James Bond Battles a New Foe: Amazon (newsmemory.com) 67
An anonymous reader writes: James Bond has dodged more than 4,000 bullets. He has jumped from an airplane, skied off a cliff and escaped castration by laser beam.
Now, 007 is in a new kind of peril. Nearly three years after Amazon acquired the right to release Bond movies through its $6.5 billion purchase of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studio, the relationship between the family that oversees the franchise and the ecommerce giant has all but collapsed, WSJ reports.
Now, 007 is in a new kind of peril. Nearly three years after Amazon acquired the right to release Bond movies through its $6.5 billion purchase of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studio, the relationship between the family that oversees the franchise and the ecommerce giant has all but collapsed, WSJ reports.
James Bond needs to drive an amazon delivery van i (Score:4, Funny)
James Bond needs to drive an amazon delivery van in an movie.
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And fight villainous porch pirates. whilst blocking bloody ads.
Box office hit guaranteed.
DEI (Score:3, Insightful)
Bond is iconic, modernizing him would destroy his image and the character.
Re:DEI (Score:5, Insightful)
Barbara Brocolli agrees, is standing her ground...and is contractually allowed to do so.
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Amazon has wrecked enough iconic characters, following the Doctor Who model, by deracinating them and retconning modern failure into the past. Some heroes belong to their people, unless they want a whitish Martin Luther King and a Hispanic version of Nelson Mandela.
Except Bond, like Dr. Who was never a singular person but rather a concept, and thus changing over the years is well within the canon; unlike the historical figures you mention. In Bond's case, 007 is a cover identity, one of a number of 00 identities assumed by agents; so any actor cast would be believable. As TFA points out, Barbara Broccoli, while very protective of Bond, is quite willing to go out on a limb when choosing who plays Bond.
Re:Diversity (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm also sure she understands that changes can go very wrong, very fast. People who go see James Bond expect to see a white British man in the part. People who find things that need changing about James Bond don't always align with ticket sales. If you alienate the audience you have hoping to bring in one that has traditionally never cared for your product you might just find you have neither.
Re:DEI (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: DEI (Score:3)
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Exactly, Bond needs to stay a racist, rapist Imperialist.
Too bad he's not a native-born U.S. citizen (or real), then he could run for President ... :-)
Maybe he'd have better luck annexing Greenland, the Panama Canal and Canada.
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Re: DEI (Score:1)
Be careful what you wish for (Score:1)
Imagine the scene. The terrorist calls The Justice Council to deliver his ultimate ultimatum.
"The attacks will end when I am greenlit to proceed with my James Bond reboot."
"That cannot be allowed," said the Chief Justice of Justice, "for the reasons Fly Swatter listed."
"Very well," the terrorist growled malevolently, "then you leave me no choice but to reboot Bat man again!"
"I don't think James Bond is a hero" (Score:4, Insightful)
https://www.frontpagemag.com/a... [frontpagemag.com]
Amazon Owns James Bond. Unfortunately It Hates Men
Amazon Studios is in a tight race with Disney to consolidate as many intellectual properties as possible and give them feminist makeovers. These days it’s as easy to find IP based shows with male protagonists on Amazon’s pet attempt to be Netflix as products that aren’t Chinese knockoffs on its shopping site.
Leading the charge is Jennifer Salke, Amazon’s version of Kathleen Kennedy whose just as anti-straight, white, male as Kennedy.
Mixed race Bi-sexual Bond. (Score:1)
https://www.frontpagemag.com/a... [frontpagemag.com]
Amazon Owns James Bond. Unfortunately It Hates Men
Amazon Studios is in a tight race with Disney to consolidate as many intellectual properties as possible and give them feminist makeovers. These days it’s as easy to find IP based shows with male protagonists on Amazon’s pet attempt to be Netflix as products that aren’t Chinese knockoffs on its shopping site.
Leading the charge is Jennifer Salke, Amazon’s version of Kathleen Kennedy whose just as anti-straight, white, male as Kennedy.
They can make bond a mixed race bisexual brithis XY born men, and everybody would be happy. TFA says: Miss broccoli is open to a gay bond, but the character has to be played by a british man (notice she did not say white).
Then, when the time comes to re-cast again, by the time miss broccoli retires, bond can be a mixed race bisexual XX born reasigned male... The younger Mr wilson seems to be more open to that sort of idea.
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I don't give a toss about what unwatchable films they make, finding enough fun on streaming sites, however I am on a watchout for good, watchable films when they eventually come around. 1 in 100? Fine with me. Funny thing is these companies have already lost tons of money on unwatchable films that I expect watchable ones come in droves pretty soon and all DEI weirdos laid off. Good.
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Miss Broccoli says that because to say otherwise is to draw the kind of malice she doesn't want to waste the time to try and answer. She isn't going to let Bond become gay. She's being agreeable but she's not stupid.
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This is a dumb and flawed argument. Certain things are simply much more interesting to a male audience than to a female audience (like scifi and superhero stuff).
