The BJMDDS General Discussion Thread......

[bjmdds]

In a statement to Variety, Broccoli firmly doubled down on the fact that No Time To Die will make its debut at the movies. And her official word also serves as notice for those who would think that the James Bond series could go the way of other spies like Without Remorse’s John Clark or Jack Ryan. The future of 007’s theatrical presence is, according to Barbara Broccoli, the following:

"We are committed to continuing to make James Bond films for the worldwide theatrical audience"------------notice that MGW has nothing whatsoever to do with these films any longer........Broccoli runs the show...the dolt MGW is merely an appendage to HER franchise, now owned by Bezos.

[bjmdds]

An announcement was made through Ian Fleming Publications that this new book, currently untitled at the moment, will be on shelves in May 2022. They picked the obviously perfect day to reveal the news too, as they chose the day that would have been Fleming’s 113th birthday to make this big announcement. As far as the plot for this untitled volume is concerned, current Bond continuation author Anthony Horowitz gave the following details as to what’s in store this time out:
"I am very excited to have started my third Bond novel with the continuing support of the Ian Fleming estate. Forever and a Day looked at Bond’s first assignment. Trigger Mortis was mid-career. The new book begins with the death of Scaramanga and Bond’s return from Jamaica to confront an old enemy."

[Goldeneye]

Interesting news about MGM being sold.
Sorry I haven't been around, trying to keep an older family member at home had us spread thin.
This is the first holiday we might have some time to ourselves. More to say about that later. I'll check massages when I can. Sorry for being absent.
BTW just ran some maintenance for the sites.

[dirtybenny]

"We are committed to continuing to make James Bond films for the worldwide theatrical audience"------------notice that MGW has nothing whatsoever to do with these films any longer...

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, of course Babz is committed to continuing to keep Bond in cinemas, he's the only thing keeping Babz in cinemas.

MGW is pushing 80 and with all due respect to him, looks like he's going on 106, so I'm not surprised he's taken a smaller role these days.

[Kristatos]

MGW is pushing 80 and with all due respect to him, looks like he's going on 106, so I'm not surprised he's taken a smaller role these days.

Plus, doesn't he have Alzheimer's or something?

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[Omega]

MGW is pushing 80 and with all due respect to him, looks like he's going on 106, so I'm not surprised he's taken a smaller role these days.

Plus, doesn't he have Alzheimer's or something?

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I hadn’t heard that but I don’t keep up with them anymore.

He was hoping to see his sons take over the franchise instead he’s watched his sister stall the franchise out and drag out a three film contract in to the first three decades(2006-2021) of the 21sr century, making only 5 films in that time


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[Omega]

"We are committed to continuing to make James Bond films for the worldwide theatrical audience"------------notice that MGW has nothing whatsoever to do with these films any longer...

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, of course Babz is committed to continuing to keep Bond in cinemas, he's the only thing keeping Babz in cinemas.

MGW is pushing 80 and with all due respect to him, looks like he's going on 106, so I'm not surprised he's taken a smaller role these days.

Good point as always DB, Babs at this point is not just behind the times with a film she should have gotten out in theaters long before 2020, she’s now partners with one of the biggest companies in the world who over paid for a bankrupt studio so they could farm it for streaming content.
She’s not exactly on the high ground going forward. The commitments have been made for NTTD, far as partnerships, backers, distributors , ad placement probably streaming rights too. Going forward she’s not going to have the freedom she had.

I keep beating this dead horse but I think it’s a valid point, McClory had enough with just TB to try for a spin off series, as unlikeable as he was he had the rights to do so if not for the Broccoli‘s lying under oath and the corrupt court systems siding with the studios paying out for lawyers and other fees McClory couldn’t afford to. It even could be argued the script for Dr No borrowed heavily from Thunderball, giving McClory a better claim. It is what it is the studio system had a vested interest in keeping down an upstart and it worked.
Everything depends on how ambitious Amazon is with their new studio. Amazon has enough might to pull off a court victory arguing their majority shares of James Bond book rights (Cr TB and half of the rest of Fleming’s books) give them the right to make whatever they want with out babs. Babs may find herself the proud owners of the wrong half of a horse.
Again it depends on Amazon and how hard they want to play ball. Babs got away with a lot because the studios were desperate for the bond paydays, Sony included. Cubby had to fight with studio partners and Financial backers, his solution was keep the movies coming regularly. Babs always had the position of having a in demand commodity only she had the rights to make, she’s now a slow producer of production company that hasn’t operated with any kind of urgency or plan for the franchise in decades, nobody expects her to have a new bond named by November or be ready for a 2022 anniversary movie, she should be ready to go in both of these seeing as she had years to prepare. My gut feeling is if she drags her feet Amazon might sue her for breach of contract. I’m sure she has a pretty good contract in her favor.

