Amazon won’t make a James Bond TV show, Bond producers promise. In May when it was announced that Amazon was set to shell out over $8 billion to purchase MGM and its extensive back catalog, many eyes turned immediately to the James Bond series, the most high-profile IP held by the venerable movie studio.

Speculation indeed began right away that Amazon might shift the oft-delayed No Time to Die over to Amazon Prime and make it the first Bond movie to become an exclusive streaming release. That idea was quickly shot down however and No Time to Die remains on the theatrical release schedule. As for the future of Bond, that seemed very much up in the air even before the Amazon purchase. After Amazon swooped in and added Bond to its stable of IP, many speculated the streamer would try to capitalize on the franchise name with a variety of content, including TV shows alongside future movie releases.

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Amazon however is not the only entity that has a say in the future of Bond. Producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli are still the franchise’s stewards and according to them there will be no Bond TV show on Amazon. When asked about this by Total Film (via Games Radar), Broccoli said flat out, "We make films. We make films for the cinema. That’s what we do."

The title screen for James Bond Jr

The Bond franchise has of course ventured to TV screens a few times in the past with mostly less-than-memorable results. There were several Bond adaptations for television in the 1950s, including a version of Casino Royale made for the American anthology series Climax!. And in the early ‘90s there was a syndicated animated show called James Bond Jr. about Bond’s budding secret agent nephew. Of course, Bond has also been adapted in comic book and video game form, and indeed the N64 title Goldeneye remains a classic.

That Broccoli would so tersely shut down conversation about a new effort at bringing Bond to the small screen emphasizes how committed the franchise’s caretakers are to keeping Bond exclusively on the big screen. However, Amazon and its deep pockets now have a say in matters too, and it’s yet to be seen how much influence they ultimately will have on future Bond decisions. The Bond purist certainly would applaud the announcement that 007 won’t be getting a TV show any time soon. But of course it’s impossible to say how things will develop down the road. If No Time to Die were to flop at the box office, a reassessment of how best to steer the franchise might be in order. No doubt Amazon would love to begin spinning off James Bond shows right and left (beginning with a new version of cult favorite James Bond Jr.), given the amount of money they paid to snatch up all the MGM titles. Not content-mining the Bond franchise would on the other hand earn Amazon a lot of goodwill with movie fans – if the goodwill of movie fans even means anything to the powers-that-be within the company.

More: Every James Bond Movie Tradition & Rule No Time To Die Is Breaking

Source: Total Film (via Games Radar)

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