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Not gonna lie I wouldn't hate origin stories on certain Bond villains and henchmen.
Okay, my post is irrelevant. Politics has no bearing on the reality of film-making. Especially today. G'day.
Maybe its just me but I'd rather another 10 GoldenEye's over another SPECTRE or No Time to Die.
I feel a similar overreaction now similar to the Blonde Bond fiasco. Just because a certain Amazon employee said Bond wasn't a hero does not mean thats the person in charge. For all we know, Amazon could hire a creative to oversee the Bond IP (similar to a Kathleen Kenedy, James Gunn or Kevin Feige) that could understand the character and make appropriate decisions.
We all need to wait and see.
Gone right off him after watching that
Oh dear Lord I hope not.
It was fun while it lasted 🍸
And the last thing we need is countless of useless spinoffs. Just look at Star Wars when Disney acquired it.
It is a sad moment but if it wasn't Amazon taking over it would be Disney or Apple or some other big company with oodles of cash. Eon could have said "we're retiring but we don't want Amazon to make Bond films" but that would have backfired. Amazon would be in their right to take Eon to court and that would lead to a long unpleasant dispute and a very long delay before Bond 26 or no Bond 26 at all.
I think this day was always going to happen. It just took 63 long years to get to this moment. But here we are. An historic moment in the Bond franchise.
Which is exactly why I'm cautiously optimistic.
I really enjoyed Fallout, Reacher, The Boys, Mr & Mrs Smith, Man in the High Castle and Invincible as series. As far as movies go; You Were Never Really Here, Cold War, The Big Sick, Tomorrow War were all things I enjoyed.
Everyone is acting like Amazon are incapable of making anything worth any merit and it's simply not true.
Well, it appears now I have to make another choice. Do I have a bit of optimism and give Amazon a chance?
Or do I write them off before they’ve started?
This has come as a shock to us all. Nobody likes change, it’s an unclear path ahead. But I’ll see what unfolds before I give up on what lays ahead.
No one can say that. What happened in the past is done, it cannot be changed.
Hypothetically wondering what could’ve happened isn’t going to change what is reality.
This.
If anything, this will likely lead to more merchandising of the brand; more video games, more toys, more collectibles, etc.
Hope for the best but I’m not really excited for the future of Bond.
I think it’s all too easy to forget how unique (if not odd) that it is that cinematic Bond has been squarely controlled by the same creative team for decades. To extend the Sherlock Holmes analogy I have used elsewhere, imagine that William Gillette (whose Holmes stage play introduced many of the tropes and items we associate with that character outside of the Conan Doyle stories) and his family had retained the exclusive rights to depict that character on stage and screen for decades on end. That is, in essence, what has happened with Bond (with notable exceptions, of course, being the 1967 Casino Royale and NSNA).
Indeed, the Broccoli's have had that run for so long, in fact, that the original Fleming novels are only about a decade away from the public domain. Amazon has that time as exclusive owners of cinematic/screen Bond And I have no doubt that what they will do will be the shock treatment that will allow a public domain renaissance with Bond akin to what Nicholas Meyer’s The Seven Percent Solution has allowed for Holmes over the past few decades. We’ve seen Holmes of all shapes, sizes, colors, and gender. Not to mention robots and complete reworkings of the character into different settings (like House). The films proved Bond could adapt with the times in the ever present day. $5 says Bond will go through the same process, as the Canadian public domain situation has already proven. Something that also includes a Bond/Cthulhu mash up in prose, so I look forward to seeing that on screen!
The result is that there are going to be some wild takes to come in the years ahead, but this moment was coming anyway. It's merely arriving sooner rather than later and we're going to have to live with it as fans. Amazon would not be my first choice for the sole creative force over screen Bond for a decade, but that is the boat we find ourselves in and this one doesn't have a convenient ejector seat.
Actually, I think that would be awful, but there was a recent Spiderman film that featured previous Spiderman actors all together. That was a HUGE deal and immensely popular.
Now that Amazon has creative control, anything is possible whether we like it or not.
Rules can be thrown out, thus giving us an American Bond for instance. Chris Pine maybe or Robert Downey Jr.
He can be any age now as the films could come out annually.
There are no limitations, just possibilities.
:D
While I’m still not a fan of the ending of No Time To Die, I do find myself now okay with the reprise of Louis Armstrong’s song during the end credits. It really was the ending of something special, we just didn’t fully know it yet.
Indeed with the exception of some good ones.. The rest have been misses or forgettable. I just hope they'll continue the movies and hopefully don't ruin anything. Spinoffs are just gonna ruin it just like it has with Star Wars and Marvel.