Still I expect Babs will get her way like she always has because it’s easier to get to the end goal without having to fight her. But she’s not JK Rowling, she can and will screw up. she already has by not being ready with a new film for 2017, or being rid of Craig after SF.



Side point on corruption, Bond should be public domain by now, it’s not, neither are a lot of other profitable book franchises which are grandfathered in for copyright protection long after they should be in the public domain. Bond is public domain in few parts of the world but if they made a bond movie or series it’d never be allowed to be sold in much of the world.






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[Kristatos]

Side point on corruption, Bond should be public domain by now, it’s not, neither are a lot of other profitable book franchises which are grandfathered in for copyright protection long after they should be in the public domain. Bond is public domain in few parts of the world but if they made a bond movie or series it’d never be allowed to be sold in much of the world.

Yes, they're public domain in Canada, and ISTR there were some low-budget Canadian movie adaptations made, but they're only allowed to be shown in the land of the maple. Eh eh seven?

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[Kristatos]

Some of you may have seen the trailer for Edgar Wright's new horror movie Last Night In Soho, with its giant Thunderball poster. What I only just found out today is that it also features a small role for Margaret Nolan, filmed shortly before her death. Can we please let Wright direct an actual Bond film once *he's* gone for good?

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[dirtybenny]

Can we please let Wright direct an actual Bond film once *he's* gone for good?

No Kris, anyone with even a hint of reverence for the classic Bond will not be tolerated!

[bjmdds]

WSJ: Broccoli and Wilson are so critical to MGM’s value that they were told of the pending sale days before it closed, according to a person familiar with the negotiations. Amazon executive Mike Hopkins, who handled negotiations with MGM, reached out to the producers as well to assure their property would be in good hands. Jen Salke, the Amazon executive who oversees original content, already had a relationship with Ms. Broccoli, which will also ease the transition.

[Kristatos]

Can we please let Wright direct an actual Bond film once *he's* gone for good?

No Kris, anyone with even a hint of reverence for the classic Bond will not be tolerated!

Sad, but true.

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[James]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/31/opin ... bezos.html

I Wrote James Bond Movies. The Amazon-MGM Deal Gives Me Chills.

By John Logan

Mr. Logan, a three-time Oscar nominee for screenplays, was a co-writer on the James Bond movies “Skyfall” and “Spectre.”

So, Amazon now owns 50 percent of 007. With the acquisition of MGM and its movie catalog, the online retail giant bought into the James Bond franchise. When I heard this news, a chill went through me. Having worked as a writer on “Skyfall” and “Spectre,” I know that Bond isn’t just another franchise, not a Marvel or a DC; it is a family business that has been carefully nurtured and shepherded through the changing times by the Broccoli/Wilson family. Work sessions on “Skyfall” and “Spectre” were like hearty discussions around the dinner table, with Barbara Broccoli and her half brother Michael Wilson letting all the unruly children talk. Every crazy aunt or eccentric uncle was given a voice. We discussed and debated and came to a resolution, as families must, with no outside voices in the room. When you work on Bond movies, you’re not just an employee. You’re part of that family.

The reason we’re still watching Bond movies after more than 50 years is that the family has done an extraordinary job of protecting the character through the thickets of moviemaking and changing public tastes. Corporate partners come and go, but James Bond endures. He endures precisely because he is being protected by people who love him.

The current deal with Amazon gives Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson, who own 50 percent of the Bond empire, ironclad assurances of continued artistic control. But will this always be the case? What happens if a bruising corporation like Amazon begins to demand a voice in the process? What happens to the comradeship and quality control if there’s an Amazonian overlord with analytics parsing every decision? What happens when a focus group reports they don’t like Bond drinking martinis? Or killing quite so many people? And that English accent’s a bit alienating, so could we have more Americans in the story for marketability?

If you think I’m exaggerating, consider some internal polling data that decreed that the movie adaptation of “Sweeney Todd” — for which I wrote the screenplay — would be much more popular without all those annoying songs.

From my experience, here’s what happens to movies when such concerns start invading the creative process: Everything gets watered down to the most anodyne and easily consumable version of itself. The movie becomes an inoffensive shadow of a thing, not the thing itself. There are no more rough edges or flights of cinematic madness. The fire and passion are gradually drained away as original ideas and voices are subsumed by commercial concerns, corporate oversight and polling data. I wonder whether such an outré studio movie as “Vertigo” would have survived if such pressures existed then. Not to mention radical films like “Citizen Kane,” “The Red Shoes,” “Cabin in the Sky” and “Bonnie and Clyde.”