The reverse of your argument would be if things like Sex and the City suddenly had (mostly) male main characters and then claiming that there are a lot of male pocketbooks that can be targeted with such a show. It doesn't work that way. Most men and most women will not like a show like that and it will fail.
The only reason some of these things some
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Of course it will go back. When enough films have been made and enough money has been lost it will go back. Nobody cares about a gay James Bond for instance. You're going to put off an enormous portion of the audience doing that. Heterosexual men want to be James Bond. Heterosexual women want to be with James Bond. The replacement audience in this fantasy is a sliver of what could be made by simply sticking with a recognizable version of the character. By all means though go lose a couple hundred million of
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Yeah Amazon hates men. That's why most of the Amazon MGM Studios movies in 2024 have male protagonists. It's why out of the 8 upcoming releases, 5 of them have male protagonists, including 3 macho men action flicks. Sooo much hate. Sooo woke.
(Yes I'm mocking you).
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See see, that's 3/8 of men they hate! Unless an the films star men it's sexism!
Also if any of those 5 films are bad, they are just bad films. If any of the other 3 are bad it's a damning indictment of wokeness and otherwise not being a bigoted jackass.
James Bond is a Macho Womaniser, a Hero. NOT WOKE. (Score:1, Insightful)
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I'm with Broccoli on this (Score:5, Insightful)
FTA: "(Broccoli's stepbrother) Wilson has complained to friends that he couldn’t land a meeting with anyone at Amazon above an “L6,” the internal designation for a senior role that is nonetheless six rungs below Chief Executive Andy Jassy, an L12. A person close to the company said Wilson has met with several senior leaders."
Something with as much pop-culture cachet as Bond demands the attention of someone higher than "L6", but that probably won't happen at 'Zon. Mixing old-school movie-industry hegemony with new-school corporate hegemony is like mixing oil and water - you get a blend which by nature "wants" to separate.
Amazon is all about quantity, commodities, and blowing stuff out the door, while the Bond franchise is about mystique and careful management. And even if that mystique is all bullshit, at least it's more palatable and intriguing than the steady diet of crassness, lies, manipulation, and rapacity which Amazon serves up.
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You don't come out of no where and talk to upper management, that's why layers of management exist. It seems like Broccoli doesn't know how big companies work.
She's not out of no where, she controls the Bond franchise. Though I think she's right that Amazon is a poor home for Bond.
Not the DEI nonsense that folks here like to pull out every time they stub their toe. I mean, have they watched Reacher or Yellowstone? Amazon has no hesitation about making more "conservative themed" media.
It's about business models.
Bond is a blockbuster movie franchise. It makes it money in theatres. When folks are paying ~$20/ticket (and you get a big chunk of that) you can make a bi
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Good points - thanks. I had a blind spot around the difference between my own history with Bond films, and the experience of people forty years younger. I'm guessing that the Broccoli clan has a similar blind spot.
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Not to nit-pick Amazon's org chart tiers, but one would think the numbers would go down the higher you go, like kernel rings, with Bezos being, say, L1 or L0, as one can more easily add levels lower than higher. Just sayin' ...
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Other way around. The lowest tier never changes, but as that base widens, eventually a new level appears at the top of the pyramid.
And it's easier to change a designation at the top, as you're talking about fewer people.
Re: I'm with Broccoli on this (Score:2)
Re: I'm with Broccoli on this (Score:2)
"for something like Bond, I'd think they could get an L7 at least."
They must be on the shit list.
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Like most things Amazon video is a mixed bag. The Boys is really good, other stuff is pretty mediocre.
Huh, people still care about James Bond movies? (Score:3, Interesting)
They're such an anachronism. And the last couple haven't been very good movies either.
And let's not stand on ceremony here with some high brow claims of quality. This is a franchise that has featured such captivating Bond Girls as Honey Ryder, Pussy Galore, Kissy Suzuki, Plenty O'Toole, Chew Me, Holly Goodhead, etc.
I don't know if Amazon's vision is any good here, but the franchise could arguably benefit from some new ideas.
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This is valid, and I'm a fan. Especially in the film versions, once you remove the racism and date rape, I'm not sure what's unique about the franchise. While here, the whole thing started falling apart when Roger Moore took over, and I'll not listen to arguments.
Now, off my lawn, and go read the first couple of books, which are pretty good.
Re:Huh, people still care about James Bond movies? (Score:4, Insightful)
Every franchise is predicated on promising a psychological impossibility: a perfectly and endlessly repeatable experience. So inevitably successful franchises end up with some fans complaining about it becoming repetitive and other fans complaining about it not being repetitive enough. Even if you go back to the first version of Star Wars you imprinted on as a child, you won't ever recapture that experience because you'll never be a kid who's never seen anything like this again.
For a franchise to survive as long as Bond has it has to carefully guide audiences through new experiences without them being *too* new. The Bond franchise has had a good run. First it was about fantasies of sanctioned sociopathic behavior. Then it rode increasing budgets and technical sophistication to ever higher levels of stunts and practical effects. Then it turned back and tried to shed some light on the psychology of Bond.
