Whether a dip in fortunes or the end of an era, the proposed sale of one of Hollywood’s most enduring studios is drawing only moderate interest. MGM was, during Hollywood’s golden era, arguably the most the most dominant motion picture studio in town, home to stars like Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, and Wallace Beery. Their back catalog features a trove of landmark films ranging from Gone With the Wind to The Wizard of Oz to Doctor Zhivago. So how come no one’s buying? Plenty of reasons, and the fact that the studio’s only release last year was the magnificently unsuccessful remake of Fame is just a drop in the bucket.

Turns out that sweet back catalog of films belongs to Ted Turner, so really all the studio has to offer is the James Bond franchise and a mountain of debts: $300 million a year in interest on a $3.7 billion loan, and $1 billion in payments due in June 2011. Yikes!

In covering this story for the New York Times, Michael Cieply and Brooks Barnes see the MGM debacle as part of larger trend, asking: “are movie studios becoming a financial footnote?” A recent report by Barclays Capital suggests that falling dvd sales and reduced operating budgets have made even financially healthy studios less of a priority for the media conglomerates that own them. While there’s been some interest in MGM from Time Warner, Lionsgate Entertainment, and others, none of the bids have exceeded two billion—this for a company that was bought for five billion just six years ago.

It’s rather sad to think that the studio that once boasted “more stars than there are in heaven” is now so thoroughly reduced and likely to become even more so. Nevertheless, I always did have a problem with the company motto "Ars Gratia Artis", or "Art for art's sake.” Who were they kidding? There’s no such thing in Hollywood.