The Amazon-ing Adventures of James Bond

It's one of those stories where you check to see if it is April the 1st. Weyland-Yutani Buys Harry Potter! James Bond being blown up by missiles at the end of No Time to Die suddenly makes a hell of a lot more sense now than it ever did at the time. It nows feels an awful lot like Barbara Broccoli putting a big full stop on the EON era of Bond. THE END. Our Bond is dead and whatever comes next won't be the same. The next Bond will be New Coke. Having spent the last twenty odd years carping on endlessly about the direction Barbara Broccoli was taking the Bond franchise (we consistently complained on this website that demystifying Bond, taking it too seriously, trying to tortuously connect all the films into one ongoing story, and turning 007 into Jason Bourne was a dead end that wouldn't sustain an era and I think we largely turned out to be right about that - though of course other opinions are available) I now find myself in the position of mourning the departure of Broccoli and the EON family from the creative side of Bond - as now appears to be the case. Make no mistake, if I'd been forced to choose between Barbara Broccoli and Amazon then I would have been with Team Barbara all the way. The recent stories (whether true or not) of Barbara calling Amazon executives f****** idiots who should stick to selling vacuum cleaners were heartening but, alas, turned out to be a false dawn.

Now we have the bombshell of Barbara walking away (doubtless to produce films that no one will ever watch) and leaving the future of James Bond in the hands of the tax dodging company who made Rings of Power. That news isn't likely to have too many Bond fans immediately jumping for joy. This doesn't necessarily mean that a plunge in quality is imminent. Amazon would (you hope) surely be smart enough to hire a good director and give them creative control (sort of like with Matt Reeves on the Batman film) and it really shouldn't be that difficult for anyone (especially with Amazon's money at their disposal) to make Bond films that are superior to Quantum of Solace, Spectre, and No Time to Die. The fears though go much deeper than whatever film Amazon might dredge up. Is the next film going to spend two weeks in cinemas and then go straight to Amazon's streaming site? Will the next film begin with 'Jeff Bezos Amazon Presents...' rather than Cubby and EON? I'm joking on that one but you never know. Is Pinewood Studios no longer the home of James Bond? Are the roots of the franchise going to be lost? Are we going to get a series of crappy James Bond streaming spin-offs - like the origin story of tough street kid Felix Leiter or the adventures of Moneypenny as she juggles working for MI6 with solving murder mysteries in her spare time like Kate Mulgrew in Mrs. Columbo? We can only pray there is some sort of backstop in place to prevent this nightmare happening.

There is nothing much to mine in the James Bond universe. This isn't Marvel Comics. No one surely wants the origin story of Oddjob or a tedious Jack Ryan style show about 008. The only thing that would ever make any sense would be to do period and faithful adaptations (whether through live action or animation) of the novels but in a landscape where Ian Fleming's books are given trigger warnings and being edited how would this be possible? The biggest fear now is Bond becoming mere corporate 'content' slop lost in an erratic creative spew rather than the strangely unique family run film franchise it has always been. We've seen what happens when a corporate monolith tries to turn a beloved IP into endless content for their streaming platform. Look at what they did to Star Wars. So things will never quite be the same now - although if truth be told they were never quite the same after Licence to Kill. Bond always felt a trifle strange without Cubby at the helm anymore and the increasingly bizarre cheese fever dream Daniel Craig era (where Bond and Blofeld were brothers, Bond had a child, Bond was killed etc) only compounded that sense. This is the dawn of the Third Age of Bond. You had the original era with Cubby and Harry and then just Cubby. Then you had the 1995-2021 era with Barbara and Michael G. Wilson. Now we have Amazon at the wheel and no one quite knows what this actually means. There will be no Chinese or tech billionaire villains I'd wager. Is this next film going to bend the knee to the marketing algorithm and come off as bland Hollywood mush?

Was Barbara forced out by Amazon? It sounds that way. It wasn't that long ago that Barbara was talking about the next Bond film being a few years away and still acting as if she would be in charge of it. It would be a shame if Barbara lost her enthusiasm when Daniel Craig left because that would mean she was more interested in making Daniel Craig films than James Bond films. I can't believe that was really the case. It appears that, according to Deadline, she was put in an impossible position and had no choice but to cede control. This is one of those scenarios that Bond fans knew could happen one day but even so the fact that it HAS actually happened still comes as a shock and leaves us feeling unsettled about the future. The only hope now is this doesn't turn out to be the disaster that it clearly has the potential to be. Maybe there is an agreement that no streaming shows will be made (we can but hope). Those who complained about the lack of activity from EON (who made just TWO Bond films in the entire 2010s - which is ridiculous when you think about it) may at least be buoyed by the prospect of films on a more regular basis now. There is no doubt that EON seemed to be suffering from a creative malaise and lack of enthusiasm. Though they desperately tried to pretend that No Time to Die was a great film and worth the wait it clearly wasn't. It really, really wasn't.

Does this new development mean that someone 'obvious' and popular like Henry Cavill might now be back in the running to play Bond? Who knows? We don't even know who will be producing or writing the film let alone casting it. The fact that Fleming's early novels apparently enter the public domain in ten years presumably means that Amazon will have to pull their finger out. I haven't the foggiest what the public domain issue will mean. A deluge of low-budget Bond related horror films flooding the market I'd imagine (Amazon's well-heeled lawyers are unlikely to let anyone get away with being too cheeky when it comes to pilfering from the Bond brand). Bond will finally be back soon enough but in what fashion remains to be seen. If the new film is bland and mediocre and Amazon vomit a load of awful Bond related streaming shows on us then the fandom will have every right to moan. I might even start missing the Daniel Craig era. If the new film is fantastic and there are no spin-off shows then many might see the new arrangement as a distinct improvement over the previous one - where Bond films arrived once in a blue moon and were not exactly consistent in quality. I can't say I'm happy at all about Amazon having their grubby greedy mitts on the Bond franchise (just typing that makes me feel like having a hot bath) but I can't pretend either that the previous arrangement was doing much for me as a Bond fan.

Daniel Craig was given way too much creative power and also basically allowed to make a film whenever he felt like it - rather than adhere to a schedule like a hired Bond actor. This all culminated in that gap between Spectre and No Time to Die where instead of just recasting the part and making a new film, Barbara sat on her hands and begged Craig (by now clearly bored with the role and getting too old anyway) to come back. This state of affairs had long since become frustrating, tedious and tiresome. How many times on a forum did someone say something along the lines of 'if another studio ran Bond they'd make a film every couple of years and we'd be better off'? It looks like that theory is now about to be put to the test. Articles about the current James Bond scene have been non-existent on this website for a long time now for the very simple reason that there has literally been nothing to talk about. No announcements, no casting, no news on the next film, no new film to review. That will all change now. In time there will be plenty to talk and write about. The jury is still very much out though on whether any of these new developments will actually be good for James Bond. We shall see.


- Jake

HOME

FORUM