It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
Unless Barbara does something that crosses the line, like casting a blond actor.
I'm not a Nolan fan but, man, he is "the new Spielberg". I'm not going to pretend that Bond is too good for him.
Anyway, Eon had problems with Boyle so I guess the Michael Apted days are back.
Jennifer Salke, the global head of Amazon MGM Studios:
Amazon are prepared to wait. This may backfire on them if Eon have no release date in mind. Just my opinion but I think Amazon are a tad naive to adopt a 'wait and see' approach. If you buy MGM and half of the Bond franchise you should have a long term strategy in place when you want the next Bond film to be made. For example: Bond 26 must be made by 2027 or we (Amazon) sue Eon Productions/Danjaq for 'unreasonable delay.' That would be a more sensible approach, perhaps.
I'm surprised a company as dynamic as Amazon is so casual regarding Bond. But, on the other hand, I guess a long wait/delay is Eon not rushing things. They want to get it right. But not rushing can become not bothering if it drags on for years! 🤭
Sounds like the powers that be want a director they can control
At the end of the day I don’t think anyone at Amazon will want to antagonise EON. Jeff Bezos isn’t going to march into their office and turn over desks demanding a Bond movie. Salke as I said I think personally knows Broccoli. It’s a huge franchise at a pretty pivotal turning point. From what I can see we do have Bond projects in the pipeline (Project 007, Series 2 of Road to a Million etc) which points to some sort of strategy. I don’t see anyone twiddling their thumbs.
I can see why Mendes would say that (it seems a job not for the faint hearted) but at the same time it’s not unreasonable to want a director who EON can work with and depend upon, as well as share their creative vision for the project. You don’t want a Danny Boyle situation where they’re going to walk out at the idea of hiring more writers, or faff around with a script which isn’t up to scratch.
Nolan's not fit to fetch Spielberg's shoes. ;)
Spielberg is a master storyteller. He knows how to crystallize what he wants to say, and then layers the story with plenty of entertaining twists and turns.
Nolan is too smart by half. He fails at the craft of storytelling (his best films are when his brother is writing the scripts), fails at representing interesting women characters, and his men characters aren't much better. He lacks joy in his work, and everything is slow, plodding, morose, and melodramatic.
Let’s keep it Bond related chaps.
Spielberg and Nolan have not directed a Bond film yet. Not are they going to at this stage
Anyway, it's too late now. That ship sailed when he won the oscar.
I don't want Nolan anywhere near Bond.
Compare Spielberg, who just has natural storytelling instincts. You can pick a sequence from pretty much any of this films to show this--say, for example, the stalking velociraptors in Jurassic Park.
Nolan has does that several times, but this sentiment gets a bigger question — why?
What does "natural storytelling instincts" actually mean? People have played with chronology for as long as we've been telling stories. It isn't a gimmick at all. Unless you're going to say something like Eisenstein is a gimmick.
To be fair, we don’t know that they’re not working on a long term strategy. The film industry is in a precarious place right now and blockbusters are no longer the reliable cornerstone that keeps the structure from falling apart. While frustrating, I don’t mind the wait if it means that EON/MGM/Amazon are using this time to think strategically about the brand. I’ve said before that a bad film or terribly received film is more dangerous to the future of Bond (or any brand at that level) than no film.
EON keeps the Bond-cards close to the vest. This allows them to maintain significant control, but it also helps to inoculate the franchise from the toxicity of modern fandom. Sometimes the audience doesn’t need to see behind the curtain. Standing up a multi-million dollar production that employs a thousand people around the world is complicated and sometimes messy. That’s the business but fandom as whole doesn’t understand this.
Broccoli isn’t an automaton that spits out Bond films every two years. She is a highly involved creative producer; one of the most successful and lauded independent producers working at the highest levels in film, stage and television. Let her recharge. Let her do other things so that she can bring a fresh perspective when crafting the next Bond film.
Post of the year, @Burgess … well said. Every.Single.Word.
It’s just the way of this industry, and the way Broccoli navigates it with her partners is especially crafty. She’s an excellent producer and has continued to protect the brand as well as see that it evolves (while keeping all the traits that makes Bond, Bond). This is an especially complex thing to do and why we have witnessed the death of other film series (the producers just repeated the same old, same old, watering down their product until it was paper thin with diminishing returns).
Great post!
Well the courterview is Albert Broccoli (and when in partnership with Harry Saltzman) managed to produce 16 Bond films at two years gap - three year gap making The Spy Who Loved Me - and there was no problem. No major production problems that stalled filming.
Indeed, it's due to the high productivity and box office success of Albert Broccoli and co which has afforded Barbara Broccoli her career. Without her father she wouldn't have any producer career at all. It's literally 'she was born into the family business'. It's objective fact to say since Quantum of Solace she's not been able to copy her father's tight production schedule. If the next Bond actor is cast for multiple films we could be looking at a very long time frame.
My guess is Amazon made a tactical blunder purchasing MGM (in particular half of the Bond franchise). I can't believe Amazon would want to wait 5, 6 or more years to reboot Bond. That would be like a property company buying an apartment block and leaving it dormant for years. That's bad business acumen. You'd want to renovate the block a.s.a.p then rent out the floor space/apartments to get a return on your investment. I'd posit Amazon are clearly naive when it comes to making films. Just because you are an expert in selling consumer products does not make you an expert in producing and marketing feature films. It's not the same skill set. If Eon are more preoccupied with Daniel Craig's post Bond career and other theatre projects, Amazon have been naive. Eon are in control. And that doesn't mean Barbara Broccoli is in any rush to get Bond 26 made. A film that would greatly boost the UK film industry post covid and the US actor/writer strikes.
