This is a sad outcome. The Bond franchise is very strong, and that’s in large part to a single coherent vision of who the character is.
Bond is in need of some modernisation perhaps, but that still needs the strong creative control. The bean counters at Amazon aren’t that, and it shows in every Amazon studios production (and in most Netflix productions too), they’re too caught up in the numbers, the marketability, ticking boxes for target audiences, that the content is soulless.
Some modernization but I agree that it is very strong with a single coherent vision of the character. Bond does not and should be a woman, or transgender or any other twist to modernize. It can do that with supporting characters, and in how Bond interacts with them. Making a stark change to the main character would cause too much discontinuity with fans, and people who have know Bond as a specific archetype for a very, very long time.
We should think of new characters to fit modern ideas, not changing old out of simplicity; or latching onto the gravy train.
I doubt that any of the options you've given would have been likely or be any more likely under new management – as you said, that modernisation can happen and is happening already through other characters.
What I could absolutely see happening is a teenage Bond YA fiction style thing, which would dilute the character. Or alternatively, a TV show, which would dilute the brand.
I am not the biggest Bond fan so feel free to ignore my opinion, but it seems possible that Amazon is less of a bean counter than a traditional studio? They will throw money at the first production - with the hopes it is a hit. They are not beholden to it being profitable on paper like a studio would be.
But I also realize they took this approach to Lord of the Rings, and it didn't turn out.
This may be true, but Bond hasn't been owned by a traditional studio, it has essentially been owned by a family who have inherited control down a few generations.
I'm not sure how well it was doing under the Broccoli stewardship to be honest, I think some younger blood was needed. Although a soulless giant company is not what I would have suggested as a replacement.
Amazon needs to be broken up. They are a web host, e-commerce giant, consumer electronics company, grocery store, primary care doctor, and movie studio. That is so wildly fucked.
These companies are entering into entirely new markets, destroying the value, giving it away for free, all subsidized by unrelated business unit profit.
One of the core reasons why Hollywood is floundering is because tech giants are doing this.
- there's no secondary market for VHS & DVD anymore. Almost all the money has to be made on opening weekend
- in recent years, content has become preachy instead of focusing on being entertaining
Netflix & Amazon movies are ultra-low quality; you couldn't pay me to watch it. A quality Hollywood production that was made to entertain instead of persuade can still easily outcompete tech company movies
let them let the customers choose also it allows them to amass substantial capital that can then be spent on R & D that maintains the lead of the US in some areas, as a multinational there is a lot of money coming from other countries that is beneficial to the U.S.. If China is the only country where MegaCorps, then it would be hard for segmented U.S. firms to compete with them
We did. In fact, some of the Biden-era antitrust lawsuits are still active, AFAIK. What happened is that the capital class acted swiftly and firmly to shut down the FTC (and SEC), by brown-nosing Trump[0], so that the federal government couldn't challenge them.
The word "deep state" gets thrown around a lot here, especially by the people who thought Trump was going to stop this bullshit, but it's useful to describe what's going on: the accumulation of informal power structures that render the formal, legitimate one ineffective. Hollywood was part of the last iteration of the deep state; but they are being gradually pushed out of it, both because they are on Trump's enemies list and because tech centralizes power and control far faster than artistic industry does. In other words, Hollywood is no longer useful and is being replaced with something worse.
[0] To be clear, about half the DNC was hoping a judge would block Lina Khan's lawsuits and make her look weak enough to be replaced with a stooge.
Unlikely, Amazon's already got a long term contract in place with the pinewod group for facilities extending beyond Bond. The actual bond stage is owned by Pinewood and used for lots of different productions however Eon were always given priorty access (again contractually).
You don't really drop contracts like that in the UK, especially right now when theres a shortage of production space due to Amazon, Disney, Netflix, Sky, etc all fighting for access.
Seems to be more than just bean counting. Rings of Power was showered with money, so there are properties Amazon is willing to spend lavish amounts of money on. They also boosted the budget when they took over The Expanse, though there's plenty of disagreement over if that netted a better result or not.
FWIW, I'm British. I won't disagree that there was a certain cringe to Bond, and the older films have aged quite poorly. But there's nostalgia there still, and it's also worth remembering that in many ways Bond defined the image of worldly/sexy. Bond's cultural impact on Men's fashion for example is huge. The films were influential at the time, even if in hindsight they're a bit simplistic or fantastical and more than a bit misogynistic.
