Could Amazon turn this around? When the news broke that the super-mega-globo-corp was laying out over $1 billion to secure final creative control over 007 on the big screen, many fans feared the worst. Including us.
In reality, Amazon has not “bought James Bond”. They already owned 50% of the rights to the character and his screen outings through their purchase of MGM after Harry Saltzman sold his own half of the rights back in the 1970s. The rest of the 50%, along with final creative control, rested with the Brocolli family and their Eon Productions.
The Brocolli family still owns 50% of Bond, and Eon Productions will still make the movies. The deal just gives final creative decision-making to Amazon MGM studios and allows long-time producers Barbara Brocolli and Michael G. Wilson to move into the background.
There is a fear this would open the floodgates and allow all the worst excesses of current year Hollywood to wash over the Bond franchise. This was a flood the stories said Barbara Brocolli had been resisting vociferously.
A memo, said to come directly from huge Bond fan Jeff Bezos himself, did go a little way towards calming some fears. It stipulated that Bond must remain British and male. So could Amazon be about to make another potentially good decision around Bond?
According to some reports of conversations inside Amazon/MGM, they realize the franchise still requires a strong producer with vision to have complete oversight in order to shepherd the long-running franchise forward. The rumors say they may have found their man.
David Heyman is founder of Heydey Films and the producer behind movies like the Paddington series, Wonka, and the Harry Potter franchise.
Not only is he the second-most commercially successful producer of all time (just behind Kevin Feige), but he was well known for standing back-to-back with author J.K. Rowling and fighting off all of the worst ideas Hollywood had around Harry Potter, including making the kids American and transporting Hogwarts to the Pacific North West.
Earlier reports said Amazon had considered him for a Miss Moneypenny spin-off series. Not so, say the rumors. Apparently he is in the frame to become the new guiding hand and total overseer of the James Bond franchise.
Heyman was born in London, is the godson of Diana Dors, and started his journey through film on David Lean’s epic A Passage To India. He has previous Bond-adjacent experience as in 1987 he became vice president of United Artists. He also has extensive independent movie experience.
He is close friends with Alfonso Cuaron, working together on Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban and Gravity. Cuaron has long wanted to make a Bond movie.
This could be a good move by Amazon, if true.