In August 2019, Hasbro Inc. announced it was paying about $4 billion to acquire Entertainment One (eOne), the Canadian media company best known for the kids’ TV series “Peppa Pig” and “PJ Masks.” Hasbro’s then-Chief Executive Officer, Brian Goldner, was on a mission to transform the toy company that makes Transformers action figures and G.I. Joe dolls into a global entertainment studio that also makes movies and TV shows. Goldner had previously held talks to buy DreamWorks Animation (home of “Shrek”) and Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. (“The Hunger Games”) but had been unable to seal a deal. eOne, which began as a Canadian music distributor in the early 1970s, is a hodge podge of assets. It owns stakes in several production companies, including Steven Spielberg’s Amblin, and produces dozens of films and TV shows such as “Yellowjackets.” It also distributes movies in foreign territories. In the two and a half years since the deal closed, almost everything that could go wrong has gone wrong, Bloomberg News reported. A global pandemic halted production and closed movie theaters, Goldner died at the age of just 58 and an activist investor acquired a stake in Hasbro and started agitating for some changes. Hasbro fought off the activist, and is now conducting a strategic review and reassessing its entertainment strategy. While the company is still committed to “branded entertainment” — aka more “Transformers” movies — it now feels there are large parts of eOne’s business that don’t fit into its future. Hasbro is weighing two options, according to several people familiar with its plans. It can take the existing staff and redirect it to make branded entertainment (think “Peppa Pig” movies), and shut down work on projects like “Yellowjackets” and “Designated Survivor.” Or it can sell everything it doesn’t want. It already sold the music company, which owned Death Row Records, for $385 million.
