What Will Happen To James Bond Now That Amazon Owns Him?

Before we can examine what it means that Amazon MGM now has creative control over the James Bond franchise, having formed a joint venture with Bond producers and half-siblings Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, a bit of background about the players is in order.

Eon produced the Bond films that are part of the official canon, all the films other than the 1967 parody Casino Royale, and the 1983 oddity Never Say Never Again. Albert “Cubby” Broccoli and Harry Saltzman founded Eon in 1961. Broccoli, who died in 1996, is the father of Barbara. She and Michael G. Wilson share the same mother, Dana Broccoli, although his father is the late Lewis Wilson (who starred in Batman serials in the 1940s). Barbara and Michael are, in effect, Eon. And they are the two who took the undisclosed amount of money from Amazon MGM Studios.

Amazon bought MGM in 2022 for $8.45 billion (making it the company’s second-largest acquisition so far, with Whole Foods coming in 2017 with a $13.7 billion tag). By buying the studio, Amazon got access to more than 4,000 films and 17,000 TV shows.

But while Eon Productions has always produced the James Bond films, MGM hasn’t always distributed them. United Artists had the franchise starting with Dr. No in 1962. MGM didn’t distribute Bond movies until 1981’s For Your Eyes Only—because that was the year MGM bought United Artists.

So because MGM bought UA it got the Bond franchise—the distribution franchise.

Eon still produced the pictures.

But nowadays distribution is as important as content for movies that are supposed to make massive amounts of money.

Like Bond films.

“Since his theatrical introduction over 60 years ago, James Bond has been one of the most iconic characters in filmed entertainment,” Mike Hopkins, head of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios said after they struck the deal with Eon.

Since Dr. No, the first Bond movie, Eon has produced 24 more.

And during this time there have been six actors playing Bond.

 Ian Fleming delineated a few essential Bond characteristics.

Like his father being Scottish and mother Swiss. His hair dark and his build tall and slim. He is in his mid-to-late 30s.

So how has the portrayal of the iconic character been?

• Sean Connery. Scottish. Dark hair. Correct build. Started at age 32 and closed it with Diamonds Are Forever (canonically) at age 42. Check.
• George Lazenby. The youngest Bond at age 29 in his single outing in On His Majesty’s Secret Service. The looks are in line (prior to this casting he was a model in a commercial for chocolate). But he is Australian.
• Roger Moore. Yes, the man can wear a tux the way Bond should. He is a Brit. But he started his seven-picture run as Bond when he was 45 and ended when he was 57. Arguably they were stretching things character-wise when he started.
• Timothy Dalton. Has the Bond looks but there are a couple non-Bond aspects. He is Welsh, not Scottish. He was 41 in The Living Daylights and 43 in License to Kill.
• Pierce Brosnan. Physically Bond-like. But again, 42 when he appeared in Goldeneye and 49 in Die Another Day. And Brosnan is Irish.
• Daniel Craig. Arguably the actor playing Bond who looks least like the character Bond—not only as written, but in the context of the five actors before him. Again, he’s an actor who should have aged out of the role before his last appearance in No Time to Die, when he was 51.

Now, the big question: Jeff Bezos controversially asked the throngs on X about who they think should be the next James Bond.

Who’d you pick as the next Bond? pic.twitter.com/u7nBaRROlf

— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) February 20, 2025

Arguably this is nothing but a ploy for publicity. Bezos may get the final say, but know well that the actors who may get the role (names range from Henry Cavill to Tom Hiddleston to Idris Elba to Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and many more) will have gone through a thorough vetting before producers bring them before Bezos.

There is apparently some concern that Amazon will somehow distort the iconic James Bond, that distortion was well made when Roger Moore took the role.

What’s more, anyone who has read even a chapter of one of Lee Child’s 27 Reacher novels knows Jack Reacher is a big man—6-feet, 5 inches, tipping the scales at from 220 to 250 pounds. Consequently Tom Cruise—5-feet, 7 inches, about 148 pounds—is not Reacheresque. Yet he had the Reacher role in two movies, Jack Reacher (2012) and Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016).

Amazon Prime’s Reacher, Alan Ritchson, is some 6-feet, 4, and weighs about 235. He is Reacher in a way that Cruise isn’t. He is Reacher as Reacher is described in the books.

This is something that can’t be said about most of the actors cast as James Bond.

Another concern is that the Amazon part of Amazon MGM Studios is going to spin off all manner of Bond-related things.

Perhaps there would be Young James Bond. Well, the British character who is most analogous to Bond in the context of both books and films is Sherlock Holmes. A as disparate as Basil Rathbone, Robert Downey, Jr., and Benedict Cumberbatch have portrayed Holmes, as has Henry Cavill, in the spinoff series Enola Holmes, starring Millie Bobby Brown as Sherlock’s younger sister. Somehow Holmes has survived.

Bond can certainly withstand any manner of brand extension. There has been a lot of online worry, almost approaching panic, that Amazon will do with the character what it did with the Lord of the Rings franchise–turn it into incomprehensible, muddy intellectual property. On the other hand, you have the Reacher example, which shows that Amazon can get it right as well. Based on the critical reception of the two franchises–Reacher largely beloved and The Rings of Power mostly reviled–and it’s pretty clear in what direction they should go. The best thing Amazon can do about the online concern trolling over their new creative direction for James Bond is to make good choices, and render it unfounded.

The first rule of the movie industry is “Always make money.”

And the people at Amazon are nothing if not focused on doing that.

Based on domestic gross box office figures from Box Office Mojo, Casino Royale brought in $167,445,960. Quantum of Solace inched up a bit to $168,368,427. An additional million probably didn’t have champagne corks popping at MGM, but when Skyfall came out, things looked really good: $304,360,277.

Craig’s Bond hit his stride. . .but Spectre collapsed to $200,074,609. Not at all good.

And while some could argue that it was the end of COVID moviegoing malaise or the downer of an ending, No Time to Die had domestic gross of $160,891,007, less than Casino Royale had 15 years earlier.

Black, white, female, male—the next James Bond is going to have to be someone who is going to juice the box office for Amazon MGM Studios.

And if that actor doesn’t make it happen, then someone else will.