The report outlined that the fallout is due to differences over the creative direction of the franchise, with Amazon reportedly in favour of “Marvel-style” ideas to expand the franchise, such as spinoff shows and films.

No, for fucks sake. No!

Broccoli is reported to have baulked at the pitch, telling friends that Amazon are “fucking idiots” who are taking the franchise “hostage”. She has reportedly expressed her disinterest in continuing to work with Amazon for any Bond films. NME has reached out to Amazon MGM Studios for comment.

“Fucking idiots” indeed. And too predictable, to be honest.

  • CallateCoyote@lemmy.world
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    12 hours ago

    Welp… rest well for now, 007. To say it has been a great run is an understatement. Amazon will likely get bored of this toy eventually and perhaps it will end up in competent hands again and we can simply laugh at whatever trash is produced.

    • prof_wafflez@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      Amazon has some good shows, like Invincible, Fallout and The Boys, but then there’s Rings of Power. RoP alone is enough for me to be okay with a Bond pause.

  • cobysev@lemmy.world
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    18 hours ago

    The only type of Bond show I’d be in favor of is a TV series that faithfully recreates the Bond novels in their respective era (1950s-'60s). I would love to see the books remade as a period drama series. Hour-long episodes for each book, maybe multiple episodes if the story was really detailed.

    That would be an amazing series, and a unique take, as film Bond is nothing like book Bond. Except for the Daniel Craig era. That’s about as close to book Bond as we’ve ever had. That, and Timothy Dalton’s License to Kill film. Book Bond was a very dark and gritty character.

    • peoplebeproblems@midwest.social
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      Plus you cannot tell me that Bond didn’t survive in that last movie.

      It even says “James Bond Will Return” at the end. So like duh, he didn’t die

      (I know but I really want to believe we’re not done with Daniel Craig as Bond)

      • DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        15 hours ago

        One of the themes in no time to die is that 007 is just a name that can be given and exchanged to anyone. Bond will return but it won’t be Daniel Craig.

        What I don’t get is that they link this James Bond to every single movie that has happen and essentially said that Craig was the embodiment of those characters…and now he’s actually gone. So are they going to have just someone else be James Bond with the same name?

        • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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          13 hours ago

          I always assumed that James Bond was a code name anyway, so they can give it to another agent to replace him.

          • cobysev@lemmy.world
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            12 hours ago

            The films disproved this theory. Every actor has shared experiences across the movies, so it’s not a codename. Well, except for Daniel Craig, but his Bond was a reboot.

            George Lazenby’s Bond submitted a letter of resignation to M, then cleared out his desk, pausing to reminisce on gadgets and memorabilia from the Sean Connery films as each film’s theme played. So they’re the same character.

            George Lazenby’s Bond also got married to a countess named Theresa, and his new wife was murdered by Blofeld. Roger Moore’s Bond visited the grave of Theresa Bond in the opening of For Your Eyes Only, to pay respects to his late wife.

            In License to Kill, Timothy Dalton’s Bond refuses to catch the garter from Felix Leiter’s new bride. When she asks Felix what’s up, he explains that Bond was married once, a long time ago.

            George Lazenby’s Bond did research into genealogy for an undercover role and looked up his own heritage. He found the coat-of-arms for the real-life knight Sir Thomas Bond, who had the Latin phrase, “Orbis non Sufficit,” or, “The World is Not Enough” emblazoned on it. Pierce Brosnan’s Bond claimed in The World is Not Enough that the expression was a family motto.

            So they’re all the same Bond, except for Daniel Craig, who was a reboot. They showed the start of his career, and he was James Bond before he even became 007, so that was his actual name. Also, he was given an undercover name to use for the poker tournament, but used James Bond at the hotel front desk and told them the reservation could be found under the undercover name. If James Bond was already an alias, why give him a second one on a mission?

        • peoplebeproblems@midwest.social
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          12 hours ago

          That’s kind of a common question amongst the short stories too.

          The part that bothers me is that 007 is assigned to Nomi in No Time To Die. So it sort of makes me wonder why they would assign a different name to the same cover?

          We do know that M was the same character in Goldeneye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World is Not Enough, Die Another Day, Casino Royale, Quantum Solace, and Skyfall. So James Bond 007 is clearly a code name for that MI6 cleaner.

          Idk. I think they just don’t explain it because they enjoy that little bit of stuff being confusing as covert stuff should be.

          • DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            9 hours ago

            My head canon is that anyone that chooses to work in the 00 program as an agent is put though arduous mental programs ala: Jason Bourne until they ARE James Bond. This explains all the James Bonds throughout history

            • peoplebeproblems@midwest.social
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              11 hours ago

              Well, they sort of have to be. They’re the janitors. Think Mr. Wolf from Pulp Fiction. They fix problems. Intelligence leaks, missing weapons of mass destruction, and almost certainly disposing of burnt assets.

              Bond’s psychological profile deems him unfit for intelligence service - but that’s not his job. His job is to clean up whatever the intelligence service fucks up. In the beginning of Casino Royale it also states that you have to kill two targets - and as he says after shooting the guy “Yes. That was much easier.” (Or something like that). So he’s clearly fucked up at that point.

      • cobysev@lemmy.world
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        15 hours ago

        Daniel Craig is done with Bond, so I doubt we’ll see him again in the role.

        I saw the credit at the end as, “We’re not done with the franchise, more Bond films will be made.” Not necessarily that this particular James Bond will return. That caption is a standard on almost every Bond film ever, so of course they had to include it.

        Although I admit, in my movie theater viewing, there were a couple little old ladies sitting near me who waited to the end of the credits with bated breath, then heaved a sigh of relief when they saw the caption. It was so cute!

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      16 hours ago

      If you’re talking OG Moonraker, instead of “look, people like star wars, let’s do that!” Moonraker, I would put in many $ to this venture (like $10, maybe)

    • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
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      18 hours ago

      Wow, brilliant idea.

      Very much like Roger Moore as The Saint, though updated, and less “30 minute 1960’s escapism for 13” black-and-white tv".

    • Skvlp@lemm.eeOP
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      17 hours ago

      That sounds great. Highly doubt that’s what Amazon has in mind, though.

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    17 hours ago

    I bet they’re not telling us the real reason. Bezo’s mid-life crisis stepped in and he wanted to play Bond.

      • Unruffled [he/him]@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        17 hours ago

        Oh right, it’s obviously a “woke” problem, not a profiteering corpo trying to milk every last cent of value out of the franchise. Fuck right outta here with that bullshit.

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          14 hours ago

          What’s wrong with Dalton? I liked Living Daylights. Licence to Kill was alright too. They went too far in the “gritty” direction on the latter in my personal opinion, but at least they were trying something new, especially since some of the later Moore films went a little too far in the “wacky” direction (cough cough Moonraker)

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            13 hours ago

            Moonraker is my favorite. If that kicks me out of the fan club so be it. Daniel Craig is my favorite Bond though.

            • dalekcaan@lemm.ee
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              11 hours ago

              Don’t get me wrong, I like Moonraker, and Moore’s Bond for that matter.

              It’s just that sometimes you’re watching a spy movie and the US launches a space shuttle into orbit, which is met by a space shuttle owned by Elon Musk some billionaire space tycoon (which he stole from himself), then they both open up and a bunch of army guys and billionaire goons float out and have a laser gun space battle, and you kinda have to step back and wonder how you got there.

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          19 hours ago

          arguably the Daniel Craig ones did that by being actually fairly believable spy movies that made slight sense.

          Bond is about using a magic watch to blow up vaguely Russian people and sleep with barely legal teenagers

          • cobysev@lemmy.world
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            18 hours ago

            […] sleep with barely legal teenagers

            Funny you should say that. Roger Moore gave up the Bond role when he realized that his Bond girl co-star was younger than his own daughter. He felt really icky having romance scenes with her and decided it was time to end his contract.

          • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
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            If Bond is about that, why does the Daniel Craig Bond use almost no gadgets?

            At least the first 3 movies, the only gadgets is like a handgun that detects who uses it, a Bond car from the Sean Connery era, some explosive necklace and … a phone.

        • Alexstarfire@lemmy.world
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          15 hours ago

          I’ll just say, George Lazenby was disliked so much he was only in one film. Though, he got the role in a very James Bond way.

        • mean_bean279@lemmy.world
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          19 hours ago

          Timothy Dalton movies at least performed better consistently (albeit it two movies isn’t as consistent as one needs). Not to mention that Roger Moore is a fucking creep. The women on screen didn’t seem to want him so much as they feared him. Connery is clearly desired by women and Brosnan is just the ideal Bond in my head (I blame the N64). Roger Moore has such awful movies by comparison and his arrogance IRL just makes it that much worse.

          • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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            There’s a post above this that says Roger Moore quit because the new Bond girl was too young and he was uncomfortable with that.

            I’d say it’s unfair to call him a fucking creep. Calling his character a creep would be the right way to put it.

            • mean_bean279@lemmy.world
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              12 hours ago

              Idk if I’d believe that, but take a look at his Wikipedia political views. The guy was a total dick. He believed that Britain shouldn’t be in the EU currency because of his love for the queen, and he criticized the new films for being too politically correct. Link

              • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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                11 hours ago

                Interesting. I’d still call him an out of touch dick not a creep.

