As soon as it was announced that Amazon had swooped in to purchase MGM in a multi-billion dollar deal, it was inevitable that the James Bond franchise would instantly shoot to the forefront of the rumor mill.
Even though Eon Productions had resisted the notion of spinoffs and offshoots for decades, there was scuttlebutt aplenty claiming that an entire 007 shared universe was in the works, with a number of projects in development for Prime Video. Of course, none of it was true, but Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson know that the iconic secret agent faces a crucial next step.
The duo admitted Bond was at a critical juncture, and that’s made even more difficult by a brand new leading man and creative team having to step into the breach following the conclusion of the Daniel Craig era with No Time to Die. Speaking to The Sun, the actor dismissed the idea of any upcoming installments skipping theaters entirely.
“One of the greatest things that’s happened is we got this movie into the cinema. That’s where Bond movies should be. They don’t look so good on a phone. They look great on an Imax screen. It looks great on a 30ft screen. And they are family events. It gets the family out. As long as there’s event movies like this then cinema’s got a chance of surviving.”
Broccoli and Wilson still retain a huge amount of creative control over James Bond, arguably more than any other producorial team in Hollywood outside of Marvel Studios holds over one of the industry’s marquee properties, so we can expect the next batch of globetrotting espionage adventures to remain theatrical exclusives.
