James Bond defeated by his most unexpected enemy, streaming

Why did I write this article? At the Oscar 2025 ceremony there was a musical number with James Bond songs. It is curious because since 2021 there are no new 007 films and the most important news is that Amazon / MGM took over the ownership of the saga. The musical was a kind of farewell, a closing of cycle... because James Bond will no longer be what it was, and here I explain why.

A few months ago I remember seeing Daniel Craig presenting the Irving G. Thalberg Award - an Honorary Oscar - for his contribution to the film industry to his former bosses in the 007 saga, Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson. That was on November 17, 2024 and, when the camera panned to the producers, the image it showed was shocking. Wilson looked extremely old and Broccoli looked exhausted, as if she was about to be rushed to some hospital due to a case of acute anemia.

It was at that moment that I realized that the James Bond franchise was doomed to extinction.

You see: I've been a James Bond fan since I was a kid. My family loved James Bond: we went to see all his movies as soon as they were released, and when there were re-releases (which happened annually in my native Montevideo in the 70s and 80s), I went to see the old Sean Connery, George Lazenby or early Roger Moore films. I bought and read all the novels. I got all the movies on VHS. I bought all the soundtracks (vinyl, cassette, Compact Disc)... until the Internet era arrived and now I have all the 007 music stored in MP3 files in the memory of my cell phone.

Even as I write this note, I have several models (in different scales) of the Aston Martin DB5 from Goldfinger (1964) adorning my desk, as well as the original Corgi version of Stromberg's helicopter and the Lotus Esprit that starred in the most exciting sequence of The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). And, in fact, more than 20 years ago I started writing about movies on the web, and the first thing I started reviewing were the 007 movies I loved so much and watched dozens of times.

All this underlines the fact that James Bond is, for me, more than just a show. There are stages of my life marked by the James Bond movies I saw in every time and place, and always surrounded by my affections. With my grandfather we went to see the premiere of Moonraker (1979); with my mother we saw a lot of Sean Connery movies in a festival of re-releases organized by the Miami Cinema in the 70s, and that was at the time when she had just divorced my father. When I went to live in Argentina, I said goodbye to my native Uruguay by going with my friends to see A View to a Kill (1985). And I went to the premiere of Goldeneye (1995), which happened a week before I got married.

That's why 007 has a very emotional charge for me. It's in my DNA. And that's why the fate of the saga matters so much to me. Just as many fans made their childhood around Star Wars, Ghostbusters or another high impact film, the James Bond series is my family heritage. So when I saw Wilson and Broccoli at that table, smiling forcibly in front of the cameras, I was assaulted by a sense of loneliness. I was about to be orphaned from my favorite franchise. The obvious answer was twofold: they were too old to continue and, on the other hand, they had not prepared a successor to take over EON, the family company that has run the saga since 1962.

And that's something that was inexplicable to me... at least at first.

When James Bond was in full fury in the 60s, “Cubby” Broccoli began training his stepson Michael G. Wilson, starting him in the family business at the very bottom: as an extra on the Fort Knox attack shoot at the climax of Goldfinger (1964). Wilson then began to work his way up the ladder, becoming a production assistant and even co-writing some of the scripts for Roger Moore's final films. Barbara on the other hand started much later, becoming production assistant on Octopussy (1983). And then Barbara and Michael took over the saga in 1995, when Cubby was too old and exhausted (he would end up passing away a year later), and both ended up putting their own stamp on the franchise.

But, as of today, they are the only ones at the helm of EON. Michael put his two sons in minor administrative roles in the company, and Barbara's daughter simply wanted nothing to do with it and went about her private life. If those kids had come to the forefront… would they have changed the course of things?.

And the answer is... no. Because two people, no matter how skilled and experienced they are (in the family business, in the movie business), are in no position to negotiate anything with a guy who has the third largest fortune in the whole world.