                Bah I can’t pay my taxes, it will kill my retirement fund he said. Then moved to his four other homes in four different countries.

  • Shardikprime@lemmy.world
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    13 hours ago

    Hard to leaf a good impression when all these people believe themselves to be broccstars, impossible to bond like that

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    20 hours ago

    Amazon Bond or no new Bond at all?

    I’m good with how the franchise ended in the last movie.

    • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
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      18 hours ago

      I stopped after the first Daniel Craig.

      Nothing against him, he’s a great actor. Just didn’t like the direction of the franchise.

      The 70’s Roger Moore stuff was campy (which wasn’t the best, but you knew that going in) but at least that had it’s antecedent with Roger Moore playing The Saint in the 1960’s.

      • PapaStevesy@lemmy.world
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        9 hours ago

        You preferred the way it was going with Pierce Brosnan? I suppose you didn’t like the direction Christopher Nolan took Batman either, should have left it with Schumacher lololol

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        17 hours ago

        It’s been around for so long that it affects different generations. I prefer the Daniel Craig ones over the others just because that’s what was entertaining to me at the time even though I’ve watched some of the older ones.

        • Randelung@lemmy.world
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          19 hours ago

          As long as it can be milked it will be milked. They’d never end a franchise voluntarily.

            • Randelung@lemmy.world
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              16 hours ago

              It’s a contradiction in itself. Just like a voluntarily ended movie franchise.

            • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
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              18 hours ago

              Methinks you sit in a glass house:

              ox·y·mo·ron  (ŏk′sē-môr′ŏn′) n. pl. ox·y·mo·rons or ox·y·mo·ra (-môr′ə) A rhetorical figure in which incongruous or contradictory terms are combined, as in a deafening silence and a mournful optimist.

              “Franchise ending” is definitely oxymoronic, as all it takes is someone else wanting to produce it. At best you could say “the current iteration of a franchise has ended”.

              Bond itself is a great example. It seemingly ended after Sean Connery (there was a short hiatus), then again after Roger Moore and they couldn’t get Pierce Brosnan so eventually stop-gapped with Timothy Dalton. Then another short hiatus after Pierce, until it went in a new direction with Daniel Craig, which could be described as revamped/reworked to follow the mood of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (though if you read that book, you understand Sean Connery’s Bond better).

              • gift_of_gab@lemmy.world
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                17 hours ago

                franchise /frăn′chīz″/ noun, plural franchises

                (removed other meanings)

                • a series of related works (such as novels or films) each of which includes the same characters or different characters that are understood to exist and interact in the same fictional universe with characters from the other works

                I’m not seeing how ‘a franchise ending’ is oxymoronic.

  • wise_pancake@lemmy.ca
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    20 hours ago

    God I’m so tired of Marvel.

    I know people like it, and that’s okay, but every action movie is now Guardians of the Galaxy. The earlier marvel movies are fun too, but by Ironman 2/3 there was so much product placement and it all felt very stale and sterile.

    • bcgm3@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      You’re trying to tell us you wouldn’t be thrilled to go see “Jeff Bezos’ Amazon Presents Amazon’s James Bond™: The End of The World Is Not Enough: Part 1: When James Met Q: Part 1?”

    • Psythik@lemmy.world
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      17 hours ago

      Can’t stand those films. I like the Raimi Spider-man films and the first Iron Man. That’s it. All the other Marvel films are repetitive and boring. I stopped watching them around Iron Man 2/3 as well.

      Same goes for Star Wars. Rogue One was good. Stopped caring about the franchise after episode VIII (which I actually enjoyed). There are too many shows and spinoffs now and I got burnt out. Never thought I’d see the day when I’d stop being a Star Wars fan but I literally can not stand any of the shows. They’re all boring.

      • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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        12 hours ago

        You didn’t like the first Guardians of the Galaxy?

        Also pretty much agreed on Star Wars. Rogue One was great and it’s been a lot of slop since. I did enjoy the first season of Mandalorian and the episodes of Andor I’ve seen so far.

        • Psythik@lemmy.world
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          Guardians was okay but nothing special. I was turned off from the film from the very beginning, when the “Awesome Mix” consisted of nothing but the most basic bitch, overplayed songs in existence. I know it’s nitpicky but it sent the message that this wasn’t going to be the kind of film for me.

          Which is fitting because Marvel films are the KISS-FM of Hollywood. If Top 40 was a movie franchise, it would be Marvel.

