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Amazon Studios is in a tight race with Disney to consolidate as many intellectual properties as possible and give them feminist makeovers. These days it’s as easy to find IP based shows with male protagonists on Amazon’s pet attempt to be Netflix as products that aren’t Chinese knockoffs on its shopping site.
Leading the charge is Jennifer Salke, Amazon’s version of Kathleen Kennedy whose motto is the same one as Kennedy’s infamous one, but the problem is Amazon has the rights to one key male-centric property.
In a report from The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), longtime Bond producer Barbara Broccoli and Amazon — which bought MGM studios in 2021 — are in an “ugly stalemate” over decisions about the future of the franchise. These include decisions on whether Bond should be turned into a streaming series, or more philosophical ones, like whether the titular character is even a hero.
“I have to be honest, I don’t think James Bond is a hero,” one Amazon executive said during a recent meeting about upcoming Bond content, the outlet reported. That quote seemed to point to Broccoli’s fear that Amazon does not understand the very character that she has dedicated her career to.
Of course not. If you’re a woke, why would you think a white very heterosexual male defending a colonialist entity using violence against justice-involved persons is a hero?
Some of the books solved that by replacing Bond with a disabled black gay agent.
“I want to bring a feminist perspective to the canon,” Sherwood pitched, to “create a space for all of us to be heroes.” The technical term for that is a “Mary Sue” character. But do female readers of the Bond novels really want to be superspies, gunning down villains and surviving torture?
Ready or not, Sherwood debuted the new zeroes who prioritize “inclusivity, female heroes, and heroes of colour” including a black gay disabled 004 and a Pakistani Muslim 009.
Sid Bashir, the Muslim replacement for James Bond, remembers standing by his mother’s side at an Islamic cultural fair under a banner reading, “Don’t Panic, I’m Islamic.” Another scene quotes the Koran and has Bashir saying, “May Allah bless your family.”
“I was born poor, black and gay, I know about hard times,” 004 who, it is important to note, is black and gay says.
Amazon would love to do this but there’s a minor legal matter standing in its way: it can’t.
Before the purchase closed, Amazon executives brainstormed among themselves how Bond could be plugged into their machine. Would Amazon produce a James Bond TV show for its Prime Video service? What about a Moneypenny spinoff? Or a TV spinoff centered on a female 007?
Broccoli’s response to such enthusiasm, one friend said, is often the same: Did you read the contract?
So it’s a problem for Amazon which believes that the future of 007 ought to be a female agent taking on Elon Musk.
Some say a person of color in Bond’s tuxedo would better reflect the U.K.’s changing demography, and even nod to its ugly history of colonization. Take it a step further, others say, and cast a woman or a gay man.
Broccoli has told friends that she doesn’t have any qualms with casting a nonwhite or gay actor, but does believe Bond should always be played by a man, and should always be played by a Brit.
Villains have also presented a creative challenge, since Bond has already dispatched so many.
In a world where the 1% have more power than ever, some have suggested, a stateless billionaire autocrat might seem the obvious choice for a Bond bad guy.
Broccoli’s response to such suggestions: Been there, done that. Recent villains include a wealthy banker to terrorist groups who weeps blood out of one eye (“Casino Royale,” 2006); a wealthy oil heiress (“The World Is Not Enough,” 1999); and a wealthy tycoon whose global media empire includes a satellite network (“Tomorrow Never Dies,” 1997). That last one has come up more recently when she is offered inspiration from the real world.
“Elon Musk?” she said to one friend. “I did that back in 1997.’”
So what’s Amazon gonna do? It could just wait around.
Christopher Tolkien would never have signed off on the woke nonsense that is Amazon’s Rings of Power, but Simon Tolkien did. After a lifetime of giving studios headaches, Gene Roddenberry is dead and Rod Roddenberry is perfectly happy to have Stacey Abrams as president of the universe. If Amazon waits around, it’ll assume that some Broccoli heir will be happy to play the Simon Tolkien or Rod Roddenberry role and then Amazon can replace Bond with a disabled lesbian Muslim woman.
