Another recent studio shakeup saw the exit of Jen Salke as the head of Amazon MGM Studios, that coming after news that Amazon shelled out a hefty billion to remove EON Productions (Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson) from the creative side of the James Bond franchise and hired new producers to help get the next feature film into active development.
Well, new details hailing from Variety about Salke’s clashes on Bond are being revealed as the report claims that Salke was aiming to make Bond “a broader, less dangerous character who could star in TV shows and carry video games.” They would compare that vision of a family-friendly 007 to something closer to a cookie-cutter NBC/network spy rather than the iconic mature version that audiences would be familiar with.
That is certainly a counterproductive perspective given that Bond is infamous for sleeping around, with mostly married women, heavy drinking (Heinkein having longstanding product tie-ins), and his license to kill issued by MI6 means the British spy ends up piling up an on-screen body count mostly by the use of guns and other deadly weapons.
Appealing to middle America is one thing, but completely changing the character’s pillars could be a reason why Salke was shown the door along with the friction between EON Productions that led to their billion-dollar ouster and their replacements (Amy Pascal and David Heyman overseeing “Bond 26” and potentially more).
The outlet also pointed out that the big hiring news of Pascal and Heyman for “Bond 26” was an announcement made by Amazon’s head of film Courtenay Valenti and not Salke.
Those clashes with EON and Amazon’s new full control of Bond were seemingly part of the reason that Salke’s boss, Mike Hopkins (head of Prime Video & Amazon MGM Studios) decided to offboard the studio head and placed Salke into a first-look producing deal.
Speaking of spies at Amazon, The Russo Brothers, who are currently shooting Marvel‘s “Avengers: Doomsday,” have their own spy franchise at Amazon with “Citadel” via AGBO but the future of that is in question. Spinoffs have been placed “on hold,” according to THR, and the second season is being pushed from 2025 to 2026. Spinoffs like Italy’s “Citadel: Diana” and India’s “Citadel: Honey Bunny” have already been made, but it remains to be seen if future ones will happen.
Salke’s involvement with the extremely expensive spy series (season one’s budget balloned from $160 million to $235 million due to $75 million reshoots) is being cited as another potential reason for the exit, as the show didn’t end up as big as Amazon had hoped, given the costs involved, and may explain the reasoning behind the delay on season two and the pause on spinoffs.
As with other shakeups, we can’t predict what this ultimately means for “Bond 26,” as a director and new actor are going to inform what the general audience and fans will think about the film and the perception of the franchise. So, until then, we should try our best to be as optimistic as humanly possible.
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
