The major Hollywood studios understand that the intellectual property that really counts in this business is the franchise. Universal has Fast and Furious, 20th Century Fox has Marvel, Warner Brothers has DC and up until now, Sony has enjoyed the fruits of James Bond. But that could be about to change.
EON and MGM share the rights to the series and Sony Pictures have had the distributing duties that opened up the international market since 2006. As long as Daniel Craig has had his license to kill with Casino Royale, Sony has been in the picture but following the 2015 release of Spectre, that deal has elapsed and all of a sudden, the competitors have come out with their chequebook in hand ready to strike a new deal.
True Bond Value Questioned In Latest Report
While the clammer is a healthy situation for MGM and EON to get a better deal, The New York Times intimate that the terms will have to be improved for whoever wins out in the bidding process. Funnelling money into different projects and cutting a bigger slice of the pie away than they would have wanted, the new stakeholder will be arguing for more control and revenue.
“Under its previous agreement, Sony paid 50 percent of the production costs for Spectre — which totaled some $250m after accounting for government incentives — but only received 25 percent of certain profits, once costs were recouped," the publication stated. "Sony also shouldered tens of millions of dollars in marketing and had to give MGM a piece of the profit from non-Bond films Sony had in its own pipeline, including 22 Jump Street.”
Norton: Keep Daniel Craig, For Now
The never ending soap opera that has been the casting of James Bond has taken many twists and turns. From Tom Hiddleston to Idris Elba, Aidan Turner, Tom Hardy and Damian Lewis - all of these actors have been teased with a new interpretation until Daniel Craig seemingly performed a 180 on all of them.
One source claimed that the Kong: Skull Island and Thor: Ragnarok star was never in contention to begin with.
"Barbara Broccoli doesn't like Tom Hiddleston," they remarked. "He's a bit too smug and not tough enough to play James Bond."
Following on from his success on stage with Othello, Craig might have found his love for the craft again. With this news filtering through to the other candidates, one of them in James Norton went as far as to campaign for his return.
"It's difficult, it's lovely to be part of that whole conversation because it's big and a lot of people pay a lot of attention to it but I'm a great fan of Daniel Craig and selfishly hope he makes two or three more films."
Sure you do James.
Source: Collider, Anchorage Press
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