A dire indication of where Bond might be headed came mere minutes after the news broke, with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos – the world’s Blofeld, you might say – posting on his social media channels, “Who’d you pick as the next Bond?” It was unclear if Bezos was indeed attempting to crowdsource his new leading man from his X followers.
Now with the franchise under the cloak of Amazon, there is every chance this kind of conversation around 007 will cease entirely – there will be a 007 in the new movies, likely a young 007, then different spin-off series each with an agent bearing the 007 codename.
Flash-in-the-pan spin-off ideas have never historically got off the ground (Halle Berry Bond Girl movie, we hardly knew ye), the 007 video games and novels have been largely thoughtful and inventive, and Bond merchandising deals have always bent to the aspirational rather than the throwaway – Aston Martins and Omega watches, yes; Spectre-themed toys with your Happy Meal, not so much.
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.
What this will officially mean for the future of Bond is unclear, but there’s undeniably a sense of great loss to all of this: 007 has been in Broccoli hands since its cinematic conception, and for all the inconsistency of quality that has plagued the Bond films, they’ve rarely been total disasters.
