Legendary Revives $3.5 Billion Bid for Lionsgate, Sending Shares Up 15%

By Daniel Okafor

Lionsgate shares jumped more than 15% on Tuesday after Bloomberg reported that Legendary Entertainment has submitted a takeover offer valuing the studio at $3.5 billion.

The figure includes $1.9 billion in debt, per Bloomberg, which cited anonymous sources. A merger would let Legendary, the production company behind the "Dune" franchise and "A Minecraft Movie," self-distribute its films — the kind of independence most studios talk about and few achieve. Representatives for both Legendary and Lionsgate declined to comment.

Why this bid, why now?

Legendary has circled Lionsgate before. The company reached out about a potential partnership with Lionsgate Studios last year, after the split-off of Starz, which formally separated from Lionsgate in May 2025. Lionsgate Studios — its TV and film production and distribution divisions plus a content library of 20,000-plus titles — has traded as a separate entity since then.

Lionsgate's franchises include John Wick, The Hunger Games and Saw. For a buyer, that's a tidy shelf of proven intellectual property. For Lionsgate, perennially a rumored acquisition target, the question is whether this bid survives contact with bankers.

Other suitors have looked without committing. Banijay and Mediawan expressed interest in Lionsgate but never submitted formal offers, per the report. Banijay has since merged with the U.K.'s All3Media and now operates as Banijay Entertainment.

What do the numbers say?

Lionsgate's recent results explain the timing. Overall revenue rose 48% in the June 2026 quarter, and the movie segment posted $105 million in income, driven by "Michael," the Michael Jackson biopic. That film is the studio's biggest box-office performer to date and the first biopic to top $1 billion in theatrical release.

The rest of the ledger is less festive. Quarterly net loss attributable to shareholders was $28.8 million — an improvement over the $94 million loss a year earlier, but a loss all the same. The television division posted declines in both revenue and profit. As of June 30, Lionsgate held $425.8 million in cash and equivalents against total debt of $1.9 billion.

Who owns the buyer?

Legendary cleaned up its own cap table in 2024, buying out the stake held by Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group. That deal left Legendary and private-equity firm Apollo Global Management in control. Apollo acquired its stake in Legendary in 2022 for $760 million.

Lionsgate is scheduled to report fiscal 2027 second-quarter results — the three months ended Sept. 30, 2026 — after market close on Thursday, Nov. 5. If the Bloomberg report holds, that earnings call just became the most-watched five minutes on the studio's calendar.