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      19 hours ago

      I defended the Marvel offerings post Endgame longer than I should have, there’s some good stuff in there like No Way Home and Shang-Chi but it’s reeked of producers trying to rush the build it took to make the final two Avengers films so anticipated and fun. Even if you hate all of those films and think they are bland you have to admit there was something exciting about the long form storytelling they were doing and the experience of seeing those in the theater was a cool shared experience with so many people around the world. I hope they can recapture that lightening with the Russos coming back but somehow I doubt it

      Long way to say, I love the MCU and still agree that’s the last thing Bond, LoTR, Star Trek, fuck name an IP and it shouldn’t be trying to Marvel itself. Let Marvel be Marvel

      • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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        13 hours ago

        I really enjoyed Loki. I haven’t finished it yet but I was happy to have the context when I watched Deadpool and Wolverine.

        • cmbabul@lemmy.world
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          12 hours ago

          Those are both offerings i really enjoyed too, like I said, hoping they can right the ship, now that they are ditching the multiverse and pivoting towards Doom they may have an avenue

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      18 hours ago

      They tried to milk it too much. The initial MCU was good. Phase 1/2. Now it’s just exhausting. Too many characters, too many shows that either don’t seem to be canon or are completely ignored by the films, too many characters to keep track of.

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      I say it every time this comes up, and it sparks anger, but the movie that did it was Civil War.

      Iron Man flinches from a punch Cap throws. A human with peak capable strength does that to the same goddamn dude who took a fucking tank round and just had scorch marks on his armor.

      Then in infinity war, the Two stone wielding Thanos frightens Hulk? Bullshit, get out of here. Hulk would have flattened him.

    • keyez@lemmy.world
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      19 hours ago

      I’m tired of marvel as well but comparing movies to guardians of the galaxy attempting to make it seem like a bad thing isn’t really doing what you think it might. GotG is now a gem in the marvel movies cuz it’s doing it’s own thing and telling it’s own story and does it very well.

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        19 hours ago

        Albert R. Broccoli was the original co-producer of the Bond franchise (along with Harry Saltzman). Barbara Broccoli is his daughter, who helped him with production through the '80s and took over the franchise starting with GoldenEye in '95.

        She’s responsible for the more modern era of Bond that started with Pierce Brosnan, and also the rebooted era with Daniel Craig. She specifically rebooted the franchise because of Austin Powers, which satirized the Bond films and basically turned their tropes into a joke. She had to reinvent Bond so people would stop comparing her films to Austin Powers.

        • eyes@lemmy.world
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          15 hours ago

          There’s a great podcast called “Kill James Bond” that posits the theory that every time a spoof comes out it scared the studios so much that they had to reboot it.

          • lime!@feddit.nu
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            10 hours ago

            i used to love kill james bond but then they gave me a cigarette that killed me instantly

          • cobysev@lemmy.world
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            15 hours ago

            I’d be interested in hearing that podcast. The franchise was only rebooted once officially in 2006, plus a soft reboot in the '90s when Barbara Broccoli took over. She wanted to modernize the franchise (and Bond) for a long time, which is why the Pierce Brosnan films had less drinking, no smoking, and more strong women alongside/against Bond instead of pretty damsels in distress.

            We had a Casino Royale spoof in 1967, then the Austin Powers movies starting in 1997. Plus tons of tributes in media over the years. I’m not familiar with any other big parodies, although there have been some other spy films that have made tributes to the classic Bond films.

    • P03 Locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      11 hours ago

      I’m surprised the family name isn’t associated with the invention of brocolli. Although, they are of Italian descent, which is where the word of the vegetable came from.

      • lime!@feddit.nu
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        10 hours ago

        the family do claim that they were the first to cultivate it in the 1600s. don’t know if there’s any truth to that.

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    18 hours ago

    Bond hasn’t been good since they couldn’t use the Soviets anymore as an enemy. Modern producers aren’t willing to sacrifice Chinese money to make a real enemy.

    • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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      9 hours ago

      Interesting that China is the only country that comes to your mind.

      Why not the US? A clash between MI6 and the CIA would be cool!

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          9 hours ago

          That movies haven’t been good since we stopped making Soviets the bad guys? Nah, that’s a shit take for sure.

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          12 hours ago

          Oh I’m sure “a movie can’t be good unless it makes the people I hate the bad guys” is a thing, it’s just shitheaded.

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            No, friend, it’s a thing that Hollywood producers will revise scripts and implement last minute edits in order to avoid offending the Chinese people so they can get the dollars from the chinese audiences. Beijing will happily ban a movie if they feel it casts China in a negative light.