Amazon Studios under Salke, like Disney with Kathleen Kennedy, puts ideology ahead of profits every time.
The inaugural Prime Video Presents: Trailblazers took place in London, an event celebrating the women of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios. Hosted by Amazon MGM Studios Jennifer Salke, head Jennifer Salke and Prime Video International VP Kelly Day…
“Women are at the core of our business – from our incredible actors, our inventive producers and our executive teams. We also know that women around the world love to be moved by incredible storytelling and we look forward to bringing them all a compelling slate featuring some of the most talented women working both in front and behind the camera. We’ve had a mission to be a destination for women all around the world, and we’re starting to see progress with that,” said Jennifer Salke, head of Amazon MGM Studios.
Sorry, no room for James Bond here.
Quote: “I have to be honest, I don’t think James Bond is a hero,”
What does she consider heroic? Saving the world time after time? Apparently not.
Bond is a winning formula. It’s practically a guaranteed success. So why does she want to change the franchise? To make it better or destroy it? Look what happened with Disney. Look what happened with Star Wars. Once locks for success, now a hit or miss with all too many expensive misses. Amazon has gone this route with J. R. R. Tolkien’s work and failed. Do they follow the apologists of Socialism? Next time it’ll work.
It’s a deliberate attempt to destroy Western culture.
Bingo. Just another manifestation of deep hatred for all things western, and throw in the Y chromosome for good measure.
The management is not interested in profit or entertaining the audience; they are trying to get ahead professionally under a board of directors that is dominated by Black Rock and friends. And those directors prioritize propaganda against western civilization.
‘A wealthy banker to terrorist groups who weeps blood out of one eye.’ Mads mikkelsen. A good actor. Handsome, too.
Sounds like George Soros.
The original books were great. I had a complete collection and read them in French class in school back in the 1960s 🙂
I think those books were better than the movies, although the movies were pretty good.
I had “The Lord of the Rings” or whatever and gave it to my brother. He loved it. I was more into sci-fi and Joseph Conrad than fantasy. And Orwell’s essays.
I was a nerdy kid even though I was good looking and athletic. I liked to read. I read “The Epic of Gilgamesh” when I was only eighteen. I felt really bad when Enkidu died.
Yeah, we had a Lord of the Rings period. Wonderful days.
I noticed “in,” not for, French class. I read one for a college course, International Politics. The instructor said it was to understand the Soviet hard-soft policy changes. Pavlovian psychology was shown to make conditioned dogs “insane” and was used to train the West to uncertainty. He became the head of the history department at another university.
Pavlov’s dogs. I’m not sure how hard it is to make a dog salivate at dinner time, they seem to slobber all the time. And they’ll lick you if you aren’t quick enough to dodge. An interesting experiment, though.
Yeah. I think I read about Pavlov’s experiments one period of my life where I went through the encyclopaedia reading about animal experiments and such. If I remember right, Pavlov’s experiments were legitimate science (I haven’t checked lately whether that is correct).
Anyway, I saw in other news that they really are trying to turn the Bond series into Woke Comic books. Crazy.
The Broccoli directors (whoever they are) did some other good movies that I liked even better than Bond, such as “Funeral in Berlin”, with Michael Caine as Harry Palmer.
Michael Cain. I like that guy
Did you see the Sylvester Stallone version of “Get Carter” he did? It’s a great movie. He played the bad guy in that version instead of the lead man and it’s great.
I remember back in the 80s he was in every other movie made.
I had a couple DVDs of 2 versions of “Get Carter”. If I remember right, that was a good movie that wasn’t very well known.
As far as I’m concerned, James Bond died several years ago and is buried in the same grave with Sean Connery! Batman was Micheal Keaton! Superman was Christopher Reeves! All the others are just imposters “playing” the roles! There were THREE Star War Movies! There were TWO Ghostbuster flicks! Hey, I’m old and I cherish originality and classics! Speaking of classics, I’ll soon be watching one of my favorite movies “It Happened on 5th Avenue”! If I could LIVE in a movie it would be that one – in the LEAD of course!
Hope everyone has a great Sunday with their families and a very Merry Christmas!
You too, big guy.
