainment chairman Jeff Zucker and CEO Marco Bassetti previously told TheWrap that they’d be open to more dealmaking following completion of the All3Media deal, emphasizing that “scale is key” to survive and thrive in the current media landscape.
“We’re just on day one here today. Obviously, Marco and the team have a tremendous amount of work to do to bring the two companies together, to bring the two cultures together, to find those synergies,” Zucker said last month. “But at the same time, we’re also going to be opportunistic about the coming years. We’ll look for other opportunities as they come up. We have nothing in mind today, but feel that given our incredibly strong shareholders and our strength and scale, we’ll be well positioned to take advantage of the new media ecosystem.”
