MGM GIF by Sean Buckley / CNET
It is one of the most iconic images in cinema: a lion, framed by a golden circle of film stock, roaring triumphantly before the opening credits roll. Now, after nearly 100 years and more than half a dozen lions roaring live, MGM is replacing its iconic mascot with an almost identical computer-generated copy. Leo, the lion is dead, alive Leo, the lion CG.
This change has been underway for some time. MGM originally planned to debut its new CG mascot in the latest James Bond film, but when No Time to Die was postponed from 2019 to 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic, it was also Leo’s first roar from the mysterious valley. Instead, MGM revealed the logo on YouTube on Monday and on a reel shared with Adweek, which said MGM worked with Baked Studios in Culver City, California, on the new look.
At first glance, the revamped logo is almost identical to the version that MGM has used for the past 64 years. Leo’s substitute for CG, the lion, has the same roar and looks almost identical to his predecessor. The circle that surrounds it is still made of a golden ribbon of film, twisted into an elegant garland and underlined by a dramatic mask. In fact, the biggest change is the trademark introduction animation, which displays the slogan of the original English logo before slowly zooming out and returning to the original Latin: art for art.
It is not the first time that MGM has renewed its logo. There have been eight different lions since 1924, and each has been used in several logo iterations. The first lion didn’t even roar. Sometimes, lions were replaced after the first roar by a brother Marx or Tom, from Tom and Jerry. For a brief moment in the 1960s, MGM completely got rid of the roaring lion, replacing it with a stylized lion graphic.
In the end, however, MGM has always returned to the classic logo, and this design language persists in the latest redesign. Everything looks a little brighter, sharper and probably more suitable for 4K and 8K TVs than the old 1957 logo, but it’s still a classic.
I’m still not 100% convinced of what that CG lion looks like yet.