Both John Malone's Liberty Media and Relativity Media are out, and Time Warner is expected to bid low, reports Sharon Waxman at The Wrap. With Friday's deadline for final bids, that leaves Lionsgate and Russian billionaire Len Blavatnik, though the studio might turn down all the offers and go with some sort of debt restructuring. Both News Corp. and Qualia Capital have shown some interest in that. From The Wrap:

As the numbers kept coming in, Relativity foresaw MGM's cash flow grinding to a halt in the next year to two years. The reason: With the studio's restructuring and sale, there's no new product -- no movies being made, no greenlit projects, and basically no reason to believe its library will generate revenue in the longer term. And with layoffs that have left only senior management, people looking at the company are worried that the value isn't there.

Sources tell Bloomberg's Ron Grover that MGM creditors would not accept Liberty's offer because the studio's value has fallen so much. The value of the library is proving to be a sticking point in all the bids.