At least one former James Bond star has expressed dismay over Amazon MGM taking complete control of the famed spy franchise, fearing it could lead to a total loss of the character’s specifically British identity, similar to Superman or Captain America losing their American particularity in recent decades.
Speaking with The Daily Telegraph, actor Timothy Dalton, who played James Bond in The Living Daylights and License to Kill, called the Amazon acquisition “sad.”
“It is one of the few wonderful stories we’ve got in film that is British. The leading character is British. We can call it our own,” the actor said.
Amazon took creative control of the James Bond franchise last week after striking a deal with Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson, who both inherited the intellectual property from their father Albert “Cubby” Broccoli. Per NBC News:
The James Bond films have long been produced by Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, who inherited the control from their father Albert “Cubby” Broccoli. Wilson and Broccoli will now give creative control to MGM Studios, which Amazon acquired for $8.45 billion in 2021.
Amazon gained distribution rights to the Bond franchise after the MGM acquisition, but not creative control.
As part of the deal, Amazon’s MGM Studios, Wilson and Broccoli formed a new joint venture to house the Bond intellectual property rights, and they will remain co-owners of the franchise.
Dalton said Barbara Broccoli had a special touch for the Bond franchise and praised her ability to keep it from becoming standard “content.”
“Barbara is one of the best women in the whole world. I think she’s fantastic. Around a Bond movie, everyone’s got an opinion. That tends to make something less special, but if you keep it to people who know what they’re doing and know what they want, then it will sharpen up and be good. Barbara had that,” Dalton said.
“I have no idea what Amazon would do with it, and I have no idea what the relationship of Amazon to the Broccolis will be. But it is a damn fine series of movies. I was watching it when I was young, we all were. It’s been part of our lives, so anything that threatens it is kind of sad,” he added.
Dalton expressed hope that Amazon MGM at least cast a British actor to play 007 because “that’s where it was born, that’s what the stories are.”
“Everyone who’s got anything to do with it will be working very hard to make it a hit. Amazon are quite capable of making it a hit,” he concluded.
As Breitbart News reported in December, the James Bond franchise was placed on hold due to disagreements between Amazon and Barbara Broccoli; the former believing that the franchise should include Marvel-style spinoffs, an idea that Broccoli found so absurd that she reportedly called the studio heads “fucking idiots.” She also expressed doubts that Amazon, which owns MGM, should be the studio to carry on the franchise, believing that they had been holding it “hostage.”
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