Why worry about Amazon? It’s not that it’s a bad-faith company. It’s that it’s a global technology company with a more than $1.6 trillion market capitalization that produces on a mass scale and is obsessed with the “customer experience.” It’s not necessarily a champion or guardian of artistic creativity or original entertainment. In the context of the larger company, Amazon Prime Video is not chiefly about artists. It’s about attracting and retaining customers. And when bigger companies start having a say in iconic characters or franchises, the companies tend to want more, not better, and the quality differential can vary wildly, project to project. (See: the rapidly expanding “Star Wars” franchise at Disney and the DC Comics franchises of Superman, Batman and others at Warner Bros.)

As a screenwriter, I’ve had the opportunity to work on several big studio movies. Those that emerge with meaning, with art and uniqueness intact, are always those that are protected from undue corporate influence — those occasions when the moviemakers can work in a protected environment.

In my case, films like “Gladiator,” “The Aviator,” “Sweeney Todd,” “Rango” and “Hugo” were all made from passion and without ever worrying about synergy or spinoffs or cross-platform marketing. Artistic control and stewardship are especially vital to big movies, where the voices are many and the stakes huge.

When we were making “Gladiator,” it took a giant like the director Ridley Scott to fend off the countless naysayers who predicted disaster would befall our “sword-and-sandal epic.” They questioned everything, especially the ending: Isn’t it a bummer? How can we have a sequel if you kill the hero? And is there any way we could avoid an R rating? But Ridley believed in the story we were telling and how we were telling it, so he resolutely kept the commercial concerns and noisy corporate voices outside the door.

So too Martin Scorsese with our Howard Hughes biopic, “The Aviator.” A subject like Mr. Hughes naturally invites controversy and high emotion. The push from outside the creative circle was for the lurid and sensational, but Marty stared down every challenge that threatened our more humane version of the story. He sometimes said, “Yes, that would make an interesting Howard Hughes movie, but it’s not our Howard Hughes movie.” Significantly, in the case of both “Gladiator” and “The Aviator,” we were working with brave producers who defended our choices. They cared more about the art than about the bottom line.

When you’re making a movie, you need a champion to fight battles like these. Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson are the champions of James Bond. They keep the corporate and commercial pressures outside the door. Nor are they motivated by them. That’s why we don’t have a mammoth Bond Cinematic Universe, with endless anemic variations of 007 sprouting up on TV or streaming or in spinoff movies. The Bond movies are truly the most bespoke and handmade films I’ve ever worked on. That’s why they are original, thorny, eccentric and special. They were never created with lawyers and accountants and e-commerce mass marketing pollsters hovering in the background.

This is also why they can afford to be daring. Here’s an example from “Skyfall” — my favorite day working on the movie, in fact.

Sam Mendes, the director, and I marched into Barbara and Michael’s office, sat at the family table and pitched the first scene between Bond and the villain, Raoul Silva. Now, the moment 007 first encounters his archnemesis is often the iconic moment in a Bond movie, the scene around which you build a lot of the narrative and cinematic rhythms. (Think about Bond first meeting Dr. No or Goldfinger or Blofeld, all classic scenes in the franchise.) Well, Sam and I boldly announced we wanted to do this pivotal scene as a homoerotic seduction. Barbara and Michael didn’t need to poll a focus group. They didn’t need to vet this radical idea with any studio or corporation — they loved it instantly. They knew it was fresh and new, provocative in a way that keeps the franchise contemporary. They weren’t afraid of controversy. In my experience, not many big movies can work with such freedom and risky joy. But with the Broccoli/Wilson family at the helm, Bond is allowed to provoke, grow and be idiosyncratic. Long may that continue.

James Bond has survived the Cold War, Goldfinger, Jaws, disco and Ernst Stavro Blofeld, several times. And I can only hope that the powers that be at Amazon recognize the uniqueness of what they just acquired and allow and encourage this special family business to continue unobstructed.

Bond’s not “content,” and he’s not a mere commodity. He has been a part of our lives for decades now. From Sean Connery to George Lazenby to Roger Moore to Timothy Dalton to Pierce Brosnan to Daniel Craig, we all grew up with our version of 007, so we care deeply about him.

Please let 007 drink his martinis in peace. Don’t shake him, don’t stir him.

