He was pushed out of a plane and still managed to grapple a parachute off his enemy in Moonraker.
In Live And Let Die, he escaped a lake infested with crocodiles by using the reptiles as stepping stones. And who can forget the Lotus Esprit sports car that spectacularly turned into a submarine during a road chase in The Spy Who Loved Me?
James Bond has always been adept at overcoming impossible odds and defeating the world’s most ruthless criminal enterprises.
However, 007 now faces a new enemy, which critics say is every bit as ruthless and bent on world domination as old foes such as Blofeld, Spectre and Smersh.
And this time it’s not just fiction. Corporate behemoth Amazon, which owns the film studio that makes Bond films, is in a titanic struggle with the powerful Broccoli family, which has creative control over the world’s most famous spy.
This explains why, more than three years after 007’s last outing in No Time To Die, there has been no new film. Even worse, the Broccolis revealed, there is no script and no Bond lined up to replace Daniel Craig after the bizarre decision to kill him off in the most recent movie.
Nearly three years after retail giant Amazon, namely its online TV and film streaming arm Prime Video, paid £5.2billion to buy Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) Studios to get its hands on the lucrative Bond rights, the company’s relationship with the family that oversees the franchise has reportedly all but collapsed.
For it is the Broccoli family, not MGM, that makes the important decisions about 007 – such as who plays him and in what sort of film.
Actor Daniel Craig as 007 and Bond girl Lea Seydoux in the 2015 film Spectre
Meanwhile Barbara Broccoli, who inherited the mantle of being the real ‘M’ in Bond’s life nearly 30 years ago from her late film producer father, Albert ‘Cubby’ Broccoli, has such a low opinion of Amazon that – according to the Wall Street Journal – she has told friends: ‘These people are f***ing idiots.’
It appears the British-American director is worried about what Amazon could do to her beloved spy, the creation of writer Ian Fleming, in terms of embarrassing commercial spin-off projects.
Even before Amazon bought MGM, she had reportedly rejected Bond TV series, video games and even at least one themed casino. She and her stepbrother, 82-year-old Michael Wilson, who is close to retirement from their British company, Eon Productions, believe the film character is far too precious to be subjected to the cold-blooded commercial whims of the company founded by Jeff Bezos.
Bezos – who, coincidentally, has drawn occasional comparisons to a Bond villain with his lazy right eye and vast fortune – has created an empire that is governed by algorithms. Its TV and film arm decides what to make not by flashes of inspiration or taking risks, say critics, but by what number-crunching computer programs predict will be popular.
This, say insiders, is anathema to Ms Broccoli, 64, who took a leading role in the controversial – but ultimately very successful – choice of Craig as Bond.
Some of his five films were certainly better than others, but – coupled with prestigious writers and directors such as Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Sam Mendes – they gave a much-needed rejuvenation to a tired franchise. (Amazon insiders say the company is loath to take risks and would never have hired a relatively unknown actor like Craig for the role).
Amazon’s Jeff Bezos at The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power premiere in 2022
On the other hand, Amazon’s own attempts at ‘rejuvenating’ franchises haven’t been so successful. JRR Tolkien fans were outraged at Amazon’s take on Middle-earth in the $1billion Lord Of The Rings prequel, The Rings Of Power series. It was lambasted for featuring politically correct plot lines and endless diversity castings that were never in the books.
More worrying is that some Silicon Valley minions have even been fretting about whether they should be glorifying 007 – a killer and notorious womaniser (whose car preferences show an unforgivable lack of eco-consciousness) – at all. One female member of Amazon staff silenced the room when she announced at an internal meeting: ‘I have to be honest. I don’t think James Bond is a hero.’
Ms Broccoli is reportedly happy to consider the next Bond being black – some younger members of the Broccoli clan say he should better reflect multi-cultural Britain – although she insists the actor must be male and British. (Pierce Brosnan is Irish but perhaps that was considered close enough.)
She has said choosing an actor to play Bond is as important as choosing a spouse. Ms Broccoli is known to exert a pervasive influence over the production of Bond films, monitoring stunts and special effects as well as keeping a watch over plots. One of her rules, for instance, is that Bond rarely shoots first. Since the first, Dr. No in 1962, Bond films have made an impressive £6 billion at the box office so their appeal to Amazon is obvious. The Wall Street Journal reported that before Amazon bought MGM, the American head of Prime Video, Mike Hopkins, assured senior colleagues that he could win over Ms Broccoli and persuade her to allow them to do more to exploit the Bond ‘brand’.
There were reportedly discussions later at Amazon about potential spin-offs such as a James Bond TV series, one about Miss Moneypenny and a third show about a female 007. It’s not hard to work out what Fleming or his equally unreconstructed fictional creation would have thought about this.
Ms Broccoli was similarly shaken not stirred by such suggestions, reminding Amazon of the contract giving her creative control, said friends.
And the relationship didn’t improve when Amazon assigned its side of the negotiations to Jennifer Salke, a female executive. Ms Salke reportedly annoyed Ms Broccoli at an early meeting by referring to Bond as ‘content’ for its streaming service. Using such a ‘sterile’ term was like a ‘death knell’ for the relationship for Ms Broccoli, a friend told The Wall Street Journal.
Barbara Broccoli at the premiere of Film Stars Don’t Die In Liverpool in 2017
She and her stepbrother were also understood to have been frustrated that they could never talk to any senior executives at Amazon, a £1.8 trillion company that is estimated to be the fourth most valuable in the world.
After the deal closed and Amazon took over MGM in the spring of 2022, a meeting was held to discuss new shows and films that could exploit the studio’s impressive back catalogue. But reality had set in for executives about the amenability of the Broccolis.
A ten-page memo was circulated listing the various ways to ‘maximise content opportunities presented by MGM and the MGM library acquisition’. But next to Bond, the memo simply said, ‘TBD [To be decided]’ and ‘on hold pending larger discussions’.
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Those discussions, evidently, have yet to reap positive results. In the years since the MGM sale, for all the billions it shelled out in the acquisition, Amazon has produced just one Bond-related product: A reality show called 007: Road To A Million in which teams compete in spy-themed challenges.
Critics have not been kind and Amazon executives were reportedly horrified when the show’s first season lost a significant share of viewers in just the first six minutes. Its host is Succession star Brian Cox. ‘Why on earth did he agree to this gig?’ wailed one TV critic. Well, actually, he has admitted, he did so because he’d thought it was a new Bond movie.
Ms Broccoli is, at least, working with her awkward new bedfellows on a new film adaptation of another Ian Fleming story, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
What the Amazon algorithms will do with the famous flying car, Truly Scrumptious and the Child Catcher may yet prove even more unforgivable than anything they have in store for 007.
