That producer Barbara Broccoli and Michel Wilson let Amazon buy Bond surprised most people but perhaps the biggest surprise is why Barbara Broccoli let go of James Bond creatively too having kept an iron grip on the franchise for decades.
Rumours are that the beginning of the end began back in January 2024 where three senior Amazon execs Jennifer Dalke, Courtenay Valenti and Julie Rapaport took her for dinner to talk about an initial plan for the first Bond movie under Amazon’s tenure having bought it in 2022 for $8.5billion. Its rumoured that broccoli was wholly unimpressed with what she heard and returned home to London. Not long after Amazon began talks about her finally letting go creatively.
Those talks lasted a whole year and apparently became increasingly fraught. Having spent a fortune Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is keen to expand the franchise and bring it into an era of high tech with spin offs and much more. Broccoli and Wilson, having kept such firm control of the brand resisted this at every opportunity and though the two producers did not always agree they did not want to flood the market with Bind films and it’s that which has made the films an event when they have been released often with years between films nit wanting to bore audiences as has been found with the Marvel films over the past years. Some have suggested that this has been detrimental to the franchise with the pair having final cut on each film which included interest from Christopher Nolan a few years ago and instead went on to make Oppenheimer. (Spielberg too had also expressed interest way back in the late 1970’s nut was blocked by Barbara’s father Cubby who believed Spielberg was too inexperienced.
So the question remains as to Why Barbara Broccoli let go of James Bond. Wilson is 83 years old and the turmoil and pressure is one that anyone of that age must be glad to leave behind and has other interest he wants to pursue in his final years.
As for Broccoli , she took over the franchise with 1995’s Goldeneye and acquired a reputation as a tough cookie seeing off execs from MGM but for anyone it must take its toll and rumours are that after a year of negotiations with Amazon senior execs she’d had enough purportedly calling them, ‘fucking idiots’ in the Wall Street Journal suggesting that she was abandoning diplomacy and wanted to get out.
That article in the Wall Street Journal was read by Bezos with one source saying that having seen what she has said got on the phone and said, ‘I don’t care what it costs, get rid of her,’ . And it did cost him dearly with a rumoured $1billion payoff. Yet she is not short of a few quid with her worth reported to be $500m. So with creative control now relinquished to Amazon the franchise for the first time will no longer be steered by family with Wilson’s son and a niece rumoured to be groomed to takeover. That would now seem to be over.
For Amazon it leaves the path clear for the to plough on once the deal which needs regulatory approval in the U.S. and U.K. and is expected sometime this year is finally rubber stamped. Amazon will want to get a move on to capitalize on their outlay having spent similar on a Lord of the Rings series that disappointed and a hugely expensive Bond TV series apparently the most expensive series ever made at $300m for a six episode series.
It’s expected that an experienced film producer will be appointed to oversee the Amazon Bond films with a singular vision and spin offs films are expected
So just exactly why the Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli especially, have sold up will perhaps not be known for some years but it’s likely we can expect to be flooded with Bond and Bond related films and merchandise
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source : Variety / The Hollywood Reporter
