So at last the deadlock has been broken. After months, even years, of tension between Amazon MGM, who own the rights to the studio that made the James Bond films, and Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, the producers and de facto custodians of the franchise, it has been announced that Broccoli and Wilson have, somewhat unexpectedly, ceded complete creative control to the Bond character and the 007 series to Amazon.
Presumably they did so in exchange for an amount of money that might make even Ernst Stavro Blofeld go weak at the knees. This now will not only accelerate development of a new Bond film, but also gives Amazon what it has wanted for years: the ability to exploit the intellectual property opportunities of one of the best-loved characters in contemporary entertainment.
Whatever you think about Broccoli and Wilson – who in many regards hold the same dominion over Bond that Kevin Feige does at Marvel – they’ve been unafraid to experiment, moving in a far grittier direction with the Daniel
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