James Bond 007 – Licence To Kill. A Great British icon known around the world for his love of fast cars, suave tailoring, cool gadgets and ruthless killing.
When the action gets too heavy, you can rely on him for a witty one-liner, and he always gets the baddie and the girl.
Which is why Bond fans are right to be nervous about Amazon taking creative control of the franchise with the freedom to tweak it to appeal to the sensitive sensibilities of modern audiences. The last thing we need is for Bond to become a woke warrior.
The takeover comes as longtime 007 producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson, the daughter and stepson of Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, the man who launched the Bond franchise in 1962, announced they were stepping down.
Control will be handed over to Amazon MGM Studios, which was created by Amazon when it bought Bond’s parent studio three years ago. What this means for the Bondverse should worry us all.
The Bond films were originally based on the books by former British naval intelligence officer and author Ian Fleming.
The first book, Casino Royale, was published in 1953, but the first Bond movie did not hit cinema screens until 1962 when the world was introduced to 007 in the film Dr. No, with Sean Connery playing the spy.
Who can forget the cool charisma of Connery or the quizzical raised eyebrow of Roger Moore? Every actor since – George Lazenby, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig – has kept the spy’s allure alive.
Bond is a terrific creation. Men want to be him, and women want to be with him. Add some gloriously outlandish plotlines and larger-than-life criminal characters and you have a money-making big screen blockbuster.
If further proof were needed of the world’s love and recognition of 007, think back to the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics when Daniel Craig as Bond met the Queen, the late Elizabeth II, at Buckingham Palace.
Walking towards a helicopter with the corgis in tow, they flew over London to the Olympic Stadium, ending with a stunt double of the Queen parachuting into the arena.
Moments later, the real Queen, wearing the same peach dress as the stunt double, entered the stadium to an amazing reaction from the crowd and millions of TV viewers globally.
Here were two of Great Britain’s biggest icons and one of them was 007. Bond is Britain. So handing control to a ruthless conglomerate known for making money through endless prequels and spin-offs, both of which dilute a brand’s quality, is concerning.
Ian Fleming’s spy creation is also splendidly politically incorrect and though he has slightly softened over the decades, the steeliness and the flag flying for Great Britain has thankfully remained.
But many fear Amazon will succumb to redefining the Bond franchise to suit current tastes, which means Bond trading in his Aston Martin for an electric scooter and swapping his beloved vodka martinis for oat milk protein shakes.
And God forbid we see him apologising for the Empire! Even worse, proper baddies would no longer be dispatched in a suitably violent manner, with Bond and his latest criminal nemesis instead attending restorative justice sessions. You could see it happening.
Amazon has form when it comes to taking over a franchise and changing its spirit. Fans of Lord of the Rings have long criticised the changes that Amazon made to the franchise with its version featuring a diverse cast of non-white and female characters which fans say are unfaithful to the original works of JRR Tolkien.
There are also concerns that Amazon could terminate the franchise (as they have just done with longrunning Australian TV soap Neighbours) if it doesn’t make the necessary revenue for company bosses.
If this were to happen it would not only ruin the essence of Bond but deprive the world of one of the few remaining great theatrical events – the release of a new 007 film.
Fans of James Bond are right to be shaken and stirred by Amazon taking creative control of 007. The last thing we need is a sanitised, bland, woke character trying to understand the viewpoint of a criminal mastermind. We want the baddie blown to bits followed by a tasty one-liner and a lingering shot of Bond with his latest squeeze.
If Amazon fails to deliver on this, it will be the end of 007 as we know him.