The company announced on Wednesday that it would buy the MGM film studio, whose assets include the James Bond movies, for $8.45 billion. But the rights to the long-running franchise are more complicated than they might initially appear. MGM only owns half of Bond.
The other major players in the background of the Bond franchise are the half-siblings Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, who oversee the franchise's creative direction and own Eon Productions and its parent company Danjaq LLC.
The biggest Bond question after the MGM sale is whether Broccoli and Wilson would go along with an expansion of the Bond franchise outside of the main film series, such as a TV spinoff. As long as they're the keepers of the franchise, it won't be as easy as buying MGM for Amazon to capitalize on the prospects of that universe.
In other words, there won't be a Prime Video Bond TV series unless Broccoli and Wilson want it, and they aren't strangers to overruling ideas. The duo once nixed an idea for a "'Smallville'-like television series that would have followed a teenage Bond at Eton," according to Variety.
They haven't entirely ruled out TV, though. Broccoli told Variety that they would be open to expanding the franchise to streaming.
"We make these films for the audiences," Broccoli said. "We like to think that they're going to be seen primarily on the big screen. But having said that, we have to look to the future. Our fans are the ones who dictate how they want to consume their entertainment. I don't think we can rule anything out, because it's the audience that will make those decisions. Not us."
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