Eon Productions LLC/MGM
Above: Daniel Craig in his James Bond swan song, No Time to Die. It turned out to be the final Bond picture for the Broccoli family, too.
Rumours had circulated for some time that James Bond was in crisis: that Eon Productions, which had brought Bond to the silver screen, was in confrontation with Amazon, which owned the distribution rights, and which wanted to see the Bond IP expanded into a full universe.
Yesterday, that came to a head, with the announcement that a new joint venture had been formed between the two companies, with Amazon gaining creative control.
It seemed, then, that the first on-screen death of James Bond in No Time to Die (if you don’t count the Charles Feldman Casino Royale spoof) really did mark the end of the franchise as we know it. It was the last Bond picture brought to life by one of the families that created Eon Productions in the early 1960s, that had built the Bond family over six decades.
Eon Productions had been started in the 1960s by Harry Saltzman and Albert R. ‘Cubby’ Broccoli, Saltzman having optioned most of Ian Fleming’s James Bond books for cinematic adaptation, and Broccoli having wanted to do the films for many years and had an established track record as a producer.
The first 10 pictures were overseen by the pair, even if toward the end of that period, each was taking turns effectively as sole producer. Saltzman found himself in financial difficulties in the 1970s due to the failure of a string of investments, and found his half of Danjaq, Eon’s holding company, in the hands of the studio, United Artists. Since then, the cinematic James Bond has found his fate tied with the studio, where Wall Street’s movements delayed the production of new Bond pictures.
The lull between Licence to Kill (1989) and Goldeneye (1995) was one example. At that point, Broccoli had considered selling up, before people the family could work with were put in place at MGM, United Artists’ then-owner.
Broccoli’s successors, stepson Michael G. Wilson and daughter Barbara, had helmed Eon Productions and held creative control over the cinematic franchise since the elder Broccoli’s passing; Albert R. Broccoli’s final decision was the casting of Pierce Brosnan in Goldeneye.
It seems the most recent pause since No Time to Die, which would have been released in 2020 but for the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, was rumoured to be down to background feuding between the Broccoli family and the studio, now in the hands of Amazon—an operation complete with its own space rockets and henchmen that arguably mirrors Fleming’s (and Kevin McClory’s and Jack Whittingham’s) fictional SPECTRE, the global evil organization that appeared in some of the novels and films.
The announcement on Thursday by Wilson and Barbara Broccoli read like there had been a death in the family, and that this was not the desired outcome.
Wilson, 83, planned to retire. In his statement, he said, ‘With my 007 career spanning nearly sixty incredible years, I am stepping back from producing the James Bond films to focus on art and charitable projects. Therefore, Barbara and I agree, it is time for our trusted partner, Amazon MGM Studios, to lead James Bond into the future.’
Barbara Broccoli said, ‘My life has been dedicated to maintaining and building upon the extraordinary legacy that was handed to Michael and me by our father, producer Cubby Broccoli. I have had the honour of working closely with four of the tremendously talented actors who have played 007 and thousands of wonderful artists within the industry. With the conclusion of No Time to Die and Michael retiring from the films, I feel it is time to focus on my other projects.’
There used to be a special quality about the Bonds, as regular event cinema: each Bond adventure took you on a journey to exotic locales, in an era when not everyone could afford international travel. The Ken Adam set designs, the John Barry scores, the Maurice Binder gunbarrel, and the Ian Fleming stories were at one point novel and groundbreaking, and no expense was spared in taking audiences into Bond’s world.
Through the 1960s, Bond was in a league of its own, with 1965’s Thunderball holding the record for decades for the number of bums on seats in the cinemas. By the time the 1970s came round, the films found themselves following, rather than leading, the trends: Blaxploitation with Live and Let Die; the kung fu craze with The Man with the Golden Gun; and space films with Moonraker. Come the 1980s, its action credentials being challenged by Indiana Jones, Lethal Weapon and Die Hard, the Bonds found themselves with declining audience numbers and, by the time of Licence to Kill, a relatively small US$25 million budget necessitating cheaper production in México.
James Bond’s return in 1995 saw a new era, and a reboot in 2006 with Casino Royale, the third screen adaptation of Ian Fleming’s first James Bond tale, saw all the original full novels produced by Eon.
The cinematic Bond’s 50th anniversary in 2012 saw another high for the franchise, with Skyfall breaking box-office records and Thunderball’s long-held status as the most-seen-at-the-movies entry, and Bond even appearing alongside HM Queen Elizabeth II in a London Olympics sketch.
Some, however, might say that the Bonds that followed departed from Fleming’s creation, inventing new back-stories for characters, falling into the comic-book tropes of good-and-evil brothers, perhaps influenced by the worlds of Marvel and DC.
Like HM Queen Elizabeth II’s reign, there was a predictability and continuity for many people, in this case knowing the Broccoli family represented a continuity going back over six decades, not letting directors take Bond too far away from the roots, acting as the real guardians of the property. Fans’ incredulity at the developments is well understood, since Amazon has shown itself to be untrustworthy, such as its record on labour abuses and killing off its competition; its treatment of The Lord of the Rings has many Tolkien fans upset over ‘who shot J. R. R.’
The proof of the pudding will be in the eating, though it will be hard to imagine that James Bond might fight Ernst Stavro Blofeld and SPECTRE ever again given their similarities to the studio and its owner, who certainly has the capital to squander on a hollowed-out volcano.
Jack Yan is founder and publisher of Lucire.
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