Before Amazon even thinks about casting the next James Bond (or planning the inevitable myriad spinoffs it’s already tried to get off the ground), with the creative exit of Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson last month the studio needs to find producers willing to take on the next chapter of the legendary spy-fi franchise. And now, it might be close.
Variety reports that Amazon and MGM Studios are in close talks to bring aboard both Amy Pascal and David Heyman to shepherd its new creative ownership of the Bond franchise. Pascal—the former head of Sony Pictures best known among nerd circles for production of the Spider-Man movies, a role she continued over the course of the Tom-Holland-led trilogy with Marvel Studios, and will continue with the upcoming Spider-Man 4—has history with 007, having been a key player in Sony’s distribution of several Bond films in the Daniel Craig era. Heyman, meanwhile, guided the production of the Harry Potter films and their spinoffs at Warner Bros., so is no stranger to the demands of producing a major franchise.
Whether or not Amazon ultimately taps Pascal and Heyman, the studio is going to need to find people who are not just willing to head up a huge series like Bond, but ones willing to lean in the direction Amazon wants to take with the franchise. After all, part of the reason the studio has made this deal with Broccoli and Wilson to get them out of the franchise is that the past few years have been spent with less work on Bond movies, and more with behind-the-scenes squabbles between the fiercely protective producers and Amazon’s desires to spin out its investment beyond just films and into TV and other venues.
A report by The Hollywood Reporter earlier this month alleged that recent apparent comments by Broccoli that Amazon execs were “fucking idiots” is what ultimately pushed the company to begin working on a deal to get her and Wilson away from the franchise, after years of stalling over both finding Daniel Craig’s replacement and spinoffs like a floated Ms. Moneypenny series.
Whoever becomes the next proverbial M of the franchise then, isn’t going to just have to deal with managing the next chapter of Bond’s story, but the whims of an executive branch who want much more exploitation of the series than we’ve seen for a long while. A bit Bond-ian in and of itself, really.
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