Barbara Broccoli on Amazon, in Private: ‘These People Are Fucking Idiots’

Erich Schwartzel and Jessica Toonkel, reporting for The Wall Street Journal back on December 19, under the headline “Where Is James Bond? Trapped in an Ugly Stalemate With Amazon” (News+ link):

Nearly three years after Amazon acquired the right to release Bond movies through its $6.5 billion purchase of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studio, the relationship between the family that oversees the franchise and the e-commerce giant has all but collapsed. The decaying partnership has scuttled any near-term hope of a new Bond film — a black eye for Amazon’s ambitions in Hollywood, since at the time of the MGM sale, the Bond franchise represented a significant share of the $6.5 billion the company paid for the studio.

When it comes to Bond’s future, the power lies in the hands of Barbara Broccoli, who inherited the control from her father, Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, and who for 30 years has decided when a new Bond movie can go into production. She has told friends she doesn’t trust algorithm-centric Amazon with a character she helped to mythologize through big-screen storytelling and gut instinct. This fall, she characterized the status of a new movie in dire terms — no script, no story and no new Bond.

To friends, Broccoli has characterized her thoughts on Amazon this way: “These people are fucking idiots.”

One way out of a stalemate, apparently, is to sell. Here’s Broccoli’s public statement today, accompanying the news that Eon Productions has reached a deal that shifts creative control over the franchise to Amazon:

“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 honor 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.”

Broccoli’s brother Michael Wilson was ever so slightly more magnanimous in his statement, saying “Therefore, Barbara and I agree, it is time for our trusted partner, Amazon MGM Studios, to lead James Bond into the future,” but it’s rather striking that Broccoli said not a word about Amazon in her statement, and Wilson’s praise only went so far as the lone adjective trusted. But the lie to Wilson’s attempt at even slight magnanimity is that Eon Productions and Amazon were never partners. It was the old MGM Studios, before Amazon’s acquisition, that was Eon’s partner from the very beginning (1963’s Dr. No).

I meant to post a link to this WSJ story when it broke, and mistakenly thought I had, but it slipped through the cracks around the holidays. But I’ve had a bad feeling about the franchise’s future ever since.

★ Thursday, 20 February 2025