It’s been only a day, but the film world is still reeling from the news that Amazon MGM Studios now has complete creative control over the James Bond franchise. A new joint venture sees producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson relinquish their stake in the IP. From now on, the pair are producers in name only, and Amazon MGM may take the franchise wherever it chooses.
READ MORE: James Bond On The Next James Bond: “I Don’t Care” Who Plays 007
The news shocked Bond fans because Broccoli and Wilson had proved to be stalwarts against the studio’s desire to turn 007 into a cinematic universe replete with spinoffs, prequels, and TV shows on streaming. What prompted the two to change their minds? Deadline reports it came down to money, a lot of it. The new deal reportedly involves an additional $1 billion for Broccoli and Wilson to cede their creative involvement. And with this sudden surrender, all of Amazon MGM’s bad ideas above that would dilute the Bond brand feel not only possible but inevitable.
Needless to say, it’s a dark time for the Broccolis, with Deadline also reporting that a recipient who got the news from Broccoli over the phone compared it to a call “about a death in the family.” To make matters worse, just hours after news of the updated deal broke yesterday, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos took to Instagram to crowdsource his followers on who should be cast as the next Bond. Is that a calculated act by Bezos? Absolutely, and the social media equivalent to dancing one a grave before the body’s even cold. The CEO and his studio undoubtedly see this as a victory, and they’ll advertise every victory lap they make.
And what does the most recent James Bond, Daniel Craig, have to say about all of this? The actor offered his condolences to Wilson and Broccoli in an exclusive statement to Variety. “My respect, admiration and love for Barbara and Michael remain constant and undiminished,” said Craig. “I wish Michael a long, relaxing (and well deserved) retirement and whatever ventures Barbara goes on to do, I know they will be spectacular and I hope I can be part of them.”
Neither the Broccolis nor Amazon MGM could find a new actor to replace Craig in the 007 role after 2021’s “NO Time To Die,” and several sources close to Barbara think the failed search played into her agreeing to walk away. “Perhaps,” the source told Deadline, “I do think that it’s possible that if God had sent us a totally no-brainer Bond in the last couple of years, then it might be a different situation.”
Another source said they didn’t “think that there was any frontrunner” for a new Bond, and meetings with actors like Aaron Taylor-Johnson were “just as kind of an ongoing, keeping your eye out on who’s around.” But the same source also said that Broccoli “wanted to know what they wanted to do next before they thought of the right person for it,” and the creative standoff with Amazon MGM further complicated the issue. “Well, Michael was going to step back,” added another source. “Barbara said as much at the premiere of “No Time To Die.” If she’d had found another actor with all the right factors, then maybe. You never know. But remember, Barbara couldn’t see herself working without her family. There’s class and there’s class. There’s also family, and they [Amazon MGM] are not family.”
In any event, Amazon will need a big-time creative producer to fill Broccoli and Wilson’s role, and those are in short supply. “It’s all very well Amazon taking over but the thing is they need a producer and I mean a producer in the sense of a ringmaster,” said another source close to the Bond producers. “It really does need someone with a big sense of how Bond works. The scale is enormous, that’s why it took, in the past, so long to put all the different parts together. And creative producers are not two-a-penny. So it’s difficult. Two pairs of shoes to fill. And there’s the casting, the casting in the past has been exceptional. And that comes from the top.”
As the dust settles, one looming question remains: where does the franchise go from here? A source commented that “it’s not that massive a group of people in the Bond world, the characters Ian Fleming created,” but that may not stop Amazon MGM from expanding the world on their own terms. Thus the question becomes, “Do Band fans want their Bond experience diluted?” The short answer there is no, but with the studio now at the steering wheel, Bond fans may not have a choice. “It’s big, isn’t it? It’s really big,” another source siad about the deal’s ramifications. “It all feels very big at this time when we’ve got all this bad stuff happening in the world and we want James Bond.”
But in the aftermath of the Broccoli’s exit, one thing is clear: James Bond will return, but when he does, it likely won’t one fans recognize.
