James Bond: Amazon now has creative control of a crisis franchise

James Bond's world has just experienced seismic upheaval. It is now the Amazon MGM studio which has the creative control of the franchise on the British secret agent. The news fell on Thursday, February 20 with the announcement that the historic (and protectors) producers of 007, Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, withdraw from Bond business.

Amazon takes the queens of the franchise

According to the details of the announcement, Amazon MGM Studios and the two leaders of Eon Productions have signed a new agreement stipulating that the three parties remain co -owners of the franchise James Bondbut it is now Amazon who will make creative decisions.

Wilson, who spent almost 60 years taking care of the James Bond saga and announced his retirement following the film's release Dying can wait In 2021, will now focus on other occupations while Broccoli, which will remain in Hollywood, will devote itself to new projects.

For his part, Amazon is delighted to be able to “Inaugurate the next legendary 007 phase for audiences around the world,” as Mike Hopkins, director of Video premium and Amazon MGM Studios.

According to DeadlineAmazon would have spent more than a billion dollars for this new agreement to be born.

What future for 007?

Since the end of the Daniel Craig era in the guise of James Bond, the franchise has been at a standstill because, as revealed by the Wall Street Journal Last December, the agreement between the Broccoli and Amazon family was not really in good shape, on the one hand because Amazon wanted to extend the universe of James Bond Where Broccoli was not interested in spin-offs in Gogo.

A necessarily enormous source of frustration for the studio which spent $ 8.5 billion in 2022 to acquire the MGM catalog, largely to obtain the distribution rights for films James Bond.

Because, now that the E-commerce giant studio has Bond's creative control, everything could change. 007 could indeed be transformed into a source of content for the Amazon streaming platform, Video premium.

In addition to the game 007: On the way to the million (the only project derived from the franchise approved by Broccoli in the past), perhaps we will soon see the universe of 007 venturing on the side of series Or towards films devoted to secondary characters.

The future will tell us but now one thing is certain, it is Amazon who will decide who will make the next film James Bondwill validate his scenario, and will choose what will be the next actor to put on the costume of 007. And Jeff Bezos has already asked to fans what they thought about it.