With Daniel Craig’s future as Bond still not resolved (please do another) the other doubt over the next Bond film is who will actually distribute the film whenever it comes out?
Since Craig took over the role it’s been Sony. Casino Royale made $599m, Quantum of Solace made $586m before Skyfall hit the jackpot making $1.1billion, the most a Bond film has ever made and Spectre making $880m which was also the longest ever Bond film.
Despite the huge sums Sony actually only made $57m from Skyfall due to the arrangement made with the Bond producers. It hardly helped Sony when having released North Korean piss take ‘The Interview’ the country allegedly hacked the companies internal emails releasing all manner of embarrassing memos including the CEO’s personal view of Angelina Jolie and her films as well as leaking the Spectre script.
So the with the four film distribution deal at an end there are now five studios pitching for the rights to distribute the next James Bond film. Those studios being Sony obviously but also Warner Bros, Universal Pictures, 20th Century Fox and most surprising of all, Annapurna Pictures, who have all been making representations to MGM and Eon Productions, who control the franchise but are only offering a single film deal. Unsurprisingly Disney are reportedly not interested and Paramount have not been forthcoming about any interest either.
So it’s Annapurna that has raised the most eyebrows. Having been founded by Megan Ellison in 2011 they are renowned for prestige films such as Foxcatcher, Zero Dark Thirty, The Master, American Hustle, Her and the forthcoming ‘Detroit’ (see our coming soon section for the trailer) but they have never distributed and marketed a big budget franchise films before.
Expect a decision to be made alter this year……