[Kristatos]

Bond’s not “content,” and he’s not a mere commodity. He has been a part of our lives for decades now. From Sean Connery to George Lazenby to Roger Moore to Timothy Dalton to Pierce Brosnan, we all grew up with our version of 007, so we care deeply about him.

Fixed that for you

Seriously, though, I have mixed feelings about this article. We all have our criticisms of the Broccowilsons, but that doesn't make Logan wrong about what a soulless corporation like Amazon might do to Bond.

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[Kristatos]

Meanwhile:

https://twitter.com/KevinLehane/status/ ... 63688?s=19

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[dirtybenny]

Wow, so much to unpack from that baggage laden article up there, rest assured a rant on it will be forthcoming. I'm with Kris, Amazon taking over is a double edged sword and as I've said many times before ejecting Babz and Co. from the equation will not necessarily make for better films, but I'll save that discussion for the rant.

That article feels a bit like EON going in to damage control. Why is a screen writer popping out of the ether to rail against corporate influence in Bond films all of a sudden? Has Bezos contacted Babz to expand the Bondian universe? This may be Babz attempt at keeping Bond "small" so she can keep her half decade work schedule.

[Omega]

Most telling to me is Logan admits MGM had little to no say about the content or quality of the movie eon produced even with a 50% stake in the movies. Broccoli family have used the true protector of the bond image for decades to excuse themselves from any attempt of other people having input or control. Fanboys usually buy it and fight any one who dares disagree with the family. Normally this line was about rival bond franchises, never say never again and the like.

Logan is guilty of some awful crimes against bond, he may not be wrong about big corporation messing up a franchise still we’ve seen one person mess up food franchises because of their control many times being supported by big corporations Logan so despises. Disney allowed Kathleen Kennedy to screw up Star Wars they saw the warning signs before last Jedi. Warner Bros. allowed Zack Snyder to continue his vision for way too long. Amazon a as allowed Michael B Jordan to screw up Tom Clancys without remorse. Jack Ryan I’m not sure about the Partial season I had seen had them change in admiral Greer too much. Warner Bros. help JK Rowling screwup fantastic beasts.
But then we get things like Mandalorian Wandavision and a fairly decent marvel universe.

Amazon owns more bond rights than Babs. It does seem Babs recognizes she might have to come to the negotiating table without the clout she’s used to having. Fanboy might have to realize their unquestioning support may be misplaced, in Babs adult life she’s made very bad calls about bond and slowed the series down to a half a decade lead time with one actor who hates the roles ego being given more input than her partners had.

For Babs bond is a payday unlike any other. She front loads profits through EON upfront, out of each budget family and friends make $30-40 million as producers insulating her from having to make successful films to earn any real money. If she’s smart she’ll agree to play along with Amazon for them giving her other avenues to make something she actually cares about with little to bo risk to herself. Doesn’t have to be something new, just something Amazon can offer.
If she thinks the Logan/fanboy army will save her she’s wrong, simply because everything she’s overcome so far has been with a studio partner fighting for her not against her. She’s never had the smear job she put Brosnan and others through done to her, she’s never had the media she bribes with ad content revenue be paid to tear her down. Her family never paid out of pocket to fight the legal battles they eon, it was studio lawyers working the system for them.

I’d be ironic for Amazon to start tearing Babs down as a misguided trust fund baby who ruined a franchise with NTTD as their proof. “Spoiled child ran a franchise to the ground, thank god somebody with common sense stepped in to save it. “

I don’t expect anything to happen to her, Logan is not necessarily wrong however he’s trying to give the broccoli family far too much credit and excuse them from being held accountable for anything they did wrong including hiring Logan.

If Logan acted with her blessing it shows more fear than I thought her capable of.
Logan doing this unofficially officially would be similar to how she used others close to the production company to spam forums and media when CR and Craig was the problem. So maybe that’s the case here.



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[bjmdds]

The new Harry Potter store opened today in NYC and people had to be turned away. If any UK posters here ever visit NYC in the future, you can get a taste of it.

[bjmdds]

No Time To Die’s final running time shakes out to be 162 minutes; which officially beats Spectre’s previous record of 148 minutes.

[Kristatos]

No Time To Die’s final running time shakes out to be 162 minutes; which officially beats Spectre’s previous record of 148 minutes.

One thing I liked about Godzilla vs Kong is that it managed to keep the running time comfortably under 2 hours. When asked if there was a 3-hour director's cut of the film, Adam Wingard replied that it was exactly as long as it needed to be. If only other directors of blockbuster movies showed such restraint.

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