Lionsgate faces activist pressure to sell itself in ‘AI era’

Activist investor Anson Funds is pushing Lionsgate to reinvent itself for the AI era or seek a buyer. According to Semafor, the studio's stock has plunged whenever new AI video models like Sora and Seedance launch—a pattern Anson sees as the market fearing studios are AI casualties rather than beneficiaries. Anson's pitch: Lionsgate's twenty-thousand-film library could command a premium for IP licensing if the company could convince Wall Street of that value. Lionsgate has already fielded informal acquisition interest, and recent major deals—Amazon's MGM purchase, Microsoft's Activision acquisition, Netflix's pursuit of Warner Bros. Discovery—demonstrate the appetite among tech and streaming giants for content libraries. Per Semafor, the studio hasn't yet hired investment banks to formally explore a sale, and Netflix has already ruled itself out.

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