Three reasons killing off Bond was the RIGHT thing to do now Amazon is charge

Killing off Daniel Craig’s James Bond in No Time To Die was highly controversial. But in hindsight, the shock ending of the 25th 007 film now seems a wise move.

The passing of creative control of the franchise from long-standing producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson to Amazon marks the end of Bond as we know him. The cinematic legacy that began nearly seven decades ago with Dr No and saw Craig taking on the most recent licence to kill in the last five movies is at an end.

Blofeld, Drax, Scaramanga and Spectre all failed to kill Britain’s premier secret agent. Now it seems the US streaming giant may have signed his death warrant.

The Broccoli family going back to original producer Cubby Broccoli have maintained an integrity and creative vision over Bond which is unparalleled in cinema.

They have stuck to a very specific formula – the gadgets, the girls, the vodka martinis and the catchphrases – while successfully reinventing the secret agent for a modern era, rebooting him with new actors when necessary and reflecting each of his eras.

Because of their foresight and ironclad control, Bond has remained a very modern hero despite roots stretching back to the beginnings of the Cold War.

The passing of creative control to Amazon will take Bond into new uncharted territory… streaming, and I fear he will become ‘content’ rather than cinema.

There’ll be spin-offs as they mine every corner of the Bondverse for franchise material (think of what happened to Star Wars when Disney took control). How long until we get a Moneypenny series or a Q series or the Adventures of a Young M? The Broccolis were adamant Bond should not be on TV. It was a cinematic experience and has largely remained thus. That will definitely change with Amazon because their first priority will always be content for their streaming service.

Having said that, fans can probably look forward to a lot more Bonds now. I can’t imagine there will be six years between films. So if you love action and adventure, they’ll milk Ian Fleming’s groundbreaking secret agent for all it’s worth.

Neither can I imagine that they will wait long before unveiling their new Bond. And the fact a US streaming giant now holds the creative key suggests all bets may be off as to who that might be.

Amazon’s creative processes are dictated by algorithms and trends. How this will sit with the Bond formula, which peaked with 1964’s Goldfinger, remains to be seen, but my feeling is that Bond needs the formula to survive. Every film since Goldfinger has been defined by that formula or in opposition to it.

Leaving behind that treasured formula – guarded by the Broccolis since 1962 – could see James Bond both shaken and stirred.