Bond 25 was originally scheduled for release October 2019.
In a few weeks time it will be five years since No Time To Die was finished and ready to be released. If Bond 26 is out in October 2026 it will be the longest gap ever. Seven years. Eight years if Bond 26 is October 2027.
However... I accept Amazon are impossibly wealthy so they can wait and wait. Amazon can wait forever! But it would be a counterintuitive policy to wait and wait.
MGM isn't just Bond.
It's thousands of hours of content that they're capitalizing on via their ownership and can now stream on their platform.
They've been busy producing new tv series with the IP, remaking films or rebooting films from the MGM library.
They're very much benefiting from the merger/ownership since they can now exploit all kinds of IP. They're incredibly busy.
As for Cubby's and Harry's output:
They started with having in place the Fleming titles.
The landscape for making films sixty, fifty and forty years ago was far different and wayyyyyy less saturated than it is today.
And there were issues with filming that stalled productions: the gap between 1989- 1995!
I suppose one could say that BB is a nepo-baby (why didn't you mention her half brother?!!), but the children of Cubby are talented producers. There's no denying they've continued to evolve the brand and have even elevated it (anyone who thinks Cubby would be disappointed with their thirty years at the helm should really examine why they think this way!).
It's conjecture, at best, to assume that without Bond, BB wouldn't be a producer!! This is the life she was given, and she's been utterly successful at it! We can only judge the person with what she's done in her professional life, and not make assumptions about a life she's never lived!
NO TIME TO DIE (I think that's the title), was delayed because of a pandemic...
No matter when the film was made, it was released in 2021 (like any film that gets delayed, their release date is the official date of the last film), and therefore it's only been three years since the last Bond film.
I am of the firm opinion that once they get the new era underway (Oct 2027 release date), that the films will be released on a three year schedule.
James Bond will return...
Also I don’t think it’s fair to compare Cubby’s two year output with that of today. These films take a lot more time to make now for various reasons (only if just for the fact that Cubby’s 80s Bond films had to have much lower budgets, but add on things like the increased scale, VFX, etc). I think even Cubby in his prime would struggle today to keep a two year cycle (which incidentally they more or less did throughout the early Brosnan/Craig eras). Also I think it’s worth saying modern EON have dealt with a lot since the Brosnan era that would have done a lot of damage to other franchises - having to go straight into TND without a finished script due to MGM demands, MGM’s bankruptcy/issues throughout the 2010s, Covid, Danny Boyle, the ‘08 writers strike.
Here, we're coming off of an actor who already knew it was the end for his run, whose film was delayed due to the pandemic, and now, with a clean slate with no source material to fall back on to shape the path forward. We're in uncharted waters and patience is key, especially when you also consider the state of franchise filmmaking at the moment.
I really like John Wick, but it’s not on Bond’s level in any sense (scale, financial success etc).
Bond’s ‘competitors’ (in this sense original characters with vague similarities to Bond) can churn out as much as they want. None of them have outperformed Bond. Even Mission Impossible had a financially unsuccessful last film and has never had Bond’s audiences.
Its spin off had major issues and needed rewrites and almost a year of reshoots. The tv series wasn’t renewed and was largely panned. They don’t know what the future holds for the character at this moment in time. The last Wick film was the highest grossing one at $432 million.
John Wick can’t beat Bond in scope, reputation nor worldwide box office receipts. If John Wick is Bond’s competition, then Bond beats him handily.
This has nothing to do with how fast films can come out. That’s a myopic way of looking at things. As we’ve seen repeatedly, blasting the market with an IP leads to saturation and burnout (which *may* be where Wick finds himself (although I loved the last film, the major complaint I kept hearing is: how many more of these can they make. How many more choreographed fights? How much more? That ain’t a good sign and shows that Wick is straining under its own weight)).
Well, F&F outperformed Bond for a while. Indiana Jones also did it in the 80's.
I mean, it's not impossible.
Even James Cameron made a successful Bond parody when EON was missing.
Two out of F & F’s ten films made more than Bond at the box office. Outliers.
Fast and Furious is having its funeral this upcoming spring, yet all Bond has done is take its time (three years so far, lol!), to relaunch the new era.
I just can’t think of any franchise that has what Bond does. It’s not just the financial result with one off movies, or how often they release them, but the longevity, the prestige, the impact on popular culture. The last Indiana Jones film didn’t seem to stir up much excitement. Furious can be successful (or at least was at one point) but I’m not sure how excited people will be for each new film (honestly, I didn’t realise they were still being made at one point).
It’s possible a rival franchise could overtake Bond in all those ways, but for various reasons Bond keeps going.
These other properties don't consciously operate in the absence of Bond, they operate toward their own ends.
But the issue isn’t that Bond isn’t making movies (or at the very least the franchise isn’t involved in making some sort of content in this downtime - EON very much is involved with this). It’s the amount of time between them we’re talking about.
At the end of the day it’s not a science. Top Gun can make a sequel decades after and be successful. A franchise like Batman too can have a gap of 10 years between its reboot and do the same. And on the flip side any franchise can release films consistently and have diminishing returns.