Because the world of cinema in 2025 is radically different from the one that existed 30 years ago, when Broccoli and Wilson debuted as producers in Goldeneye. In between, movie studios lost relevance if they were not backed by another bigger and more lucrative business (like Sony), the Marvel revolution appeared and everyone wanted to create millionaire franchises with shared cinematic universes, streaming emerged and Netflix altered the rules of the industry... and then COVID 19 and the pandemic took care of wiping out movie theaters, as well as causing a cultural change that completely altered the world of entertainment. People stayed at home and didn't even bother to go to the movies, knowing that in less than two months they would be watching that same film on the huge Smart TV screen in their living room.

And, in that context, the 007 saga feels like a dying breed. We live in a world where the popes of entertainment want quick and easy money; a world dominated by franchises, sequels, remakes and overexploitation of IPs; where the kings of the show are the technology companies and not the big movie studios; where banal and overproduced content predominates over the quality of the product.

For a world dominated by mass manufacturers of cinematic fast food, EON is a relic of the past: it is like an artisanal winery run by its own owners, who produce exquisite wines only by batch, every three years and in small quantities. Each ingredient is carefully selected, the product undergoes intense quality control, and is promoted with personal dedication.

But Broccoli and Wilson do not live in a bubble. In these 30 years of managing EON they saw these changes in the industry... and they knew that the wave, sooner or later, was going to catch up with them. And that they weren't going to be up to the task of dealing with it.

First, because its fate was tied to that of MGM - Harry Saltzman, historical co-producer of the 007 saga, decided to get out of the business in 1971 and sold 50% of EON's shares to United Artists... which was absorbed in 1981 by Metro Goldwyn Mayer, becoming de facto co-owner of the franchise -. And MGM had been floundering financially since 2010. It was no longer the juggernaut that produced mega-musicals in the 1950s and one of Hollywood's biggest studios. A string of horrendous box office failures put it in such a weak financial position that it was always flirting with bankruptcy, and only the Bond film releases injected money into its meager coffers. MGM's annual output dropped precipitously, and it turned to remakes of everything it owned - Robocop, Red Dawn, Poltergeist - and the reception of those experiments was awful. They were forced to hold their breath until another Bond film gave them financial oxygen, barring the miracle of an unexpected blockbuster with a moderately budgeted film.

And, second, because the movie landscape changed so much that, by 2010, franchises and streaming dominated everything.

It was only a matter of time before someone came along, bought MGM and started demanding more Bond films/products, since it's the only profitable franchise the studio has. And that long-dreaded opportunity came in 2021 when Amazon acquired MGM for $8.45 billion.

What followed next was the arm wrestling to the death between the millionaire technocrats and the artisanal manufacturers. The technocrats demanded to create series, cartoons, spin offs... and the only thing they got (since Broccoli and Wilson had the final vote in the discussions about the future of James Bond) was the temporary permission to put the films on streaming (for the first time in their life!) and only for a few months, since 007 movies are shows that can only be appreciated as they should be, going to the best movie theater in your city. No overexposing or undermining their flagship product.

And that was not the answer the millionaire technocrats wanted to hear. They wanted to quickly recover their investment and, after more long and conflicting conversations, they only got permission to make a pathetic reality show - 007: Road to a Million -, which everyone stopped watching after the very sad first episode.

What Amazon doesn't understand is that James Bond is not Marvel. It doesn't have 50 popular characters that you can pull products from. All the novels are filmed, the whole saga is based on a single character. What are they going to film?. The adventures of Moneypenny?. The early days of M?. The adventures of some other double zero agent, possibly female and non-white?. Welcome to Q's lab?. James Bond: his days as a student at Eton?. The adventures of Blofeld's cat and his feline minions who want to conquer the world?.

In a world dominated by franchises - and worse, franchises that have started to skid badly, including something that seemed bulletproof like Marvel - the prospect of diversifying James Bond into 30 different products is tantamount to bastardizing the product and drastically lowering its quality.

And it's not a question of money. Amazon has already screwed up with the The Lord of the Rings saga (The Rings of Power), a multimillion-dollar series that even Tolkien's die-hard fans don't want to see. Nor do they seem to want to learn from Marvel's failures, which since Avengers: Endgame have devalued the saga and now it is an irremediable burden that only recovers through costly coups and fan service - be it Deadpool & Wolverine, or the rehiring of Robert Downey Jr. to play the villain in Avengers: Doomsday... a move that can go so wrong that it can bring down not only Marvel but all of Disney -.