I think the films are also worth more than the sum of their parts. Each one is typically an above average blockbuster style action film, but nothing particularly special. Taken together however, they are worth a lot more because of that continuing thread that has been done so well, and it's that which leads to the cultural significance.
The franchise certainly needs updating, but I think it has evolved over time and can likely continue to do so with that strong creative backing. It depends much less on sex now than it did even 20 years ago, they moved past the gadgets (as "gadgets" became less of a thing, it's hard to have a clever gadget when we all have smartphones in our pockets).
Even back in the Broccoli years, Bond was garbage.
LOLWut ?! As of 2023, the James Bond film franchise has grossed over $7 billion globally at the box office. It's the sixth highest grossing film franchise in history. Your opinions of taste aside, Bond was anything but garbage otherwise it would never have lasted as long, or made as much money.
The Daniel Craig era was a modern update, though, so those defenders won't really be taking history into account. Not that the Broccolis never missed, but they were capable of moving with the times, and they did not blindly follow the money.
Amazon/Disney/Netflix/HBO move with the times by following the money, and by milking the reputation of respected brands and celebrities until they're dried out husks.
> and by milking the reputation of respected brands and celebrities until they're dried out husks.
Seems reasonable to me. The big question is why other creators are not working on creating new brands. There are more heroes, superheroes, super villains created nowadays. This is not some utility services which has to be mature, tried and tested even if old and boring that must remain in use.
Yeah, I don't think people realize how many times the franchise has been updated over the years. I'm conservatively counting five times (marked with asterisks) but I think the number could be as high as seven. And then you've got to consider that they've tried to finish the character unsuccessfully even before No Time To Die with Never Say Never Again.
Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Star Trek .... it feels like everything eventually devolves and runs into people or a situation where it doesn't seem like anyone has creative control / defined vision, and horrific writing and such decisions.
Interesting timing, considering that the overwhelming discussion since the last film has been will Bond be gay/non-white/non-male etc. Under Broccoli I think they could have pulled this off, under Amazon (see: LOTR) absolutely not. BUT now it seems Amazon may no longer feel pressure to have "DEI Bond". If I had to predict I'm guessing the future of Bond is:
1. Bad, see: LOTR, WOT
2. MCU/StarWars-ified (expect dozens of spin-offs, sequels, prequels, etc)
3. A-list action actors, (Tom Hardy? Jason Statham?)
4. Cringe, Amazon does not have an ounce of taste, never has, so Bond will drive a Mustang, he'll shoot a Glock or S&W, his clothes will look like Zara, and he'll be funny in the wrong ways (more Tony Stark, less Sean Connery)
God I wish we had just gotten a Idris Elba bond movie.
Same, I was finishing my first read through as the show cane out. So disappointed… Lots of really major changes for very little reason.
In the last episode of S2 Loial gets stabbed with the ruby hilted dagger, which is typically extremely lethal.
Another great community and series are the cosmere books by Brandon Sanderson, who finished the last few WoT after Robert Jordan passed away. Mistborn and The Stormlight Archives are both amazing. Also, 9000 pages and over 3 million words for all of the cosmere books, so you will be reading for a bit!
I was disappointed when Amazon canceled their plans to bring the first Culture novel, Consider Phlebas, to TV. After seeing the page-to-screen translation of Wheel of Time I think that it was just as well.
Before the first 6 seasons of GoT, pretty much every book to screen SF/Fantasy adaption was awful. An okay-ish adaptation was something to celebrate. WoT and Rings of Power were okay-ish.
Idk about you but I have been a WoT since I discovered them in middle school, read every book multiple times, audiobooks etc. Similar if a bit less for rings of power, they absolutely butchered them in the name of some weird political agenda
I'd nominate The Leftovers as the most successful fantasy adaptation for TV, even if it wasn't the type of fantasy that has dragons and swords. Unlike Game of Thrones it was consistently good to the end.
Bond movies are in a perpetual cycle of reinvention, trying to update the franchise and keep it relevant. I'm not sure it's wholly succeeded in that. They've certainly done the sequel thing of adding more tech, more action, more globetrotting, higher stakes, more of everything. Bigger, but better? Of the Craig movies, by far the best was Casino Royale, because of how it stripped things back to basics. At least, compared to the lunacy of the previous film (an invisible car, really?).
