Longtime James Bond producers give up creative control to Amazon MGM Studios
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It’s the end of an era for the man who likes his cocktails shaken, not stirred.
Amazon MGM Studios and the longtime producers of the James Bond film franchise — Barbara Broccoli and her half-brother Michael G. Wilson — on Thursday said they made a deal that will give the tech giant creative control of the blockbuster British superspy series.
The parties have formed a new joint venture to house the 007 intellectual property rights. Broccoli and Wilson, the heirs to the franchise controlled and produced by Albert R. Broccoli, will remain co-owners.
Amazon acquired MGM Studios, the studio home of the character with a license to kill, in 2022, giving it a huge catalog with more than 4,000 films and 17,000 TV shows. With that transaction, Amazon gained distribution rights for Bond.
But creatively, Bond remained under the tight control of the Broccoli family, who have been fiercely protective of the property based on the novels of Ian Fleming.
With 007 behind him, Craig is already at the center of another blockbuster franchise. Just don’t accuse the ‘Glass Onion’ star of having a plan.
That will change with the new deal.
“My life has been dedicated to maintaining and building upon the extraordinary legacy that was handed to Michael and me by our father, producer Cubby Broccoli,” said Barbara Broccoli in a statement. “With the conclusion of ‘No Time to Die’ and Michael retiring from the films, I feel it is time to focus on my other projects.”
Wilson said he is stepping back to focus on art and charitable projects.
The most recent James Bond film was “No Time to Die,” which was released in 2021 and saw the definitive end of Daniel Craig’s version of the martini-swilling character. The movie grossed $774 million in global box office receipts.
But since then, there’s been little news for Bond’s next chapter. No new 007 has been announced, despite rampant speculation.
While there have been calls and ideas floated for changes to the Bond character (have a woman in the role?) and business strategies (maybe an Amazon Prime series?), certain possibilities were considered off the table with the family owners in charge.
“He can be of any color, but he is male,” said Broccoli, in a 2020 interview with Variety.
Since the release of “Dr. No” in 1962, the 007 franchise has grossed billions of dollars in box office sales. Over the course of 25 films, the character has been played by Sean Connery, George Lazenby (for one movie), Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and, finally, Craig.
The highest-grossing Bond movie remains 2012’s “Skyfall,” with Craig, which grossed $1.1 billion in theaters globally.
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