The report outlined that the fallout is due to differences over the creative direction of the franchise, with Amazon reportedly in favour of “Marvel-style” ideas to expand the franchise, such as spinoff shows and films.
No, for fucks sake. No!
Broccoli is reported to have baulked at the pitch, telling friends that Amazon are “fucking idiots” who are taking the franchise “hostage”. She has reportedly expressed her disinterest in continuing to work with Amazon for any Bond films. NME has reached out to Amazon MGM Studios for comment.
“Fucking idiots” indeed. And too predictable, to be honest.
The only type of Bond show I’d be in favor of is a TV series that faithfully recreates the Bond novels in their respective era (1950s-'60s). I would love to see the books remade as a period drama series. Hour-long episodes for each book, maybe multiple episodes if the story was really detailed.
That would be an amazing series, and a unique take, as film Bond is nothing like book Bond. Except for the Daniel Craig era. That’s about as close to book Bond as we’ve ever had. That, and Timothy Dalton’s License to Kill film. Book Bond was a very dark and gritty character.
If you’re talking OG Moonraker, instead of “look, people like star wars, let’s do that!” Moonraker, I would put in many $ to this venture (like $10, maybe)
Moonraker is my favorite Bond movie. Hands down and unapologetically.
Wow, brilliant idea.
Very much like Roger Moore as The Saint, though updated, and less “30 minute 1960’s escapism for 13” black-and-white tv".
Plus you cannot tell me that Bond didn’t survive in that last movie.
It even says “James Bond Will Return” at the end. So like duh, he didn’t die
(I know but I really want to believe we’re not done with Daniel Craig as Bond)
Daniel Craig is done with Bond, so I doubt we’ll see him again in the role.
I saw the credit at the end as, “We’re not done with the franchise, more Bond films will be made.” Not necessarily that this particular James Bond will return. That caption is a standard on almost every Bond film ever, so of course they had to include it.
Although I admit, in my movie theater viewing, there were a couple little old ladies sitting near me who waited to the end of the credits with bated breath, then heaved a sigh of relief when they saw the caption. It was so cute!
One of the themes in no time to die is that 007 is just a name that can be given and exchanged to anyone. Bond will return but it won’t be Daniel Craig.
What I don’t get is that they link this James Bond to every single movie that has happen and essentially said that Craig was the embodiment of those characters…and now he’s actually gone. So are they going to have just someone else be James Bond with the same name?
I always assumed that James Bond was a code name anyway, so they can give it to another agent to replace him.
The films disproved this theory. Every actor has shared experiences across the movies, so it’s not a codename. Well, except for Daniel Craig, but his Bond was a reboot.
George Lazenby’s Bond submitted a letter of resignation to M, then cleared out his desk, pausing to reminisce on gadgets and memorabilia from the Sean Connery films as each film’s theme played. So they’re the same character.
George Lazenby’s Bond also got married to a countess named Theresa, and his new wife was murdered by Blofeld. Roger Moore’s Bond visited the grave of Theresa Bond in the opening of For Your Eyes Only, to pay respects to his late wife.
In License to Kill, Timothy Dalton’s Bond refuses to catch the garter from Felix Leiter’s new bride. When she asks Felix what’s up, he explains that Bond was married once, a long time ago.
George Lazenby’s Bond did research into genealogy for an undercover role and looked up his own heritage. He found the coat-of-arms for the real-life knight Sir Thomas Bond, who had the Latin phrase, “Orbis non Sufficit,” or, “The World is Not Enough” emblazoned on it. Pierce Brosnan’s Bond claimed in The World is Not Enough that the expression was a family motto.
So they’re all the same Bond, except for Daniel Craig, who was a reboot. They showed the start of his career, and he was James Bond before he even became 007, so that was his actual name. Also, he was given an undercover name to use for the poker tournament, but used James Bond at the hotel front desk and told them the reservation could be found under the undercover name. If James Bond was already an alias, why give him a second one on a mission?
That’s kind of a common question amongst the short stories too.
The part that bothers me is that 007 is assigned to Nomi in No Time To Die. So it sort of makes me wonder why they would assign a different name to the same cover?
We do know that M was the same character in Goldeneye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World is Not Enough, Die Another Day, Casino Royale, Quantum Solace, and Skyfall. So James Bond 007 is clearly a code name for that MI6 cleaner.
Idk. I think they just don’t explain it because they enjoy that little bit of stuff being confusing as covert stuff should be.
My head canon is that anyone that chooses to work in the 00 program as an agent is put though arduous mental programs ala: Jason Bourne until they ARE James Bond. This explains all the James Bonds throughout history
Well, they sort of have to be. They’re the janitors. Think Mr. Wolf from Pulp Fiction. They fix problems. Intelligence leaks, missing weapons of mass destruction, and almost certainly disposing of burnt assets.
