Licence to Sell: How Amazon Could Dilute James Bond’s Legacy
James Bond will return with The Official James Bond Shopping Experience™ on Amazon/NFL Black Friday.
Amazon MGM Studios will gain creative control of the James Bond franchise, thus ending a fight with the Broccoli family for the James Bond legacy.
In 2021, Amazon acquired MGM Studios for $8.45 billion, which gave Amazon access to MGM’s extensive film library and intellectual property, including its 50% stake in the James Bond franchise. But But Amazon did not have full control over the James Bond name. The Broccoli family — specifically Barbara Broccoli and her half brother Michael G. Wilson — had maintained creative control over the James Bond film franchise since its inception through their company EON Productions. And the Broccoli family was unhappy with Amazon’s ambitions to tap into the value of that franchise to create a multi-faceted cash cow, including movies, TV shows, spinoffs, and even a re-imaging of James Bond at a fundamental level. As a result, the development of new Bond movies, and indeed the selection of a Bond to replace Roger Craig, stalled.
And this is a major problem with Amazon, which needs to exhibit tentpole movies in theaters to drive their streaming success. But Amazon has cash and muscle. And it looks like cash and muscle carried the day
Until now.
Ceding creative control of the James Bond franchise to Amazon was probably necessary in order to move forward with another 007 movie in the post-Daniel Craig era. But Bond fans, including myself, have reason to be wary.
Jeff Bezos once famously said, “When we win a Golden Globe, it helps us sell more shoes,” which tells you everything you need to know about how Amazon views entertainment. James Bond now exists to drive Prime membership.
To be sure, the James Bond franchise is not a charity. But for decades, a clear film-first strategy has protected the integrity of the franchise. The Broccoli family took creative risks to update Bond for contemporary viewers, one example being the choice of Daniel Craig for the lead role (a successful move that faced withering criticism at the time). By contrast, Amazon views James Bond as “content” to drive multiple commerce streams. As reported in The Wall Street Journal in December 2024:
[Barbara] Broccoli was irked in one early meeting when Salke referred to James Bond by a dreaded word: “content.” Using such a sterile term, one friend reflected, was like a “death knell” to Broccoli.
It was also antithetical to Broccoli’s approach, which she has said mixes gut instinct with a healthy amount of risk — with no decision more critical than determining who will play Bond. Daniel Craig, for instance, was a relative unknown when he got the part, starting with 2006’s “Casino Royale.” The decision, she has said, is as serious as choosing one’s spouse.
Former Amazon executives have criticized the company’s approach to development, saying it is overly reliant on calculating risk — based on factors such as an actor’s past performance or what similar titles have done in the marketplace. The idea of casting an unknown in a lead role like Bond is hard to imagine at Amazon, they said.
Fast forward to today: the next James Bond might be chosen based on which actor has the most Instagram followers.
Amazon has an unproven track record as a creative steward of famous entertainment franchises. Both seasons of Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power have received mixed reviews, though fans have noted an improvement in Season 2. But even if Amazon course-corrects and produces a well-received Bond film, the larger concern is whether Bond will continue to evolve as a cinematic icon — or if he’ll be reduced to just another intellectual property fueling a broader Amazon ecosystem of retail tie-ins, branded experiences, and promotional gimmicks.
Amazon’s priorities are fundamentally different from those of the Broccolis, who have fiercely guarded Bond’s legacy for decades. Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson have treated Bond as more than just a blockbuster franchise; they have curated its evolution, ensuring each new iteration reflects both the times and the core DNA of the character. Can that kind of careful stewardship survive in a corporate environment that prioritizes data-driven decision-making over creative instincts?
There’s also the question of audience experience. James Bond films have always been theatrical events — big-screen spectacles meant to be seen in a packed theater. Amazon, on the other hand, is primarily a streaming-first company. While they have released some of their films in theaters, they lack the same commitment to theatrical exhibition that studios like Warner Bros. or Universal have. If Bond’s future skews too heavily toward streaming, will the franchise lose its cultural cachet?
This is a critical moment for Bond. If Amazon respects what has made the franchise endure — smart creative risks, a commitment to theatrical spectacle, and a strong directorial vision — there’s reason to be hopeful. But if Bond is treated as just another Amazon Prime offering, bundled in with next-day shipping and grocery discounts, then the world’s most famous secret agent may find himself licensed to sell, not to thrill.
If Amazon fumbles Bond’s future, it won’t be Spectre or SMERSH that does 007 in — it’ll be the algorithm.
