It’s been four years since Daniel Craig’s James Bond died in a missile strike at the end of No Time to Die, and the silent hiatus has stretched on so long that the urgent question in the world of 007 has moved away from “who” will be the next Bond, to “if” there will be a next Bond.
No star, no story, no script, no director, only rumours of discontent. Last year, The Wall Street Journal reported that producer and Bond steward Barbara Broccoli believed that Amazon, with whom she has had to work since it acquired MGM, who make Bond, in 2022, is run by “f**king idiots” and is preoccupied with “content” rather than film-making.
So it comes as a great shock that this week Broccoli, 64, and her half-brother Michael G Wilson, 83, are stepping down and leaving Bond under the complete control of – yes – Amazon. For 61 years, Bond has been under the custody of the Broccoli dynasty. Albert “Cubby” Broccoli developed and launched the films in 1961, his daughter and stepson joined in the 1970s and have retained total creative control ever since. They are famously fiercely protective of the franchise and its legacy, and many thought they would keep it in the family for ever. Now, everything could change.
The news at least means something is happening. Regime change means people may start to make some decisions about the direction of the franchise and end these years of stagnation and disagreement and impatience, and bookies placing odds on every good-looking British actor under the age of 50. New personnel, money and ideas present endless opportunities for the future of Bond. The problem is that based on its streaming service, Prime Video, a new Amazon era is very hard to be excited by.
Prime Video is the most blokey and least inspiring of all the streamers. Its gloomy interface is dominated by bulked-up men – Reacher, Jack Ryan – staring into the middle distance looking inconvenienced by their duty to save the world. It’s not just in its drama: most of the platform’s biggest hits are sports docuseries, and men-focused non-scripted shows like The Grand Tour and Clarkson’s Farm. There are exceptions, but it increasingly is becoming the home of identikit action men.
Which at first seems like the perfect home for Bond, for many the most important action man of all. But after this long a wait, and with so much anticipation, a new Bond needs to be more imaginative and more ambitious than ever. I’m not convinced that Amazon – lacking the reputation of the curated, big-budget Apple TV+, the variety, reliability and audience insight of Netflix, or the track record of NOW and HBO – will deliver that.
It didn’t start that way. Prime’s early commissions, before algorithms ruled all, back when it battled Netflix for prestige, were very different. There was the radical, progressive originality of Transparent (2014) – the first show to win the Golden Globe for Best Series from a steaming service. The charm, pace and intelligence of The Marvelous Mrs Maisel (2017) that followed suit – sweeping awards ceremonies and receiving endless critical acclaim. Both confirmed that streamers were the new homes of high-quality storytelling, outside of traditional networks.
The streaming landscape has changed since – now, many companies have forsaken quality for quantity, prioritising eyeballs over awards. There are exceptions, but Prime Video now focuses on remakes (Mr and Mrs Smith), spin-offs (The Rings of Power, its most expensive show), mindless movies (You’re Cordially Invited, Anyone But You), and identikit thriller novel adaptations. It has become the place of bingeable safe bets, not bold gambles.
Isn’t that what Bond needs, though – a bit of risk? I’m not of the opinion that we need a female Bond (if you want a good female spy, write one, instead of shoehorning virtue-signalling identity politics into one of the most popular male characters in fiction). But I do think it needs to be invigorated – and Amazon is not a place for reinvention.
Meanwhile the changes they might make, now they have the freedom to, could be catastrophic. Will they cast an American Bond (heresy)? Will future films be on streaming before cinema (destroying box office takings worldwide)? Will the brand now be diluted, a la Star Wars after its acquisition by Disney, and like Marvel, spawn endless spin-offs and extended universes? There are decades of Bond lore and characters ripe for exploitation – which will be the first to get an origin story?
Even more concerning is the question of how Jeff Bezos’s priorities – retaining Prime Video’s global subscriber base – and his influence will warp brand Bond. A James Bond film is a landmark event in British cinema, whose primary purpose, through its shapeshifting, charismatic hero and sinister foreign villains is to entertain. At the same time, it reflects the geopolitical climate in which it is made and sets the standard for the spy genre.
That does not align with streamers trying to please as many customers as possible from as many countries as possible while also protecting one American billionaire’s political and business interests – and could leave Bond a bland, inoffensive shadow of his former self.
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