Bond’s psychological profile deems him unfit for intelligence service - but that’s not his job. His job is to clean up whatever the intelligence service fucks up. In the beginning of Casino Royale it also states that you have to kill two targets - and as he says after shooting the guy “Yes. That was much easier.” (Or something like that). So he’s clearly fucked up at that point.
Circling back to the books - Bond is actually your everyday high level intelligence officer with a 9 to 5 job, except that a couple of times per year M needs someone he can trust who has a licence to kill
That sounds great. Highly doubt that’s what Amazon has in mind, though.
Because Marvel is doing so well right now.
Marvel doing less well than before is still doing a lot more well than I’m doing
Welp… rest well for now, 007. To say it has been a great run is an understatement. Amazon will likely get bored of this toy eventually and perhaps it will end up in competent hands again and we can simply laugh at whatever trash is produced.
Amazon has some good shows, like Invincible, Fallout and The Boys, but then there’s Rings of Power. RoP alone is enough for me to be okay with a Bond pause.
I wonder if she would have changed her name if her dad hadn’t been famous with that name. Or if by the time you can legally change it, you’re inured to people’s reaction.
Good, I hope she doesn’t let then ruin it
The Roger Moore era of James Bond already did that…
I think your phone autocorrected Timothy Dalton
Timothy Dalton movies at least performed better consistently (albeit it two movies isn’t as consistent as one needs). Not to mention that Roger Moore is a fucking creep. The women on screen didn’t seem to want him so much as they feared him. Connery is clearly desired by women and Brosnan is just the ideal Bond in my head (I blame the N64). Roger Moore has such awful movies by comparison and his arrogance IRL just makes it that much worse.
There’s a post above this that says Roger Moore quit because the new Bond girl was too young and he was uncomfortable with that.
I’d say it’s unfair to call him a fucking creep. Calling his character a creep would be the right way to put it.
Idk if I’d believe that, but take a look at his Wikipedia political views. The guy was a total dick. He believed that Britain shouldn’t be in the EU currency because of his love for the queen, and he criticized the new films for being too politically correct. Link
Interesting. I’d still call him an out of touch dick not a creep.
Bah I can’t pay my taxes, it will kill my retirement fund he said. Then moved to his four other homes in four different countries.
arguably the Daniel Craig ones did that by being actually fairly believable spy movies that made slight sense.
Bond is about using a magic watch to blow up vaguely Russian people and sleep with barely legal teenagers
[…] sleep with barely legal teenagers
Funny you should say that. Roger Moore gave up the Bond role when he realized that his Bond girl co-star was younger than his own daughter. He felt really icky having romance scenes with her and decided it was time to end his contract.
If Bond is about that, why does the Daniel Craig Bond use almost no gadgets?
At least the first 3 movies, the only gadgets is like a handgun that detects who uses it, a Bond car from the Sean Connery era, some explosive necklace and … a phone.
actual answer: because austin powers made gadgets uncool. there’s an interview with craig abut that.
That’s pretty much what I just said?
But why male models?
What’s wrong with Dalton? I liked Living Daylights. Licence to Kill was alright too. They went too far in the “gritty” direction on the latter in my personal opinion, but at least they were trying something new, especially since some of the later Moore films went a little too far in the “wacky” direction (cough cough Moonraker)
Moonraker is my favorite. If that kicks me out of the fan club so be it. Daniel Craig is my favorite Bond though.
Don’t get me wrong, I like Moonraker, and Moore’s Bond for that matter.
It’s just that sometimes you’re watching a spy movie and the US launches a space shuttle into orbit, which is met by a space shuttle owned by
Elon Musksome billionaire space tycoon (which he stole from himself), then they both open up and a bunch of army guys and billionaire goons float out and have a laser gun space battle, and you kinda have to step back and wonder how you got there.And considering that the book has nothing to do with space…
I’ll just say, George Lazenby was disliked so much he was only in one film. Though, he got the role in a very James Bond way.
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And it will be all CGI with zero plot or dialogue or character.
Oh right, it’s obviously a “woke” problem, not a profiteering corpo trying to milk every last cent of value out of the franchise. Fuck right outta here with that bullshit.
I’m actually not that opposed to a Bond TV show, shorter Bond adventures with more of the older style bonds campy nature and gadgets sounds like a fun time.
Or maybe use the Young Bond book series as a basis, they were pretty fun reads.
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Amazon reportedly in favour of “Marvel-style” ideas to expand the franchise, such as spinoff shows and films.
Its not like there are a shortage of spy-thrillers bouncing around. I don’t see anything immediately wrong with an MI6 extended universe, particularly if it lets younger and more unorthodox talent have fun with the setting. FFS, “Agents of Shield” and the Netflix TV street-level-hero spin offs were functionally thrillers in their own right. A lot of them were very good.
But there’s so much wrong going on under the hood of the industry. More and more talent sacrificed on the alter of AI generated content (the Rings of Power generative dialogue/screenwriting was a horrifying example of how to waste $700M in acting/set design). More focus on special effects and less on cohesive storytelling or direction.
