Amazon Can Do Whatever It Wants With the Bond Side Characters

Last week, Barbara Broccoli — like brick-and-mortar bookstores and shopping malls before her — lost her battle against Amazon. The giant megacorporation assumed control over the James Bond franchise following years of tenuous conversation about the series’ continuation after 2021’s No Time to Die. Broccoli’s protection over the franchise prevented dozens of spinoffs, video games, television shows, and other misguided ideas from coming to life. She cedes control of the 007 to a company whose executives she allegedly called “fucking idiots,” James Bond is now in jeopardy. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

In today’s cinematic economy, a big company buying out a series you like is one of the worst possible things that can happen, and Broccoli and her co-producer Michael G. Wilson’s relinquishment of the brand felt like a death knell for all things 007. Amazon being what it is and the Bond franchise being what it is, there’s no way Amazon won’t milk this thing for what it’s worth, capitalizing on every last aspect of the spy series until we’re clamoring to get away from Young Bond or Bond: The Early Years or Bond X Reacher. But maybe there’s a compromise we can strike — wouldn’t Jeff Bezos, a ruthless businessman, be interested in hearing a deal? — one that satisfies Bond fans and Amazon executives alike. What if Amazon does whatever they want with all the Bond characters … except James Bond?

James Bond is the trickiest aspect of the whole James Bond thing: Should he be young? Should he be old? Should he be blond? Or brunette? Is it time for a James Bond who is a man of color? Should James Bond become less misogynistic? These questions are too complicated and annoying: We would have a new James Bond cast by now if they were easy for producers and casting agents to answer. Consider, however, Bond’s coterie of pals and enemies, like Miss Moneypenny, M, and Q, or even Ernst Blofeld and Dr. No. These people can be played by anyone at any age whatsoever. You want a limited series about Q’s techie friends that’s a sort of Silicon Valley thing, but it’s British? Sure. You want a video game where you play as Le Chiffre and try to get out of baccarat debt? Sure!! You want to see whom they cast as the young, hot M for the M origin movie in which we learn that M became a spy because of, I don’t know, trauma? Sure!!! Did you know there was already a series of short stories about Miss Moneypenny? Exactly.

The Bond side characters are fun, sure, but they are some of the most staple one-note characters, even more replaceable and forgettable than Bond. What people love about the franchise is not the rich depth of character so much as they do the various MacGuffins, locales, and beautiful short-lived girlfriends. The best MI6 pals and corny villains can sometimes transcend their half-baked simplicity, but often they sink into bizarre obviousness, like No Time To Die’s Lyutsifer Safin (pronounced “Lucifer Satan” in whatever accept Rami Malek was supposed to be doing). For all the years of blogosphere speculation about the new Bond, no one gives much thought to when the side characters in the franchise get swapped out and recast. There are disposable parts to Bond, and it’d be silly to pretend otherwise. In spinning off the Bond side characters, Amazon can take full advantage of its IP without completely alienating the longtime fans by ruining the one character they know and love — just look at Andor on Disney+ and The Penguin on Max. I smell an Emmy for whomever they cast as Goldfinger in the gritty realist neo-noir series.

The most important thing is for Amazon to set expectations low, just as it does with its own marketplace. If you wanted a brand name, you wouldn’t be going to Amazon in the first place. So let it run amok with copycats, spinoffs, dupes, and adaptations of all the characters James Bond is always ignoring so he can go to a cool island with his latest girlfriend. Just as you might strike gold when buying the “Amazon’s choice” for socks or an ice cube tray, it too might stumble upon something genius with an animated series about Blofeld’s cat. So long as James stays out of the mix — sometimes it pays to be dead.

Related

• The Name’s Bond. James ‘Amazon Echo’ Bond.
• Is Kraven Our Next Bond?
• Where Does James Bond Go From Here?