The Lion is dead, long live the Lion. MGM's production and development divisions may be gone, but she's been reformed into a distributor/marketer of films and today in Century City announced a fourteen film slate they have planned through til 2007.

The first MGM release will be Bruce Willis/Josh Hartnett starrer "Lucky Number Slevin" on April 7th, followed by "Harsh Times," with Christian Bale on June 2nd, "Clerks II" on August 18, and "Van Wilder Deux: The Rise of Taj" on December 1st. More pics are expected to be announced in coming weeks.

Sony, which owns a 20% stake in MGM, has a three-year deal to distrib the new pics in the domestic homevid market and in the Blu-ray format. Sony will continue to distrib MGM's existing 4,000-title library.

MGM also said it is moving forward on sequels to their recent hit remakes "The Thomas Crown Affair" and "The Pink Panther", Sony will have the option to co-finance and distribute.