Like, if you got the writers room from Slow Horses to do a spin-off franchise called “009”, I would be fully on board. But if its just going to be the franchise eating its own tail with forty different poorly adapted variations on Casino Royale… yeah, I can understand why there would be drama.
If any expansion came from the creative team behind Bond I’d be ok with it, I guess, but when owner Amazon is trying to force it reeks of cash- grab monetisation.
I mean, the Bond franchise is only in the state its in because the original producers couldn’t crank out more than one movie every seven years. That’s embarrassing. And everything since Skyfall has been mid-to-crap, despite them throwing fortunes behind it and having a Chad like Daniel Craig at the helm.
That said, the parent company playing tug-of-war with the creative team over how to deliver the next edition in the franchise is a big reason why we get these annoying delays. But, at the same time, giving ten creative teams $50M to make their own entries in the franchise strikes me as a better move than giving one team $500M.
As much as I think AI will make everything worse, I think it’s just a symptom of the real problem in the industry.
I think it boils down to two things:
- Major studios are pure capitalists with no artistic interest, with newcomers like Apple and Amazon not even having a culture for authenticity in any part of their operation
- Marvel made too much money
So what they’ve learned is that there’s no point in making movies - if they want to make money they need to make a franchise. So they keep investing in anything they can possibly milk into a soulless franchise that sucks in consumers and leaves them hooked.
There’s no room for artistic authenticity in this process. It will produce worthless garbage by design. It’s consumerism turned into cinematography.
Thank god some are rebelling against it.
Amazon MGM has a shit ton of franchises under their belt, why not do things with them? I would be happy if they took this direction with Stargate for example.
Can you tell me more about Rings of Power using GenAI?
Hard to leaf a good impression when all these people believe themselves to be broccstars, impossible to bond like that
Amazon out to ruin Bond.
They’re trying to ruin lord of the rings so why not bond?
New media does not change anything about old media.
Those old movies still exist and stay equally as enjoyable to watch no matter what they do with the new films.
I used to feel this way, too, but I think I’ve recanted. Whenever I talk about Star Wars now, for example, nobody seems to have any affinity for the Original Trilogy (my favorites), but almost everyone is some shade of familiar with the numerous Disney+ shows (I’ve tried them all, but they’re just not for me). I also can’t help but feel like what those three films represented to me as a whole has been fundamentally transformed by the quantity-over-quality approach that Disney has taken.
In other words, the originals still exist and are just as enjoyable for me, but the “meta” and public discourse about the franchise has shifted in a way that is often alienating to me. Could also just be part of getting old, I suppose!
The thing about the Marvel Cinematic Universe is they already had a massive comic book universe to build from with thousands of stories and characters, and that excludes the ones they already licensed out. Only other IP that can match that catalog is DC, and they keep retreating back to Batman and Superman. Building a cinematic universe from a single character or premise requires way more planning and preparation than studios are willing to spend on.
I actually don’t even know if it’s the planning, studios don’t have the patience for it, the Infinity Saga took 10 years to build to the crescendo they hit around Civil War and that was enhanced by the surprisingly wide appeal of Guardians of the Galaxy, a refreshing shift to Thor(which they eventually overplayed) and the major cultural moment of Black Panther to get there
I’d go for period adaptations of the books as a streaming show. Finally get a real version of Moonraker for example.
This would be such a smart direction to go with it
So that is not the direction they’re going to take.
If Amazon can’t continue with Bond, maybe they can sell the franchise to Disney, paving the way for a Bond/Doctor Who crossover in which Bond is a rogue timelord known as The Bachelor.
Her name sounds very cartoonish.
Bond hasn’t been good since they couldn’t use the Soviets anymore as an enemy. Modern producers aren’t willing to sacrifice Chinese money to make a real enemy.
Even for the internet, this is stupid.
No, this is actually a thing
That movies haven’t been good since we stopped making Soviets the bad guys? Nah, that’s a shit take for sure.
Oh I’m sure “a movie can’t be good unless it makes the people I hate the bad guys” is a thing, it’s just shitheaded.
No, friend, it’s a thing that Hollywood producers will revise scripts and implement last minute edits in order to avoid offending the Chinese people so they can get the dollars from the chinese audiences. Beijing will happily ban a movie if they feel it casts China in a negative light.
It’s also a thing that Russia was rarely the villain in the Bond movies, It was usually Spectre or when it was a Russian it was some Russian guy going rogue and not acting in Russia’s interests.
The top 5 Bond movies by IMDB rating are Casino Royale, Skyfall, Goldfinger, No Time to Die, From Russia With Love. And Spectre is the villain in the latter. So is it really not possible to make a good Bond film without Russia?
Interesting that China is the only country that comes to your mind.
Why not the US? A clash between MI6 and the CIA would be cool!