For me, Keaton was never “Batman”, he was still Beetlejuice. I saw Batman a short time after watching ‘The Fly’ with Jeff Goldbloom and thought HE would have made a stronger Batman. As to ‘Ghostbusters’, I watched the more recent ‘Afterlife’ sequel, and thought it was a lot of fun, and an homage to the original.
Speaking of homage, with all the talk of James Bond, we should also give a nod to its influence on a very different movie: Pixar’s ‘The Incredibles’. The evil genius Syndrome with his island lair, his high tech gadgets and civilization threatening robots is straight out of Bond. So too is some of the “action” music.
I’m 65 and apparently a relic. I open doors for women, attempt to dress well, use vulgar words sparingly, and love my country. I am grateful for having the likes of James Bond(Connery) and James T. Kirk as role models growing up.
I hope and pray that Woke Progressiveness is a phase that the world out grows and outlives.
Bond and Kirk. Great role models. 🙂
Yes. Another fascinating thing about Star Trek. My brother bought some of the Star Trek fanfiction in the 70s. Basically, paperback short story collections, that could have made good to so-so ideas for the TV show.
The stories by males, all focused their attention on Captain Kirk, with Mr. Spock in his usual sidekick position. Along with Bone’s disagreeable nature sparking the conservastions.
The women’s fiction, on the other hand, were all focused on Mr. Spock himself. After some new female recruit gets paired off with him, for some reason. Or even stranded alone somehow. Stranded with that magnificent stoic mind of his. Some only wanted a mere kiss from him. Other’s, well, a little more than that, but in a 1970s PG kind of way.
Just my smile for today, you might say.
Star Trek is so cool. I grew up in Socal watching that stuff.
“He’d dead Jim!” The McCoy character was so cool.
Doubt it at least until HE comes back and claims as HIS own. By the way I never use the term “gay” it’s homosexual.
Or “rump ranger..” Or butt bandit.
i have a “dirty secret” for Amazon, Disney, Hollywood, and the world. Women love movies with good looking masculine brave heroic men who are on the right side of justice and defeat enemies. Yes, we even understand that some female characters in the movie will fall all over them. Theres nothing more satisfying than a real hero. (non woke, non communist, and non gay either).
I guess the left doesn’t get it or want to.
Have you ever seen that show, “Lost?” It’s very good. You will fall in love with the characters. It’s a weird show but good. 27 episodes, I think It took a long time to watch them all. I don’t do that Netflixz binge thing.
Yes. My sister’s favorite character on “Lost” is played by one Josh Holloway. I didn’t have to ask her why, even though his character is usually sarcastic or hostile to everyone else, and is a conman. Josh looks like he would have made just as good a Thor as Chris Hemsworth. Another silly popcorn action movie she loves, for some reason.
Josh Holloway is definitely very good looking,I should be lucky enough to look like him and I look great. His character was always sneering in the early episodes though, so I didn’t like him at first but he grew on me.
The Sawyer character was sarcastic and funny.
I think should they cast Cameron Diaz as Nelson Mandela in the remake of “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom”. All the Boers in the movie will be black, but be dubbed in Navaho, and all of the ANC members will be Thai Ladyboys.
Why are you not in hollywood? LOL Merry Christmas
Why not? Casting and history are being dropped out of backgammon cups.
You have to watch out for those Thai lady boys. They’ll start yanking your crank before you realize they’re dudes. Most of them look better than real chicks, which is disturbing.
Thailand is NOT a good place to get drunk.
Its Enough Disney is Tanking and Amazon Studios is just trying to produce nothing we can do without
James Bond stopped being James Bond once the Daniel Craig era started.
“We need a more serious, earnest, emotionally tortured and realistic James Bond. Quick! Get me the douche from the Tomb Raider films!”
– Literally Barbara Broccoli
My thoughts exactly
It’s tough for me to watch the 1960s-70s Bonds because they were, in retrospect, so badly done. At the time I thought they were great. But that scene on the beach with Ursala Andress and Bond in the blue onesee was embarassing.
Daniel Craig is the best Bond, because he under plays it. Even he got bored with it.