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James Bond 007 | OT | The name's Bond, James Bond

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Loxley

Member
[NYT] Five Studios’ Mission: Winning the Distribution Rights to James Bond

LOS ANGELES — A five-studio tug of war has broken out over James Bond.

For more than a decade, starting with “Casino Royale” in 2006, the superspy series has been based at Sony Pictures Entertainment. It has been a period of stability and prosperity for 007, as global ticket sales reached new heights. The four Bond films that Sony has released collected $3.5 billion at the worldwide box office, after adjusting for inflation.

But Sony’s contract to market and distribute the films expired in 2015 with “Spectre.” So the two companies that control the franchise but do not distribute their own films — Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and the family-run Eon Productions — have started attending dog and pony shows put on by studios that want the rights, according to five people briefed on the sessions, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

On Tuesday, for instance, leaders at Sony spent an hour making their case. Kazuo Hirai, the chief executive, helped give the pitch, which emphasized the studio’s deep knowledge of Bond and its ideas for expanding the franchise’s reach. In true Hollywood fashion, Sony gave its presentation inside a sound stage on a recreated set from “Dr. No,” which was released in the United States in 1963 by United Artists and laid the foundation for the entire series.

Oh what I would give to see that pitch by Kaz XD So the five studios in contention are Sony, Warner Bros, 20th Century Fox, Universal, and the much smaller, younger production studio Annapurna.

It's a really interesting article, and talks about what each studio may have to gain by getting the rights - even if the films themselves aren't very profitable for the distributor.

Why, then, do studios want to distribute Bond so badly? Bragging rights, mostly. Having a Bond movie on the schedule guarantees at least one hit in a business where there is almost no sure thing.

Bond is gargantuan: The 25 movies have taken in nearly $6 billion at the North American box office, after adjusting for inflation, according to Box Office Mojo. The series has generated billions more in overseas ticket sales, home entertainment revenue, television reruns, marketing partnerships (Omega watches, Aston Martin cars, Gillette razors) and video games.
 

Pachimari

Member
Sad news happened today, as is being talked about in this thread, Sir Roger Moore had died. And if anyone of this community thread should have missed it, Chris Cornell of Casino Royale fame died last week. What a sad week. RIP and my thoughts goes out to the families and friends. =(

DAg42a6XYAAdC3t.jpg
 
Oh, that's too bad. I know he's not everyone's favorite Bond, but he was my first Bond. And everything I've heard about him made him out to be a really decent guy in real life.
 

Penguin

Member
Yeah, it's weird I mean for a franchise as old as that always counted our lucky stars that all the Bonds have survived for this long.

Thought with time had mentally prepared myself for the first death, but man this hurts to lose such a great guy.
 
Just watched The World is Not Enough for the first time in at least 10 years. I had stopped right before it when marathoning through the collection a year or so ago. Holy crap that is a great one. Obviously Goldeneye is great but seeing this really helped my image of Brosnan.
 
I liked it. But I also thought that Die Another Day was pretty good...
Up untill the exact moment Halle Berry appeared on the screen. It's weird how the movie turned just that fast.
 
...is it though?

I had it at number 20 because like I said I basically had little recollection of it (but assumed it HAD to be better than Die Another Day and Octopussy at least). But after seeing it I moved it up to spot 10.

Great opening sequence leading into a top 10 Bond song. Q's send off. Elektra is one of the better villains. Pierce really does a solid job. The story isnt too ridiculous and easy to follow. We see Robbie Coltrane return.

Obviously Denise Richards kind of sucks but hey she ain't bad looking and I expected worse from what I had read prior.

I liked it. But I also thought that Die Another Day was pretty good...
Up untill the exact moment Halle Berry appeared on the screen. It's weird how the movie turned just that fast.

It really is pretty good up to that point. As a kid I liked some of the stuff that followed but I'm afraid to watch it again.
 

Grizzlyjin

Supersonic, idiotic, disconnecting, not respecting, who would really ever wanna go and top that
I liked the opening scene for The World is Not Enough. The rest...not so much. I take that back, Elektra King is fun but the focus shifts way too hard towards Renard near the end.
 
I also watched For Your Eyes Only for Roger last week. Pretty good but it's a bit too long and man Bibi was a mistake. I love the small group heists at the end of Bond movies though (like OHMSS).
 
Me too. The Cortina d'Ampezzo part actually made me kinda sad because I used to go skiing in Dolomites with my family almost every year as a kid, but I haven't in a good few years.

Oh really?? I love the Dolomites. I studied abroad in Bolzano and got to snowboard in them quite a few times early on with university events.
 

WolfeTone

Member
I'd rather they take their time with Bond 25 if it means we get something significantly better than Spectre.

I'd rather they ditched all the plot elements from that movie, mostly Blofeld. Give us a solid Bond story with no baggage from the previous films.

Maybe Craig could be the first Bond actor to go out on a high or at least on a decent film since Casino Royale is unlikely to be topped.
 

Blader

Member
I feel like there is an interesting dynamic to mine in Blofeld being Bond's prisoner -- and an actual prisoner, no more of this I-planned-to-be-locked-up mastermind shtick -- and Bond needing to, say, protect Blofeld from potential assassins because he has valuable intel...on something. I'm not sure I really trust the writers on this franchise to squeeze a good plot out of that though.
 