But eventually every franchise runs out of gas. To keep Bond going now, you need to concoct a formula for the same old thing, only a little different. If someone can do that, there will be new films that satisfy at least some fans. But if they try that and fail, people will complain about them monkeying with the formula. If they don't monkey with the formula, they'll end up producing something that fails because it's not new enough.
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The last Bond movie is one of the best they have ever done. It's going to be hard to follow that up.
Accountabiliy in corporate america (Score:2)
There is no planet where this deal will be profitable for Amazon, but the rank and file must justify their existence with every line of code, every package delivered. Accountability just doesn't exist for a certain class of people.
Don't fret! (Score:1)
In the final script he'll be an ultra-macho XYY union buster who wears penis pants and shows his contempt for death by booking flights on Boeing aircraft.
Sean Connery (Score:2)
They should have stopped James Bond when Sean Connery stopped starring in them, IMHO.
Funny article (I RTFA). Those Amazon corporate people look indeed like idiots. Well, like most corporate people i would say. ^^
Also, i observe that wokism is on the decline. But it seems to die slower among computer people. i wonder what is their problem. Maybe they don't have enough sex.
Yeah, Bond is not a Boy Scout or a real life role model but these movies are not about that. They were fun shows showing bond dominating e
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>They should have stopped James Bond when Sean Connery stopped starring in them, IMHO.
Bond was pretty interesting when he first hit the screen, but it was a departure from the books. I liked that Connery's Bond was brutally cold when it came down to it. Pretty woman who just lied to you? Yeah, she'll make a great bullet shield. Didn't even think about it, just used her.
But his Bond was already pretty silly, and with every new Bond it just got worse. Once you had Bourne on the scene doing the 'realis
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I genuinely believe, having done another binge of them, that Connery was the worst bond, with the possible exception (ironically!) of the non-EON NSNA where he's matured enough to figure out the role. Connery gets a lot of praise, but I think people don't appreciate both how poor the acting is, coupled with how poorly Bond was written at that time.
Best Bond movie was OHMSS, far and away superior to anything that came before, and it was the first non-Connery EON Bond film.
Is she senile? (Score:1)
Ms Broccoli postulates that James Bond should be played by a man and a Brit. And Pierce Brosnan is from Hampstead Heath I gather?
THE SAME WITH STARGATE, look at rings of power... (Score:1)
it does not bode well for fans nor shareholders.
folks hate reboots that deviate wildly from the source material
keep it authentic, keep it fan focused, and it should be impossible to fuck these things up
these franchises should be slam dunks, arguably amazon got mgm for a steal, and is pissing away every ounce of good will.
after the expanse continuation we could be forgiven for thinking amazon was the chosen one... but no more.
Bond is Bond (Score:4, Insightful)
He's is a straight, white, British man. End of discussion
He cannot be replaced by any other fashionable or politically correct flavor of the day
I'm in favor of diversity if it makes sense. Tell a NEW story about a gay black woman in an appropriate setting
Rebooting or reinventing classic stories to fit modern politics is silly and wrong and often products garbage that sucks mightily
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I'd agree he's straight, male, and played as British (though the two non-British actors who played him were fine, and Brosnan played him as English anyway.) Those are defining parts of his personality. White, on the other hand? I don't see any legitimate reason to require white skin. It makes it easier in some cases, but Eldris Elba, to name a possible Bond actor whose name comes up on a regular basis, would do a great job with the character.
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I'm not familiar with any of the movies, but the books definitely implied white. They also implied that there were at least six other agents of a similar nature, but about which we know almost nothing.
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He's is a straight, white, British man. End of discussion
He cannot be replaced by any other fashionable or politically correct flavor of the day
I'm in favor of diversity if it makes sense. Tell a NEW story about a gay black woman in an appropriate setting
Straight and British for sure. But white??
How is being Caucasian essential to Bond's character?
I agree there's characters who should not be re-cast. Superman and Batman for instance are both very much straight white guys (for slightly different reasons). But Bond core characteristic is a suave British spy, that's straight male, but he doesn't need to be white.
Rebooting or reinventing classic stories to fit modern politics is silly and wrong and often products garbage that sucks mightily
On the contrary not rebooting/reinventing is silly and wrong. I can accept a lot of weirdness in older Bond movies because is was the 70s/80s. But do
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Fans would scream, but Batman doesn't actually need to be straight. He's Batman, he punches themed criminals. That's his entire life, his sole obsession.
All the Bruce stuff is playing acting to maintain his wealth to fund his night activities. He could be bi or gay or whatever else, and still pretend to be straight as a requirement of the wealthy playboy image while having a hider on the side. It wouldn't affect beating his up clowns in the slightest.
Even the stuff with Selena or Diana could be more sub
Yawn... (Score:1)
Zombie Bond? (Score:2)
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Obviously an AI reanimated virtual one! Sheesh.
Gave up on Bond after Craig (Score:1)