I'd love for an Amazon Bond reboot to be a 1960s period piece. Keep the tech light, make him a spy again, put him in some tense situations. It could work!
This is a story that will definitely be told in family office conferences for a long time: one family has basically overseen bond since the beginning of the films I believe. Sad end.
After I read the article in the WSJ[1] I wrote a Bond spec script over break. The tricky thing with spec scripts based on other people's IP is getting the word out, because unsolicited submissions can put the recipient in a bind if some element of what you sent ends up – even accidentally – in the final product. It's silly, but it's the reality of screenwriting.
Fwiw I'm a former special operations veteran and an accomplished screenwriter. Here's my risk-mitigated pitch for HN's enjoyment.
==========
1. We want to preserve the Bond legacy. We also want to expand the world he inhabits. We can do both.
2. So much happens 'under the water line' of reality already. Psychological operations. Cyber warfare. Supply chain attacks. Transnational smuggling. There's literally gobs of espionage content that can be explored.
3. Ultimately bond is about heroes who preserve the realm when institutions fail. They become the cornerstone upon which the new institutions will be built.
4. We build a universe that predicts and reacts to our current reality, which, broadly, is about institutional failure. We are in a multipolar world now, and technology accelerates at the same rate as the danger. Can we demonstrate an escape route? A rallying cry for heroism in an unjust world?
5. We build a universe so rich with possibility that we can compartmentalize cleanly; for example, a show can live semi-independently of the film franchise.
6. Imagine a limited series about Chinese teenager working at a microchip factory in Wuxi. Alone, barely scraping by, forced labor. Then, over the course of a season, a Q Branch operative approachers her, recruits her, teaches her to smuggle out secrets, aides in her breathtaking escape when she’s caught. This characters
7. We build characters whose impact can be felt elsewhere. Q is later able to deactivate a missile - piloted by those smuggled microchips – fired at Bond in the big theatrical film.
Also I wanted to create a separate post in response to the negative predictions. Obviously I can't predict the future, but in my experience creating any film is subject to significant pressure, internal and external, on the creatives involved.
There are a LOT of really excellent scripts that get diluted in this way, and there isn't much that can be done about it.
That said, Amazon Studios is probably a loss leader for Prime, or at least certainly doesn't enjoy the same margins as other AMZN LOBs.
That's okay!
Amazon Studios execs can mitigate their risk by spreading it around. Do small stuff, a single, small film about someone in this universe. Someone doing a supply chain attack on behalf of Q Branch. A watchmaker approached for a Special Project. A deep-cover NOC who works for Lloyds of London who gets wind of a forthcoming infrastructure attack. It doesn't all have to be big explosions and major stunts; the seedy underworld of espionage happens not in soaring bunkers and Red Square, but behind a highway rest stop, or in a factory office, or in the Port of Marsailles.
No need to blow the budget all at once; begin slow, build towards the theatrical films in interesting, round-about ways. Take your time and iterate, see what works. Disney/Star Wars is doing this in reverse (Andor was wildly successful) and Amazon Studios has the chance to do it right!
With all due respect, because there are nice ideas in this, a wider Bond Cinematic Universe is the wrong direction. There is already a very established "BCU" in the film progression, and I believe that the cultural significance of that would be diluted, not enhanced, by adding side quests to the story.
Alternatively, to look at it from the perspective of your spec script, what about your spec script is enhanced by it being in the BCU. Ignoring the leg-up it would get from that, what is better about the story for it being Bond, over a new franchise? From what you've written here, nothing jumps out to me as benefitting from being Bond. Similarly, how are the Bond films improved by this? By having a missile deactivated by off-screen magic that you need another streaming subscription to watch the back-story of?
BCU is why AMZN bought the IP, so I'm just leaning into the business reality. My argument is that the films are the center of gravity, and it's fine to put other BCU properties 'in orbit' around them without having to have everything reference everything else like they did (brilliantly) at Marvel.
The films are holy, but deserving of a reboot. My spec - which I genuinely can't post here – dips into deep Bond lore but, introduces us to this broad world of espionage in which these other properties could orbit.
It's not too too different than Star Wars or even DC (like with Gotham), but what's so cool about this world of espionage is that there's so much to tap into that is both grounded AND cool. A whole constellation of espionage stories just under our psychic reality, perhaps moreso than comic books or scifi.
not sure if their policies have changed but in 2021 Amazon Studios implemented quotas for performers and creatives on each project based on race/ethnicity, gender, and ability, with the actor's real-life identities expected to align to their characters. doesn't sound like a compatible platform for this particular franchise.