Waltz is a great actor, but this Blofeld is a terribly written character and detracted from the movie.

It would be hard to walk some of that back yeah. For me I actually liked him on screen except when they got into all the family ties.

I feel like there is an interesting dynamic to mine in Blofeld being Bond's prisoner -- and an actual prisoner, no more of this I-planned-to-be-locked-up mastermind shtick -- and Bond needing to, say, protect Blofeld from potential assassins because he has valuable intel...on something. I'm not sure I really trust the writers on this franchise to squeeze a good plot out of that though.

OK I'm intrigued by this. I can't tell if Purvis and Wade are the problem or if the third writer is the problem in some of the lesser scripts.
 

xandaca

Member
But Waltz is so good. Just abandon all the family stuff and have the pre credit scene be him escaping.

Waltz is a good actor, but can become very hammy when not given specific parameters for his character. Oberhauser/Blofeld was so ill-defined in that respect that Waltz just came across as smarmy, lacking any credible threat or intelligence. If they're going to continue the serialisation route, and I sort of hope they don't but feel they need to just to remedy the mess they left last time, I hope they reverse the last movie's 'twist' and say Oberhauser was hired to stand-in for the real Blofeld and use his familial knowledge of Bond to bring down the organisation's chief opponent. At least then the 'Bond's arch-nemesis is his adopted brother!' rubbish is somewhat alleviated, even if it doesn't completely hold water. Taking the time to develop the script and hopefully come up with a coherent, un-gimmicky story would only be a good thing, though. Fingers crossed they don't lazily kill off Madeline Swann either to echo Tracy/OHMSS.

I feel like there is an interesting dynamic to mine in Blofeld being Bond's prisoner -- and an actual prisoner, no more of this I-planned-to-be-locked-up mastermind shtick -- and Bond needing to, say, protect Blofeld from potential assassins because he has valuable intel...on something. I'm not sure I really trust the writers on this franchise to squeeze a good plot out of that though.

Interesting idea. Three-ten To Yuma plus Bond? I can see that working. Would also work with my above idea if Bond strikes a deal with Oberhauser to get him to safety in exchange for the location and activities of the real Blofeld.
 

SpaceWolf

Banned
Still no word on what's going on with the Bond distribution rights? Last we heard they were going up for auction after they elapsed with Sony back in April.

The franchise seems to have gone into total limbo.
 
I feel like there is an interesting dynamic to mine in Blofeld being Bond's prisoner -- and an actual prisoner, no more of this I-planned-to-be-locked-up mastermind shtick -- and Bond needing to, say, protect Blofeld from potential assassins because he has valuable intel...on something. I'm not sure I really trust the writers on this franchise to squeeze a good plot out of that though.
This is a really good plot. Bond will have to protect Blofeld not only from assassins but also MI-6 as well, which will make Bond stand directly against M.
 

DOWN

Banned
Still no word on what's going on with the Bond distribution rights? Last we heard they were going up for auction after they elapsed with Sony back in April.

The franchise seems to have gone into total limbo.
I'm sure somebody is working on it. There's people at EON who's only job is to make these bond films happen.
 

Pachimari

Member
Come to think of it, are there any guidelines for which cities the production chooses for the Bond movies? Will it have to be set in a place that pays for some of the filming? Because I wonder why they've never been filming in any of the Philippines' 7000+ exotic beaches.
 

DOWN

Banned
Come to think of it, are there any guidelines for which cities the production chooses for the Bond movies? Will it have to be set in a place that pays for some of the filming? Because I wonder why they've never been filming in any of the Philippines' 7000+ exotic beaches.
Why single out the Philippines? There's a million beaches around the world theyve never touched

I'd assume much of their production is indeed brought on by what locations will give them the biggest incentives. Skyfall set a record for product placement, after all. The Bond producers like their free money.
 

Pachimari

Member
Why single out the Philippines? There's a million beaches around the world theyve never touched.
Because I am half Filipino. There's some bias there, and I would love to see my country represented in a franchise that I love so dearly. I was literally up in arms when Bourne visited Manila lol.
 
Never forget that in the run-up to Die Another Day's release they had a script in production and were searching for a director for a spin-off starring Jynx, then that movie severely damaged the franchise and so we got a reboot instead, thank goodness.
 

Boem

Member
Makes sense financially. Kinda surprising we never got a spinoff movie before. Not that interested in it myself since the giant shared universe things start feeling like homework for me pretty soon, but eh. Something fun could come out of it I suppose.
 
It's certainly doable. They will probably just spin off Felix and introduce a female agent who will get a spin off as well.

It's not that exciting of an idea. You just have multiple spy franchises under the Bond banner instead of just one.

They already have one they can use
Naomie-5.jpg


But I think it's an awful idea when they can't even maintain the quality of ONE Bond movie with the main character. Spectre was garbage
 

Blader

Member
Interesting idea. Three-ten To Yuma plus Bond? I can see that working. Would also work with my above idea if Bond strikes a deal with Oberhauser to get him to safety in exchange for the location and activities of the real Blofeld.

Huh. I hadn't thought of that, but now that you mention it, yep, basically the Bond equivalent of 3:10 to Yuma, haha.
 
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