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              9 hours ago

              It’s also a thing that Russia was rarely the villain in the Bond movies, It was usually Spectre or when it was a Russian it was some Russian guy going rogue and not acting in Russia’s interests.

              The top 5 Bond movies by IMDB rating are Casino Royale, Skyfall, Goldfinger, No Time to Die, From Russia With Love. And Spectre is the villain in the latter. So is it really not possible to make a good Bond film without Russia?

  • ditty@lemm.ee
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    19 hours ago

    Daniel Craig’s Casino Royale was so good because it did something new; it flipped the series on its head and that was a refreshing change of pace. Realistically gritty action thrillers have dominated the genre ever since. Diluting that with Marvel-esque writing or generic spin-offs would be such a letdown.

    I’m not sure what I want next from the Bond franchise, but a Marvel influence is definitely not it.

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      New media does not change anything about old media.

      Those old movies still exist and stay equally as enjoyable to watch no matter what they do with the new films.

      • bcgm3@lemmy.world
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        10 hours ago

        I used to feel this way, too, but I think I’ve recanted. Whenever I talk about Star Wars now, for example, nobody seems to have any affinity for the Original Trilogy (my favorites), but almost everyone is some shade of familiar with the numerous Disney+ shows (I’ve tried them all, but they’re just not for me). I also can’t help but feel like what those three films represented to me as a whole has been fundamentally transformed by the quantity-over-quality approach that Disney has taken.

        In other words, the originals still exist and are just as enjoyable for me, but the “meta” and public discourse about the franchise has shifted in a way that is often alienating to me. Could also just be part of getting old, I suppose!

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    19 hours ago

    Next James Bond takes place around Amazon fulfillment centers around the world, and Alexa plays a key part in it. Bond is a black, young female agent this time because diversity (her father was Bond 009), and she has super powers from computer chips running in Amazon cloud.

  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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    21 hours ago

    Amazon reportedly in favour of “Marvel-style” ideas to expand the franchise, such as spinoff shows and films.

    Its not like there are a shortage of spy-thrillers bouncing around. I don’t see anything immediately wrong with an MI6 extended universe, particularly if it lets younger and more unorthodox talent have fun with the setting. FFS, “Agents of Shield” and the Netflix TV street-level-hero spin offs were functionally thrillers in their own right. A lot of them were very good.

    But there’s so much wrong going on under the hood of the industry. More and more talent sacrificed on the alter of AI generated content (the Rings of Power generative dialogue/screenwriting was a horrifying example of how to waste $700M in acting/set design). More focus on special effects and less on cohesive storytelling or direction.

    Like, if you got the writers room from Slow Horses to do a spin-off franchise called “009”, I would be fully on board. But if its just going to be the franchise eating its own tail with forty different poorly adapted variations on Casino Royale… yeah, I can understand why there would be drama.

    • aasatru@kbin.earth
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      20 hours ago

      As much as I think AI will make everything worse, I think it’s just a symptom of the real problem in the industry.

      I think it boils down to two things:

      1. Major studios are pure capitalists with no artistic interest, with newcomers like Apple and Amazon not even having a culture for authenticity in any part of their operation
      2. Marvel made too much money

      So what they’ve learned is that there’s no point in making movies - if they want to make money they need to make a franchise. So they keep investing in anything they can possibly milk into a soulless franchise that sucks in consumers and leaves them hooked.

      There’s no room for artistic authenticity in this process. It will produce worthless garbage by design. It’s consumerism turned into cinematography.

      Thank god some are rebelling against it.

      • Killer57@lemmynsfw.com
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        18 hours ago

        Amazon MGM has a shit ton of franchises under their belt, why not do things with them? I would be happy if they took this direction with Stargate for example.

    • Skvlp@lemm.eeOP
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      18 hours ago

      If any expansion came from the creative team behind Bond I’d be ok with it, I guess, but when owner Amazon is trying to force it reeks of cash- grab monetisation.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        17 hours ago

        I mean, the Bond franchise is only in the state its in because the original producers couldn’t crank out more than one movie every seven years. That’s embarrassing. And everything since Skyfall has been mid-to-crap, despite them throwing fortunes behind it and having a Chad like Daniel Craig at the helm.

        That said, the parent company playing tug-of-war with the creative team over how to deliver the next edition in the franchise is a big reason why we get these annoying delays. But, at the same time, giving ten creative teams $50M to make their own entries in the franchise strikes me as a better move than giving one team $500M.

  • AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space
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    19 hours ago

    If Amazon can’t continue with Bond, maybe they can sell the franchise to Disney, paving the way for a Bond/Doctor Who crossover in which Bond is a rogue timelord known as The Bachelor.