Given the insipid B-series mess Amazon has made of Reacher (despite the fanfare of having a physically representative actor playing him), this is not an obviously positive development.
They will play it safe on their first outing while chasing some sort if weird trend (“Bond should be Y with Z sensibilities”) making Bond’s next movie one for the trash. I’m not worried about “wokeness” or whatever the trolls are whining about these days (making Bond black or gay is the least interesting addition to the character you could make, once you do that there is actually very little to examine). It will probably be Bond working with Alexa as the femme fatale or something dumb. “They got into our AWS account but thankfully Q had full sys-admin powers and Amazon security team helped us out.”
I pirate anything from these tech-streaming companies anyways. Go ahead do whatever.
The real question is not the name of the studio but the name of the person(s) hired to handle the job. If they're like Kathleen Kennedy, the franchise is toast.
I see a lot of shade thrown at Kathleen Kennedy these days. Sure, some of the Star Wars movies under Disney haven't been great, but look at this resume. It's incredible. I'll save you the click and put some things she's been the executive producer of here: Poltergeist, E.T., IJ & Temple of Doom, Goonies, Back to the Future(I,II,III), Young Sherlock Holmes, The Money Pit, Empire of the Sun, Who Framed Roger Rabbit (jumping ahead to more recent stuff), Rogue One, Andor, Mandalorian, Ashoka, Skeleton Crew....
So yes, not everything has been a winner, but to say that having her name attached to something means it won't be good means that either A)you might not be informed about her resume or B)you have another reason you don't like her involvement with a project.
And even before that Amazon had The Man in the High Castle, which seemed like an edgy exercise in displaying Nazism more than anything else. You could tell there was some sci-fi plot there but the adaptation merely just touched on it. New Bond is likely to be joining Spectre.io and helping put down rebellions in colonized lands. Perhaps even helping the Russians/Chinese undermine the EU, working with a Leiter who avoided "rightsizing" and was promoted four levels by pledging loyalty to the Party.
This is a sad outcome. The Bond franchise is very strong, and that’s in large part to a single coherent vision of who the character is.
Bond is in need of some modernisation perhaps, but that still needs the strong creative control. The bean counters at Amazon aren’t that, and it shows in every Amazon studios production (and in most Netflix productions too), they’re too caught up in the numbers, the marketability, ticking boxes for target audiences, that the content is soulless.
I hope Bond survives.
Some modernization but I agree that it is very strong with a single coherent vision of the character. Bond does not and should be a woman, or transgender or any other twist to modernize. It can do that with supporting characters, and in how Bond interacts with them. Making a stark change to the main character would cause too much discontinuity with fans, and people who have know Bond as a specific archetype for a very, very long time.
We should think of new characters to fit modern ideas, not changing old out of simplicity; or latching onto the gravy train.
I doubt that any of the options you've given would have been likely or be any more likely under new management – as you said, that modernisation can happen and is happening already through other characters.
What I could absolutely see happening is a teenage Bond YA fiction style thing, which would dilute the character. Or alternatively, a TV show, which would dilute the brand.
I am not the biggest Bond fan so feel free to ignore my opinion, but it seems possible that Amazon is less of a bean counter than a traditional studio? They will throw money at the first production - with the hopes it is a hit. They are not beholden to it being profitable on paper like a studio would be.
But I also realize they took this approach to Lord of the Rings, and it didn't turn out.
This may be true, but Bond hasn't been owned by a traditional studio, it has essentially been owned by a family who have inherited control down a few generations.
The literary version is already public domain in many countries
All Bonds are marketing phenomena. Amazon Prime Bond will be no different. Good time to try new brands for guns, watches, cars, gadgets and so on.
This is a very sad and soulless way to view Bond's story.
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> The Bond franchise is very strong
I'm not sure how well it was doing under the Broccoli stewardship to be honest, I think some younger blood was needed. Although a soulless giant company is not what I would have suggested as a replacement.
Amazon needs to be broken up. They are a web host, e-commerce giant, consumer electronics company, grocery store, primary care doctor, and movie studio. That is so wildly fucked.
These companies are entering into entirely new markets, destroying the value, giving it away for free, all subsidized by unrelated business unit profit.
