Georeactor Blog

OK so after months of sniping in the press between Amazon and the Broccoli family, the chips are down and Amazon gets creative control of the James Bond franchise.
In the 90s and 00s the Bond franchise's main problem was parody ("Austin Powers fucked us") which drove Bond movies to be serious and dark, compared to the older movies when they would mess around in space or on a ski mountain. Quantum of Solace got dragged so hard for its title, tone, villain, etc. that I only know not to watch it. They course-corrected and made the most recent movies all about family. It seemed that they wanted to kill off the fan theory about Bond/007 being a codename, but maybe someone was fortifying against Idris Elba or Dev Patel from being the next Bond? Either way when I think about "James Bond" he should be doing super-spy shit, not hiding at his parents' house, it was weird.

Here are some other franchises in the genre or genre-adjacent:

• Kingsman has violent spy stuff + fantastic tech + silly villain elements. They tried an American movie and a historical fiction pivot with the Rasputin movie, which also suggested they wanted to bring in Stalin and Hitler?
• John Wick, everyone loves John Wick, they did realistic training with guns but it's still comic book-y. It might be over now? They got Ana de Armas to come over to their franchise to do a spinoff, there was some world-building. More mafia and assassins than spies.
• Mission Impossible was always kind of an American James Bond, minus the romance. This franchise might also be ending, after they had two strategic moves which failed: passing the torch from Tom Cruise, and the latest Dead Reckoning movie kinda fizzling.
• Fast and Furious rebooted to become more like Bond and Mission Impossible. They made a spinoff with Idris Elba (as a cyborg?), but the main series may actually be ending? They make the movies silly, eye candy, impossible stakes, global destinations, etc. like Bond. But notorious for having too many stars who can't lose fights or be on the same set for ego reasons.
• Mr and Mrs Smith, an insane TV series play by Amazon which won a lot of people over. They likely knew that they couldn't get Donald Glover back for Season 2, but they ran with it. Will there ever be a Season 2? It seems kind of forgotten now, though.
• Slow Horses, Apple TV people have been talking about this and I finally watched, it's good, it is genre-challenging because it's generally about British intelligence fighting itself more than any Bond villains and schemes, and their managerial / M characters are a VIBE
• Indiana Jones, Spielberg's response to not getting to direct James Bond, dropped the ball on the two more recent movies, brought in aliens and time travel and was trying to find a new Indiana Jones (rumored to at one point literally replace Indiana Jones's whole timeline). This has got to be more about Spielberg and Lucas wanting to do send-ups of 50s movies together, rather than any actual interest in it existing as a story or franchise.
• Star Wars, though a different genre, had similar brand name recognition and a mostly-male fan base, and managed to drop the ball on 2/3 of their "new trilogy". New Star Wars content is now high-volatility (like, an entire TV series will come out as a hit or a miss).
• Marvel movies and series which I know little about. First I'll mention the "Marvel humor" which other franchises get pilloried for trying to "copy", like the new Section 31 movie. But parts of the franchise (Thor, Guardians of the Galaxy) are strategically designed to be more comedic or absurd in tone than others.
  Secondly, the X-Men series did a fantastic reboot where they had fun with going back to other decades and inserting X-Men into history, though it fizzled out and now only has that Deadpool thing going for it.
  Third, they always have the problem of "why don't they call Iron Man"
  Fourth, did Black Widow set up that spies exist in the Marvel universe?
• The DC universe failed, but the newer Batman and Suicide Squad content is notable because the movies don't have to agree on tone, time period, actors, etc.
• Arnold Schwarzenegger did this whole FUBAR series on Netflix which writes the series around him so he has some action stuff, but nothing out of pocket. The other members of the team and his TV family get a good amount of screen time, and they have side plots about home life. De Niro also just had his own weird elder series Zero Day this week.

OK so what do I pitch for the new James Bond series?

• The next Bond movie should not break the mold and be recognizable as a "Bond movie", maybe something interesting with the casting. Idris Elba and Dev Patel got mentioned for years. Just not Timothy Chalamet.
• Q, the gadgets guy, should have a TV series which is allowed to be silly (the Thor/Loki of the franchise). If there's a whole Army of Thieves spinoff about the safe-cracker from Army of the Dead, you can make this a lengthy series.
• Period pieces, this could be embellishing actual spy missions (The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, capturing war criminals), bringing life to rumors and legends in the spy world (Havana syndrome, Stuxnet, acoustic kitty), or just letting James Bond remain as an artifact of the Cold War. Movies which try to be topical by having a vague AI / tech giant villain are exhausting!
• Bond training a new spy, or a whole bunch of trainees, but with the audience having some security that it's a self-contained story and not being set up to be the new James Bond. Basically Top Gun.
• Bond is captured or missing for a TV season (not crazy, he was in North Korean prison for a year in Die Another Day) and other spies have to do some spy shit without him, then figure out his location. Maybe they are like, YO we can break in but will need Bond to help us break out / go through the tunnels and farm fields to escape the country? How about one member on the team is evil, or was told by MI6 to kill Bond if he can't be extracted in time?
• Bond returns to space through the secret space program, and does some shit to hack spy satellites. Needs a scene where he has to signal someone on the ground with a laser or reflector or something. Bring in expert fight choreographers and astronauts so the press tour can claim realistic zero-G combat.
• Spy network meeting in the catacombs of old European cities
• Talk to older actors who have always wanted to be Bond or be in a Bond movie. They're on a tropical island, and two countries are trying to curry favor with diplomacy, basically Taiwan vs. China or North and South Korea. Eventually one is playing dirty and crosses the British Embassy, or it's a former colony, something gets MI6 on the scene. There's a little action but it's produced with the actor and they get to chill in Hawaii for a few months. I bet you could get Pierce Brosnan and Michelle Yeoh to come back for this one.
• If you have to continue a serious/grim/dark tone. A mission failed, WMD went off somewhere, MI6 has to investigate and prevent future attacks while dealing with some trauma, and whether traditional spies who kick in doors are obsolete in a world of decentralization (again, not hackers and AI, just people radicalized and coordinating online). Then the next movie is a period piece where spies ARE relevant.