That’s right folks the devil is shivering his bifurcated tail off in hades right now!
And those strange airborne objects in the wild blue yonder are in fact pigs!
As reported by Deadline, our favorite self absorbed iron lady of EON has relinquished her creative control over Bond! Or should I say had it wrested from her. Just as I had predicted could be the case the moment Amazon bought MGM and Babz had her proxy John Logan write an op-ed about the transaction. In my response to Johnny’s prose, I posited Babz “ironclad assurances” could acquire a thick scaley layer of rust.
The status of Babz’ assurances
A month before this bombshell it was revealed Babz and Bezos were feuding over the future of Bond, with Baz replying “read the contract” when her creative authority was challenged. And read it they did, working hard to find a way to get the Barbera Broccoli sized road block out of their way.
As I said in that earlier article, Amazon would not be content to stand idly by while Babz faffed about with her passion projects letting their multi billion dollar investment gather dust. Babz had become accustomed to dealing with the perpetually bankrupt MGM, who were happy to sit on their hands while she dangled another shoddy film before them, which they would use to bolster the studio’s value before selling it off to the next group of suckers willing to take a stab at film making in a game of Hollywood hot potato.
“Catch idiot!”
Unfortunately for Babz, Amazon bought the studio this time around and they have the money and more importantly the lawyers to put out her lights. Babz though she could continue to play the I’m taking my ball and going home game, however she found herself outclassed and out maneuvered, exposing just how out of her depth she is in the cut throat world of entertainment business.
Rumor has it Amazon paid upwards of…
“One Billion Dollars!”
to Babbzy and her brood. So it was “Plomo o Plata.”
Quite frankly I think they got off cheap, I mean what price do you put on your father’s legacy and your only ticket to Hollywood relevancy. But don’t weep for Babz, she’s got plenty of irons in the fire, such as her off, off Broadway plays and abysmally performing non-Bond films. In ten years time maybe she’ll still have two nickels to rub together from that billion dollar pay out.
So what does all this mean for the future of Bond? First of all for better or worse, there will be a lot more of it. The major bone of contention between Babz and Bezos was Amazon’s insistence on creating an “extended universe” with spinoffs for every incidental character to ever share screen time with Bond. One such idea cited in the many articles Babz had commissioned during her sparring match with Amazon is a Moneypenny series.
“Hooray?”
Since the news hit, my feed has been inundated with much wailing and gnashing of teeth from pundits left and right bemoaning Amazon’s newfound control. I find this humorous as many of these same voices were slagging the direction of the series particularly the last two films. You see gang, Babz’ ideology is not far from Amazon’s, she’d be happy to include much of the modern intersectional politics these wags are afraid of. She just wants to do it more slowly. Like the proverbial frog in the boiling pot, she wants to turn up the heat incrementally rather than toss us all into the rolling boil. After all…
“Bond is evolving just as men are evolving. I don’t know who’s evolving at a faster pace.”
Also from that article:
“In a bid to equalise (sic) Bond and Bond girl, Craig was also keen to be clad as scantily as the female characters. ‘He’s more naked than the women. I’ve designed it that way. I mean, look at Casino Royale,’ he said, referring to the scene in which Bond emerged from the sea in swimming trunks. Naked, not just physically, but also, perhaps, emotionally.”
That’s supposedly straight from Craig’s mouth!
More humorously is this quote from the Daily Mail:
“Disney took Star Wars and diluted it with endless TV series and characters that bore no resemblance to the original stories and characters fans loved,’ a former Disney executive said. ‘Look what happened to Doctor Who. Hollywood took control of that and you’ve had increasingly woke storylines which alienated fans.”
Yes, you wouldn’t want to get increasingly “woke.”
Like say making Bond “pansexual.”
Creating a new “stunning and brave” 007.
Or emasculating Bond to the point he’s the one carrying a small child while his girlfriend does all the shooting.
Or have the MI6 gadget master put the Q in LGBT.
Also from the Daily Mail article:
“Barbara and Amazon never saw eye to eye. To her, Bond is her family’s legacy, something that must be nurtured and protected. She once told set designers to remove a door handle to a villain’s lair because it didn’t look ‘evil’ enough.”
Ah yes that famous Broccoli attention to detail, Babz would never allow such things as creating tenuous family ties between Bond and archnemesis Bolfeld.
I mean he spent a total of two winters there, he was more of a house guest.
Rip off Batman
or Bourne.
I could go on, but then I would just be reprinting every article I’ve ever posted.