One of the core reasons why Hollywood is floundering is because tech giants are doing this.
Why don't we do trust busting anymore?
Hollywood is floundering because:
- there's no secondary market for VHS & DVD anymore. Almost all the money has to be made on opening weekend
- in recent years, content has become preachy instead of focusing on being entertaining
Netflix & Amazon movies are ultra-low quality; you couldn't pay me to watch it. A quality Hollywood production that was made to entertain instead of persuade can still easily outcompete tech company movies
12 replies →
let them let the customers choose also it allows them to amass substantial capital that can then be spent on R & D that maintains the lead of the US in some areas, as a multinational there is a lot of money coming from other countries that is beneficial to the U.S.. If China is the only country where MegaCorps, then it would be hard for segmented U.S. firms to compete with them
We did. In fact, some of the Biden-era antitrust lawsuits are still active, AFAIK. What happened is that the capital class acted swiftly and firmly to shut down the FTC (and SEC), by brown-nosing Trump[0], so that the federal government couldn't challenge them.
The word "deep state" gets thrown around a lot here, especially by the people who thought Trump was going to stop this bullshit, but it's useful to describe what's going on: the accumulation of informal power structures that render the formal, legitimate one ineffective. Hollywood was part of the last iteration of the deep state; but they are being gradually pushed out of it, both because they are on Trump's enemies list and because tech centralizes power and control far faster than artistic industry does. In other words, Hollywood is no longer useful and is being replaced with something worse.
[0] To be clear, about half the DNC was hoping a judge would block Lina Khan's lawsuits and make her look weak enough to be replaced with a stooge.
we barely do democracy anymore
I wonder if they will shift production away from Pinewood Studios?
Unlikely, Amazon's already got a long term contract in place with the pinewod group for facilities extending beyond Bond. The actual bond stage is owned by Pinewood and used for lots of different productions however Eon were always given priorty access (again contractually).
You don't really drop contracts like that in the UK, especially right now when theres a shortage of production space due to Amazon, Disney, Netflix, Sky, etc all fighting for access.
>I hope Bond survives.
? Bond died in last movie.
Bond was also in his 40s in both the 1960s and 2020s.
It's almost like there are different iterations of the character and will be again.
Seems to be more than just bean counting. Rings of Power was showered with money, so there are properties Amazon is willing to spend lavish amounts of money on. They also boosted the budget when they took over The Expanse, though there's plenty of disagreement over if that netted a better result or not.
The money wasn't the issue though, it was the lack of respect for the established cannon / materials and most fans / viewers not connecting with it.
5 replies →
> This is a sad outcome. The Bond franchise is very strong
Even back in the Broccoli years, Bond was garbage. The movie bond was a government assassin who we all pretended wasn't. Because sex. Ridiculous!
To Americans he also seemed smart and worldly. Because he had a British accent. Which sexy women liked. True, yet also ridiculous!
Can AMZN bury this relic faster than Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny was reburied? Rate to find out!
FWIW, I'm British. I won't disagree that there was a certain cringe to Bond, and the older films have aged quite poorly. But there's nostalgia there still, and it's also worth remembering that in many ways Bond defined the image of worldly/sexy. Bond's cultural impact on Men's fashion for example is huge. The films were influential at the time, even if in hindsight they're a bit simplistic or fantastical and more than a bit misogynistic.
I think the films are also worth more than the sum of their parts. Each one is typically an above average blockbuster style action film, but nothing particularly special. Taken together however, they are worth a lot more because of that continuing thread that has been done so well, and it's that which leads to the cultural significance.
The franchise certainly needs updating, but I think it has evolved over time and can likely continue to do so with that strong creative backing. It depends much less on sex now than it did even 20 years ago, they moved past the gadgets (as "gadgets" became less of a thing, it's hard to have a clever gadget when we all have smartphones in our pockets).
Even back in the Broccoli years, Bond was garbage.
LOLWut ?! As of 2023, the James Bond film franchise has grossed over $7 billion globally at the box office. It's the sixth highest grossing film franchise in history. Your opinions of taste aside, Bond was anything but garbage otherwise it would never have lasted as long, or made as much money.
https://www.the-numbers.com/movies/franchise/James-Bond
1 reply →
The movies are a lot of fun.
[dead]
spoiler alert - he is dead
Everyone's got a number they can't refuse...
