AN UNLIKELY BOND

Amazon has assumed creative control of the 007 franchise. It could be a fate worse than death, writes Adam White - and transform Bond into another algorithm-driven content farm

- Adam White

For years the biggest perceived threat to the future of 007 was the apocryphal "woke police". The imagined scene was thus: a mob of rainbow-haired bisexuals would turn Bond into a woman, vodka martinis into vegan wine, and Q into, I don't know, LGBTQ+ or something. Shock horror, this hasn't - and never would have – come to pass. Instead what will likely kill off Bond is something all the more predictable in 2025: a slow, sad corporate takeover, men in suits trampling all over cinema’s most famous man in a suit.

In news that sent shockwaves through both Hollywood and 007 fandom on Thursday, long-time custodians of the franchise Eon announced they had ceded creative control of Bond to Amazon, following months of speculation about the future of the series. In 2021, Amazon bought MGM, which shares the Bond rights with Eon, in an $8.5bn deal, and had apparently grown frustrated with Eon’s slow movement on 007’s next chapter.

Daniel Craig announced his Bond exit in 2017 and his final film – No Time to Die – was released in 2021, yet there’s been no significant movement on a new movie since. No script has been written, no director has been set, and – most significantly – there is no new Bond himself. According to reports, Eon has only had the briefest of meetings with a handful of actors over the years to discuss taking over the role.

From a business perspective, you can understand some of Amazon’s frustration over sitting idly on a billion-dollar moneymaker. But Eon were reportedly skittish about the company’s plans for the franchise – which included spin-offs and TV series – and disliked those in power there. A December report in the