“Please don’t!”
I am also under no illusion Amazon is going to do right by Bond either. I can imagine remakes of all the original films in the “Amazon style” coupled with an erasure of the originals, buy those hard copies now! And just look at what they’ve done with their Lord of the Rings series.
“I need TP for my one rrrrring!”
I’m not looking forward to a Felix Leiter series or finding out what Chief of Staff Bill Tanner does in his off hours.
Nor am I interested in the Moneypenny show mentioned above. Of course the only reason such a program is being considered is down to the fact EON retconned her into a failed field agent turned secretary.
How’s that for girl power?
However in these early dark days there is still hope, ol’ Jeffery himself posted on X/Twitter the question “Who should play the next Bond?” The unequivocable answer was Cavil, Henry Cavil. Will Hank get the roll? Who knows, but it points to the fact we are dealing with a company interested in following the first rule of mass media.
None of this really bothers me as Bond has been dead and buried in my mind for quite some time. Amazon can’t do to him what hasn’t already been done by Babz. Worst case scenario there’ll be more of it more often. I see it like this, Bond is in the final stages of a terminal disease, under Babz continued care he’d slowly suffer, wither and die. Amazon is a new, very experimental treatment that could potentially save him or (more likely) finish him off much, much quicker. Like I said Bond is dead to me already, if this works it’ll be a pleasant surprise, if not, well we were heading down this road already.
Bravo DB, the lame stream media’s narrative that Barbara was barring the barbarians at the gate is kinda of sickening. NTTD exposed her bankruptcy of ideas for Bond along with all the Craig entries.
Thank you Jason old friend, Babz was and had been bankrupt of creativity for some time (if she ever really had any), now maybe we’ll get some decent stories, or not at this point I’m not bothered either way.
“Bond has been dead and buried in my mind for quite some time.”
This is how I feel. We had a great 40 year run, which is more than most franchises can say, but Bond has not been Bond since Pierce. That being said, I’m afraid there’s always deeper levels of hell to descend to.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/feb/26/timothy-dalton-james-bond-amazon
It was a good run Rodger old boy and now we’ve transformed from the era of Bond being one woman’s plaything to the era of the content rich multiverse, sad but inevitable. However seeing as Babz screwed it up already who cares?
My first choice for 007 was and still is Tom Hardy. I think he would be an incredible Bond. But failing that, if the role went to Cavill, I would be happy with that. He would be a solid second choice for me. (Though I would rather he return to The Witcher, not just as the lead, but also as showrunner and Exec Producer. But anyway…)
Hi Wolf, there are plenty of solid choices for the next Bond, however if the writing isn’t there as was the case these many decades then the lead is pointless. Let’s just hope we get a few solid films out of this regime change.
Thanks for doing this. The article gets into what’s been killing the series. The mainstream media won’t be doing this kind of analysis. Right now, I’m starting to see puff pieces on Barbara Broccoli. I joined the forum, btw.
Hi Quantex, yes the media is kissing Babz’ backside for the coming months. However now that she’s been ousted from the only thing keeping her relevant in Hollywood that won’t last. Every non-Bond film she’s made failed to even claw back half it’s budget. Give it a year and we’ll never hear her name again.
It’s good to have you back, DirtyBenny – happy belated new year, by the way.
The whole Amazon thing isn’t good news or bad news to me. They are just businessmen, they just bought a property and they can (and will) do whatever they want with it. On the other hand, Babz had the mandate of keeping the flame of Bond alive and honor the character that took her father out of poverty, giving her an education and making her someone in the world of entertainment. What did she do? Subject him to a slow, painful and humilliating death. That’s unforgivable. If something out of this makes me happy is that the Craigzies became crybabies with Peter Pan syndrome (remember when they called us that for denouncing the end of N,TTD as an act of betrayal and disowning Daniel Cringe?), so… it’s a “My enemy’s enemy is my friend” kind of thing with Bezos.
There’s been so much ado of Pierce coming back, he said he wouldn’t go for it and I don’t really mind. I would love to see him back, no matter the age, but if they plan to do a N,TTD or an Indy 5 with him, no thank you.
Thank you my friend, It’s good to be back and perhaps so is Bond? As you say Babz squandered her time with him, then got in a staring contest with one of the richest men in the world rather than get to work on that detestable property her father built! We’ll see what Amazon does with it. More than likely it’ll be garbage, but then that was a guarantee under Babz anyway. If any of it turns out halfway decent I’ll consider that a win!