Defenders will say Bond deserves a modern update beyond the Daniel Craig era.
But if I'm reading the tea leaves from Lord of the Rings, I am not bullish on Amazon's MCU-ification of the Bond franchise.
The Daniel Craig era was a modern update, though, so those defenders won't really be taking history into account. Not that the Broccolis never missed, but they were capable of moving with the times, and they did not blindly follow the money.
Amazon/Disney/Netflix/HBO move with the times by following the money, and by milking the reputation of respected brands and celebrities until they're dried out husks.
> and by milking the reputation of respected brands and celebrities until they're dried out husks.
Seems reasonable to me. The big question is why other creators are not working on creating new brands. There are more heroes, superheroes, super villains created nowadays. This is not some utility services which has to be mature, tried and tested even if old and boring that must remain in use.
1 reply →
Yeah, I don't think people realize how many times the franchise has been updated over the years. I'm conservatively counting five times (marked with asterisks) but I think the number could be as high as seven. And then you've got to consider that they've tried to finish the character unsuccessfully even before No Time To Die with Never Say Never Again.
- Dr. No
- From Russia with Love
- Goldfinger
- Thunderball
- You Only Live Twice
*- On Her Majesty's Secret Service
- Diamonds Are Forever
*- Live and Let Die
- The Man with the Golden Gun
- The Spy Who Loved Me
- Moonraker
- For Your Eyes Only
*- Never Say Never Again
- Octopussy
- A View to a Kill
*- The Living Daylights
- Licence to Kill
*- GoldenEye
- Tomorrow Never Dies
- The World Is Not Enough
- Die Another Day
*- Casino Royale
- Quantum of Solace
- Skyfall
- Spectre
- No Time to Die
1 reply →
Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Star Trek .... it feels like everything eventually devolves and runs into people or a situation where it doesn't seem like anyone has creative control / defined vision, and horrific writing and such decisions.
Interesting timing, considering that the overwhelming discussion since the last film has been will Bond be gay/non-white/non-male etc. Under Broccoli I think they could have pulled this off, under Amazon (see: LOTR) absolutely not. BUT now it seems Amazon may no longer feel pressure to have "DEI Bond". If I had to predict I'm guessing the future of Bond is:
1. Bad, see: LOTR, WOT
2. MCU/StarWars-ified (expect dozens of spin-offs, sequels, prequels, etc)
3. A-list action actors, (Tom Hardy? Jason Statham?)
4. Cringe, Amazon does not have an ounce of taste, never has, so Bond will drive a Mustang, he'll shoot a Glock or S&W, his clothes will look like Zara, and he'll be funny in the wrong ways (more Tony Stark, less Sean Connery)
God I wish we had just gotten a Idris Elba bond movie.
Dr. Who recently stepped down.
As a fan of the Wheel of Time and Lord of the Rings, this doesn't bode well.
I read the Wheel of Time just before the TV show came out.
The community around WoT was easily the kindest, most welcoming, helpful that I've found around any book series (maybe any work of fiction).
Sad to see they didn't get the TV series they deserved.
Same, I was finishing my first read through as the show cane out. So disappointed… Lots of really major changes for very little reason.
In the last episode of S2 Loial gets stabbed with the ruby hilted dagger, which is typically extremely lethal.
Another great community and series are the cosmere books by Brandon Sanderson, who finished the last few WoT after Robert Jordan passed away. Mistborn and The Stormlight Archives are both amazing. Also, 9000 pages and over 3 million words for all of the cosmere books, so you will be reading for a bit!
I was disappointed when Amazon canceled their plans to bring the first Culture novel, Consider Phlebas, to TV. After seeing the page-to-screen translation of Wheel of Time I think that it was just as well.
3 replies →
Before the first 6 seasons of GoT, pretty much every book to screen SF/Fantasy adaption was awful. An okay-ish adaptation was something to celebrate. WoT and Rings of Power were okay-ish.
Idk about you but I have been a WoT since I discovered them in middle school, read every book multiple times, audiobooks etc. Similar if a bit less for rings of power, they absolutely butchered them in the name of some weird political agenda
4 replies →
I'd nominate The Leftovers as the most successful fantasy adaptation for TV, even if it wasn't the type of fantasy that has dragons and swords. Unlike Game of Thrones it was consistently good to the end.
Are you just mind deleting the LOTR trilogy?
