The way forward for 007 and the James Bond franchise as a complete has been a degree of competition for years now, particularly after the MGM library was absorbed by Amazon. After months of back-and-forth relating to the enlargement plans for the IP, longtime Bond producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli are “stepping again from the inventive course of.”
The information dropped by way of Deadline, with each the producers and Amazon MGM Studios and Prime Video’s Mike Hopkins confirming the brand new association. “Amazon and the producers have shaped a brand new enterprise to accommodate the James Bond mental property rights”, he mentioned, with Wilson and Broccoli remaining on board as co-owners of the franchise.
After all, that amy nicely show to be elaborate corpo discuss for ‘We have trampled over the producers that have been blocking the franchise from turning into one other interchangeable property we will mine to dying’. In late 2024, it was reported that Broccoli even went so far as to name Amazon’s execs “f**king idiots,” which suggests troublesome conversations regarding the way forward for not solely the subsequent James Bond, but additionally potential spinoffs motion pictures and/or reveals had been occurring for some time.
“Insiders add that no selections have been made on the longer term Bond movies together with who will star, direct or write the subsequent movie,” Deadline wrote. After all, getting a brand new Bond film off the bottom (one thing that Broccoli and Wilson have been excited by doing within the close to future) must be the precedence, as No Time To Die, Daniel Craig’s remaining outing as the long-lasting British spy, was launched in late 2021 and can flip 4 this 12 months. Even when a writing and directing workforce was locked this 12 months, Amazon could be a 2027 launch on the earliest.
“With the conclusion of No Time to Die and Michael retiring from the movies, I really feel it’s time to deal with my different tasks,” mentioned Broccoli on the finish of her feedback. In case you can learn between the traces, she sounds nicely conscious {that a} main plundering will now start. There have been rumblings prior to now of Amazon being excited by spinoffs based mostly on different characters from the ‘Bond mythos’ (since all the things have to be thought-about a universe now) and even prequel reveals. Broccoli and Wilson, however, all the time pushed for Bond to stay a theatrical ‘occasion’ film collection.
Whereas pleasure surrounding a brand new James Bond and the respective rebooted film saga stays excessive it doesn’t matter what, followers will understandably be extra cautious shifting ahead as Amazon appears for brand spanking new methods to mine the collection for fast income, and the preliminary reactions on-line to this main Hollywood growth are something however optimistic.