Thankfully, the Bond IP doesnt really lend itself to that sort of milking though, does it? This isnt like a Star Wars, DC or Marvel style property that you can infinitely milk with spin offs. Worst case scenario, we probably see a series centered around another Double O, something with Felix Leiter, something Q or Moneypenny, or a villain spin off with SPECTRE. Not much else you can do with it, really. And even then, those would all likely be spread out for years, and thats if they were to even make it into development past a conceptual stage.
At best, we probably get animated features, one or two spin offs and more reality crap like Road to a Million. The movies are where the money is and the majority of their focus will likely remain on that.
So Amazon would rather pay them $1B to give away creative control rather than work with them. Makes sense. They’ll hire a new producer who they can control, because they knew Broccoli was only going to follow the beat of her own drum.
The last film was a huge slap in the face to Fleming fans, so I’m glad Barbara and Michael have stepped down. Who knows where Amazon may take us. They will most likely look at the most successful films of the franchise, critically and financially, and take that as their steer where to go next. And the great thing there is, the majority of those films typically rely on Fleming, with the exception of TSWLM and GE.
So yes, as a Fleming fan I’m fairly ecstatic about this news. The more time I’ve had to digest this, I’m as excited as I was when Dalton was hired back in the mid 80’s.
This is the best thing to happen to the franchise in years.
Cons (and how to make them positive):
More or less what everyone says about Amazon looking at it creatively. They might just view it as a product. But I realize that movies and creativity are basically a business. EON knew this too. So don't throw them completely under the bus, yet. Also, remember that Bond has generally known how to correct itself. History does repeat itself, as cinematic Bond has shown.
Not knowing if they have a dedicated group for the series yet (namely writers). Hopefully not Purvis and Wade (see below). It's a shame that Star Wars had a writers room at the beginning of the Disney takeover, and it seemed to only to the main screenwriters of the individual movies by the end of the original run (TROS). Get a mix of Bond fans and historians with proven talented (not just Oscar Bait like EON did with the last 3 movies) writers.
Amazon not learning from Disney with the Star Wars takeover. There are a lot of lessons to be learned in more ways than one. You're planning a story arc? Having everyone on the general same creative page. Realize that you can't play it safe in one part of the story. Then take all risks possible in the immediate story after. Try to simply mix both styles together in the same story arc overall. It's tricky, but it can be the best way to win both sides of homage and new directions.
Pros:
Hopefully, getting a leading actor(s) who gets too much creative control. Michael and Barbara gave PB too little creative control, and DC WAY TOO MUCH creative control. Over almost every little detail possible. The five other Bond actors NEVER got even a nose hair of that creative power of what DC got, combined. So Amazon can also tell the actor that they are expendable, for better or worse.
The thing I'm looking forward to most, hopefully: new writing blood. After some of the Purvis and Wade recent comments, it's time for them to go. If they don't know how to write a Bond villain with so many openly real life influences, it's simply time to go. In particular, if we're getting so many new things happening. In the words of Gareth Mallory, "You've had a great run. You should leave with dignity." Although for them, that moment has passed. I don't blame them for everything that went wrong in the last 27 years, but it's just simply time to move on. I will always be thankful for them, believe me.
I would be happier with Bond spinoffs being set more in the literary world than the cinematic one. However, it has to be done carefully with quantity. IFP shouldn’t start another series until a series or one-off is done. Double-00 book 3 and The Q Mysteries 1 should be the exception. Due to Kim Sherwood’s real life troubles. So that may be a positive about Amazon buying James Bond, they could have a regular schedule for Bond books, as well as movies.
Hopefully, this means that EON can make a project or two under their own company. I know MGW has been a great asset to keeping Bond alive, but some of his ideas and comments prove that Gregg SHOULD arguably take over. Barbara clearly can't get over Craig. We've known that for years now. I will say that she is a better producer and overlooker than Kathleen Kennedy has been for sure. If she stayed on, we could have gotten a DC Bond comeback akin to RDJ becoming Dr. Doom in the MCU. Craig has moved on (from Bond, at least). Even Richard Maibaum kept writing scripts despite not liking Moore and Lazenby. While guilty of criticizing others while praising himself, he always tried to help keep Bond alive, akin to Cubby. So, we can expect some new recurring names around for awhile, for sure.
Overall, times are changing. However, James Bond has survived along with other legendary characters, Sherlock Holmes, Batman, Superman, Tarzan, Robin Hood as having different generations help it survive. So don't worry my fellow James Bond fans, James Bond will return. When and how we don't know, sure. But it'll be fun to speculate until that happens!
Interesting perspective, your optimism is admirable and I sure do hope you're right, but I can't get past what the Amazon executive (allegedly) said during the talks on the direction of the franchise that leaked for the Barbara Broccoli story in December, where they said "I don't think James Bond is a hero". How do we have any trust that people like this will respect the franchise and its namesake or steer it in a positive direction?