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Bond movies are in a perpetual cycle of reinvention, trying to update the franchise and keep it relevant. I'm not sure it's wholly succeeded in that. They've certainly done the sequel thing of adding more tech, more action, more globetrotting, higher stakes, more of everything. Bigger, but better? Of the Craig movies, by far the best was Casino Royale, because of how it stripped things back to basics. At least, compared to the lunacy of the previous film (an invisible car, really?).
I'd love for an Amazon Bond reboot to be a 1960s period piece. Keep the tech light, make him a spy again, put him in some tense situations. It could work!
Bummer. T-2 years before it becomes an algorithmically-optimized so-so miniseries.
Nothing lasts forever.
Except Diamonds.
Only in songs.
1 reply →
This is a story that will definitely be told in family office conferences for a long time: one family has basically overseen bond since the beginning of the films I believe. Sad end.
After I read the article in the WSJ[1] I wrote a Bond spec script over break. The tricky thing with spec scripts based on other people's IP is getting the word out, because unsolicited submissions can put the recipient in a bind if some element of what you sent ends up – even accidentally – in the final product. It's silly, but it's the reality of screenwriting.
Fwiw I'm a former special operations veteran and an accomplished screenwriter. Here's my risk-mitigated pitch for HN's enjoyment.
==========
1. We want to preserve the Bond legacy. We also want to expand the world he inhabits. We can do both.
2. So much happens 'under the water line' of reality already. Psychological operations. Cyber warfare. Supply chain attacks. Transnational smuggling. There's literally gobs of espionage content that can be explored.
3. Ultimately bond is about heroes who preserve the realm when institutions fail. They become the cornerstone upon which the new institutions will be built.
4. We build a universe that predicts and reacts to our current reality, which, broadly, is about institutional failure. We are in a multipolar world now, and technology accelerates at the same rate as the danger. Can we demonstrate an escape route? A rallying cry for heroism in an unjust world?
5. We build a universe so rich with possibility that we can compartmentalize cleanly; for example, a show can live semi-independently of the film franchise.
6. Imagine a limited series about Chinese teenager working at a microchip factory in Wuxi. Alone, barely scraping by, forced labor. Then, over the course of a season, a Q Branch operative approachers her, recruits her, teaches her to smuggle out secrets, aides in her breathtaking escape when she’s caught. This characters
7. We build characters whose impact can be felt elsewhere. Q is later able to deactivate a missile - piloted by those smuggled microchips – fired at Bond in the big theatrical film.
[1] https://www.wsj.com/business/media/james-bond-movies-amazon-...
Also I wanted to create a separate post in response to the negative predictions. Obviously I can't predict the future, but in my experience creating any film is subject to significant pressure, internal and external, on the creatives involved. There are a LOT of really excellent scripts that get diluted in this way, and there isn't much that can be done about it.
That said, Amazon Studios is probably a loss leader for Prime, or at least certainly doesn't enjoy the same margins as other AMZN LOBs.
That's okay!
Amazon Studios execs can mitigate their risk by spreading it around. Do small stuff, a single, small film about someone in this universe. Someone doing a supply chain attack on behalf of Q Branch. A watchmaker approached for a Special Project. A deep-cover NOC who works for Lloyds of London who gets wind of a forthcoming infrastructure attack. It doesn't all have to be big explosions and major stunts; the seedy underworld of espionage happens not in soaring bunkers and Red Square, but behind a highway rest stop, or in a factory office, or in the Port of Marsailles.
No need to blow the budget all at once; begin slow, build towards the theatrical films in interesting, round-about ways. Take your time and iterate, see what works. Disney/Star Wars is doing this in reverse (Andor was wildly successful) and Amazon Studios has the chance to do it right!
With all due respect, because there are nice ideas in this, a wider Bond Cinematic Universe is the wrong direction. There is already a very established "BCU" in the film progression, and I believe that the cultural significance of that would be diluted, not enhanced, by adding side quests to the story.
Alternatively, to look at it from the perspective of your spec script, what about your spec script is enhanced by it being in the BCU. Ignoring the leg-up it would get from that, what is better about the story for it being Bond, over a new franchise? From what you've written here, nothing jumps out to me as benefitting from being Bond. Similarly, how are the Bond films improved by this? By having a missile deactivated by off-screen magic that you need another streaming subscription to watch the back-story of?
Thanks for your thoughts!
