This is the rumor that ran as soon as the news of the takeover of MGM by Amazon was announced. Would James Bond see his adventures on the small screen? The producers of agent 007 are opposed to this idea.
While Dying Can Wait will (finally) be released on October 6 in French theaters, James Bond producers – Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson – have bluntly dismissed the possibility that the iconic spy franchise will ever have a spin-off in a television version, in an interview given to Total Film.
In May, a real earthquake took the world of cinema by surprise with the announcement of the takeover of the legendary MGM studios – which hold the rights to the Bond franchise – by Amazon for an amount of 8.45 billion dollars. Among the other “brands” of MGM (Rocky, The Pink Panther, Robocop…), Bond is the jewel of the collection. The deal has yet to be approved by the end of the year.
End of not receiving
A thousand and one speculations about the character’s future hatched as soon as the news came out. Speculation and fears. Starting with John Logan, the screenwriter of Skyfall and Specter who declared in the columns of the New York Times that this agreement gave him “chills”.
Without a doubt, Amazon executives would like to exploit the rights to Bond via a spin-off series for its Prime Video platform. Maybe even an adaptation of Charlie Higson and Steve Cole’s book series, Bond Youth, which focuses on a Bond teenager and college student at Eton.
To Total Film’s question “Would a 007 television series be a big NO for you?”, The answer could not be clearer:
We make films. We make films for theaters, “said Barbara Broccoli. And Michael G. Wilson added:” We have resisted that call for 60 years.
Broccoli and Wilson will retain their “continued artistic control” over the franchise, and assured fans in a statement hours after the deal was announced that they “pledge to continue making James Bond films for release. in theaters internationally “.
Next year marks the 60th anniversary of the Bond franchise, which began with Sean Connery with Dr. No. Based on Ian Fleming’s spy novels, the series spawned 27 films, all but two of which were produced by Eon Productions, the company run by Broccoli and Wilson.