But Marvel isn't the only one floundering in this world of overexploited IPs. Just look at the horrors committed by Kathleen Kennedy since she took over at Lucasfilm in 2012, alienating historical fans and ruining Star Wars for the entire crop. Or the excessive greed of Paramount, which saturated the market with Star Trek spin-offs since 2009, when J.J. Abrams and his minions proceeded to turn the franchise into an action saga... and abandoned the thinking sci fi essence that always characterized the saga since the 60s. All three cases have common characteristics: for every product they get right (The Mandalorian, Andor, Rogue One; the third season of Picard, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds), there are ten that fail, are rejected by fans or are ignored outright by the public.

That's why, before it starts alienating 007's loyal fan base, Amazon - now that it has pushed Broccoli & Wilson so hard to the point of breaking them and making them hand over total creative control of the franchise, something that happened at the end of February 2025 - must make a brutal coup, and convey confidence to the fans. Give them signals that the saga is in good hands. But how to do it?.

While Broccoli and Wilson have been exceptional stewards of the franchise for the past 30 years, their extreme zeal has ended up ruining some very interesting possibilities to do things differently. Danny Boyle was cut from No Time to Die simply because they didn't want to give him creative control, and Boyle is a filmmaker with an impeccable track record. They turned a deaf ear when Christopher Nolan declared his love for the character, and admitted that he would be willing to shoot a film of the saga... as long as he was allowed to do a script without conditions. In their own way, Broccoli & Wilson are also a fast food factory, only their burgers come with the chef's stamp. They always wanted submissive directors and, when they have succeeded with their criteria, it is because they have combined in fair measure huge doses of creativity + a great exercise of diplomacy to be able to sell their ideas to the producers.

So the leap of faith Amazon needs is to hire a great director. Nolan, at the top of the list. Then, let him write an inspired script that respects the saga, something that only a lifelong fan of the franchise like Nolan can do. And finally, to make an impeccable casting. But all this is a process that will take at least three years. Any fan casting of Henry Cavill is absurd because, when Bond 26 appears, Cavill will be 45 years old or more. And how do I estimate that time?. Just count the years it took James Gunn to implement the DCU from scratch at Warner. The new IP Manager must create decision-making infrastructure, select projects, get staff, create a blueprint - which will work like a TV series pilot - choose creatives, and act as a firewall in front of Warner management that has billion-dollar numbers in the red and needs these products to not only be ready for yesterday but to be smash hits at the box office. David Zaslav has no use for something along the lines of Shazam! (2019), which got phenomenal reviews but barely grossed $370 million. Any tepid box office results could result in Gunn's automatic ejection from the DCU director's chair.

But where do we get an efficient IP Manager? At least Gunn knew the inner workings of Marvel. Do we make Kevin Feige an offer he can't refuse, or are we going to bring in some bureaucrat who only knows about numbers and not passions, a la Kathleen Kennedy?.

The saddest thing is that Michael G. Wilson is 83 years old, which - over time - leaves Barbara Broccoli in a position of total loneliness at EON. Although she is younger (64), in 10 years or less she will end up selling the rest of her EON shares to Amazon. At most she will be given an honorary role as an advisor, just like George Lucas has at Lucasfilm right now... in other words, a nice ornament with a nice salary but without voice or vote. Quite a torture, considering that she will be forced to watch as an entertainment giant mercilessly multiplies and destroys the franchise that her father built from scratch.

Time will tell if I am right or if I am deeply mistaken. In any case, the feeling I am left with is one of resignation and hopelessness. And that, at some point - in the near future - I will sit on the curb with a bottle of liquor in my hand next to resigned Star Wars and Star Trek fans, sharing memories of the good old days and weeping over the spawn they now mass-produce. And just like them, I will end up joining in their laments, repeating their mantra: “this is not the James Bond my parents knew”.

P.S.: Amy Pascal (former Sony, former producer of the Spiderman saga) and David Heyman (Harry Potter saga) have been appointed on 03/25/2025 as the new bosses of the James Bond saga after buying the remaining part of Barbara Broccoli for a secret figure (estimated by some at 1 billion dollars).