BCU is why AMZN bought the IP, so I'm just leaning into the business reality. My argument is that the films are the center of gravity, and it's fine to put other BCU properties 'in orbit' around them without having to have everything reference everything else like they did (brilliantly) at Marvel.
The films are holy, but deserving of a reboot. My spec - which I genuinely can't post here – dips into deep Bond lore but, introduces us to this broad world of espionage in which these other properties could orbit.
It's not too too different than Star Wars or even DC (like with Gotham), but what's so cool about this world of espionage is that there's so much to tap into that is both grounded AND cool. A whole constellation of espionage stories just under our psychic reality, perhaps moreso than comic books or scifi.
I’d watch this
not sure if their policies have changed but in 2021 Amazon Studios implemented quotas for performers and creatives on each project based on race/ethnicity, gender, and ability, with the actor's real-life identities expected to align to their characters. doesn't sound like a compatible platform for this particular franchise.
Did you fail to notice the diversity of the cast in the last 20 years of Bond films?
And if you mean the title character, you are presupposing that:
A. the quota existing means Bond won't be a white man (he absolutely will be in the first Amazon outing), and
B. Bond ceases to be Bond if he isn't white.
There's no reason for modern Bond stories to require a white Bond. He does have to be a guy, but don't see why race changes the story.
maybe both of us are doing some presupposing
> He does have to be a guy
why?
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https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/ama...
Well, it was a good run. 25 films ain't bad!
Given the insipid B-series mess Amazon has made of Reacher (despite the fanfare of having a physically representative actor playing him), this is not an obviously positive development.
Barbara Broccoli thinks the people at Amazon are "fucking idiots":
https://www.wsj.com/business/media/james-bond-movies-amazon-...
Amazon has apparently solved the problem by pushing her out.
... by buying her out.
They will play it safe on their first outing while chasing some sort if weird trend (“Bond should be Y with Z sensibilities”) making Bond’s next movie one for the trash. I’m not worried about “wokeness” or whatever the trolls are whining about these days (making Bond black or gay is the least interesting addition to the character you could make, once you do that there is actually very little to examine). It will probably be Bond working with Alexa as the femme fatale or something dumb. “They got into our AWS account but thankfully Q had full sys-admin powers and Amazon security team helped us out.”
I pirate anything from these tech-streaming companies anyways. Go ahead do whatever.
Bezos can finally realize his dream and the project he has been training for since retiring from CEO...
The name is Bond, James Bond
He would make a GREAT bond villain!
https://tinyurl.com/mpvymy27
Maniacal laugh included
Modern day Blofeld
Most billionaires do.
Coincidence?
The real question is not the name of the studio but the name of the person(s) hired to handle the job. If they're like Kathleen Kennedy, the franchise is toast.
I see a lot of shade thrown at Kathleen Kennedy these days. Sure, some of the Star Wars movies under Disney haven't been great, but look at this resume. It's incredible. I'll save you the click and put some things she's been the executive producer of here: Poltergeist, E.T., IJ & Temple of Doom, Goonies, Back to the Future(I,II,III), Young Sherlock Holmes, The Money Pit, Empire of the Sun, Who Framed Roger Rabbit (jumping ahead to more recent stuff), Rogue One, Andor, Mandalorian, Ashoka, Skeleton Crew....
So yes, not everything has been a winner, but to say that having her name attached to something means it won't be good means that either A)you might not be informed about her resume or B)you have another reason you don't like her involvement with a project.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005086/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_1_tt_0_...
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Surprised nobody has commented hoping they make the character less rapey.
It sounds like they gonna dilute the crap out of this by doing tv, games, etc
This massively increases the probability of having a black James Bond on screen.
I’m not sure - big tech is reversing their DEI narrative since the Trump election/ inauguration.
And even before that Amazon had The Man in the High Castle, which seemed like an edgy exercise in displaying Nazism more than anything else. You could tell there was some sci-fi plot there but the adaptation merely just touched on it. New Bond is likely to be joining Spectre.io and helping put down rebellions in colonized lands. Perhaps even helping the Russians/Chinese undermine the EU, working with a Leiter who avoided "rightsizing" and was promoted four levels by pledging loyalty to the Party.
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Surprising to see the downvotes on this comment.
I didn't know racism was common around here.
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Spoiler alert: Bond died.
And Snape killed him.
I thought it was Freddy Mercury
Well his boss was Voldemort.