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In a move that has shocked, “I say shocked!” Hollywood, the James Bond creative rights have been acquired by Amazon MGM Studios. It was a sudden enough move that despite the reports about it coming out Thursday, that was late enough in the day that we couldn’t touch upon it during our usual daily updates and had to delay covering it for a few days. These things happen, and we’re just a small team (i.e., generally one person) handling all duties for this site, so if news has to wait, then it waits. Still, this was too big a story to leave sitting for long.

Now, we at Asteroid G have never proclaimed ourselves to be the biggest fans of the James Bond series. While there were some films that we’ve found enjoyable over the years (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Casino Royale), the James Bond series, as a whole, has felt tired, repetitive, even a little boring as of late. No Time to Die was a perfectly serviceable action film, but did it hold a candle to the likes of Casino Royale or The Bourne Identity? Absolutely not. Very rarely has Bond been able to rise up and be the ultimate secret agent like he’s supposed to be, more often getting stomped by other agents, infiltrators, and superheroes. Hell, despite it having a clunky ending, Captain America: The Winter Soldier was a better spy film than easily 85% of what James Bond has managed in his long and storied career across his many faces.

Certainly we’re not alone in feeling like the franchise needed a new creative direction and new hands at the helm to help guide it into the future. The world of James Bond has so much potential, especially if we push past just Bond himself and look at other characters in the world who are fully capable of supporting their own stories (such as the newest 007, Nomi). The production team at EON Productions, as led by Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, have needed a solid reset to find new ideas and new ways to make the franchise fresh again.

So, from one perspective, this change of ownership could lead to good things. The wording of the deal puts Amazon in a partnership with Wilson and Broccoli with Amazon MGM in creative control of the franchise. Presumably that means Amazon backed up a dump truck load of money to pay off Wilson and Broccoli so they could be the sole controllers of the franchise going forward. Wilson and Broccoli have shepherded the franchise across multiple actors and several decades, so the two of them letting go of what has been, effectively, the creative work of their lives is, well, surprising. But it does give Amazon exactly what they wanted.

Bear in mind that No Time to Die came out in 2021 and, since then, there has been no forward progress on getting a new Bond actor cast, no work put in on what the next film will be about. Nothing. Amazon MGM, the studio in charge of producing the James Bond films, has been butting heads with EON Productions over the creative future for the series: who will be the next Bond, what types of works would be produced, if related TV shows could come out. EON (Wilson and Broccoli) shot those ideas down and had been reluctant to commit to any specific actor yet. Four years is a long time for the franchise, and while fans were saying the series needed a break for a time, it’s around now that some new film should be getting up and running, a new launch for the series should be warming up.

All of that should be covered now, of course, Amazon, being solely in charge, will not move forward, full speed ahead, on any and all ideas they have for the franchise moving forward. Presumably this first means getting a new Bond cast. A number of names were batted around as the next actor to play the secret agent, including Josh O'Connor, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Kingsley Ben-Adir, and Sope Dirisu. Some of those seem more likely than others to be frontrunners for the role, but with Amazon in charge now casting could go in a different direction entirely. On that front we’ll have to wait and see what they want to do.

But at the same time we can easily guess what will happen for the franchise. Firstly, expect to hear some kind of announcement for a new movie in the works. Likely it’ll have a release date of 2027 or, more comfortably, 2028, and this will be the start of a new James Bond series. We’d guess they’ll toss all past continuity, like they did for the Daniel Craig era, except they might keep on Ralph Fiennes as M as they did with Dame Judy Dench when they did the switch over to Daniel Craig. We’d even be willing to bet that Amazon immediately announces it as a pre-planned trilogy (even if much planning on parts two and three weren’t yet done). The studio will want to stake their territory and show fans they’re ready for a whole new run. A trilogy feels natural, in Hollywood logic.

Along with that, expect the studio to quickly also announce streaming series to tie into the films. It’s doubtful they’ll put series before movies as the film series is the gold standard for the franchise. They’ll use the films to launch characters, and then take some of those characters and move them into shows to tie into the larger franchise. I’d doubt Bond will get a show, as he has to be saved for the movies, but maybe he’d cameo here or there in other works. Certainly if a character like Nomi comes along and proves popular with fans, expect her to get her on streaming service and then, if that’s successful, maybe her own film franchise.

Amusingly, I think this pretty well spells the death knell for Citadel, Amazon’s attempt at making their own massive espionage thriller franchise. With a reported $300 Mil budget, and headed up by the Russo brothers, Citadel debuted to the complete indifference of audiences and the general scorn of critics. It was supposed to be the start of a massive franchise, with more seasons of the main show along with a number of spin-offs all coming along. So far two of those spin-offs have come out, Citadel: Diana (an Italian-made series) and Citadel: Honey Bunny (Indian-made), and both of these were ignored as well. A second season for the main show was greenlit, and it might even come out still, just to fill time until Amazon can make the James Bond shows they really wanted. Then you can expect Citadel to get a quiet, unannounced death. Why spend money on that non-starter franchise when you have the real deal in your pocket?

Interestingly this might also mean we will start getting James Bond video games again, too. Amazon really wants to be a game studio, even if their previous attempts at it were also met with failure. Meanwhile, the last few approved James Bond games were bad enough that EON pulled the plug on any further game adventures for the superspy. 007 Legends was the last approved game to come out, all the way back in 2012, and nothing else has made it past the development stage as EON has said, simply, “no.” But with the producers no longer in the way, and Amazon in complete control, that could change.

Now sure, these are all guesses at Amazon’s plans, but they feel like reasonable bets all the same. And that’s not to say that the adventures we will get from Amazon will be any good. I’m sure the first new James Bond film will probably be quite watchable, but after that? Well, the Daniel Craig era fell off pretty quickly, as did the Timothy Dalton films, and the Pierce Brosnan films as well. Each descended into goofy, barely watchable adventures, so who knows if Amazon can break that curse. And with their desire to make shows and other works as well, it’s entirely possible they oversaturate the market and make everyone hate the very name James Bond (just how many Star WarsThe modern blockbuster: it's a concept so commonplace now we don't even think about the fact that before the end of the 1970s, this kind of movie -- huge spectacles, big action, massive budgets -- wasn't really made. That all changed, though, with Star Wars, a series of films that were big on spectacle (and even bigger on profits). A hero's journey set against a sci-fi backdrop, nothing like this series had ever really been done before, and then Hollywood was never the same. fans are feeling in the current, Disney-led era). Amazon has to be careful and it’s hard to know, with dollar signs in their eyes, if they’ll manage it.

Still, it’s a new era for James Bond and this has to have some fans excited for what could come next. Whatever it is, we’re sure it’ll be different from what came before because the people that have been guiding the franchise since, effectively, the 1960s are no longer associated with the films creatively. It’s a new era for a new Bond, and we’ll just have to see how it all plays out.