Latest / The Front / Amazon’s billion-dollar James Bond gamble starts with a video game

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Amazon’s billion-dollar James Bond gamble starts with a video game · The Front

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  Speaker 1: I can't wait to interview you next time and find
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  Speaker 1: out what else you've got under that house of yours.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: That's right, I've got to get on zo youbot.
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  Speaker 1: From The Australian. This is the weekend edition of The Front.
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  Speaker 1: I'm Claire Harvey. If you've ever imagined being James Bond,
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  Speaker 1: and let's be honest, haven't we all, now's your chance.
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  Speaker 1: A new video game, Double O seven First Light is
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  Speaker 1: out now and you can be the young spy as
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  Speaker 1: he rises through MI six earning his license to kill.
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  Speaker 1: The game is the first hint of what we can
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  Speaker 1: expect in the James Bond universe under its new owners,
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  Speaker 1: Amazon MGM Studios. Bond last hit the big screen in
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  Speaker 1: twenty twenty One's no time to die. But now Daniel
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  Speaker 1: Craig's hung up the tight suits, and that's left the
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  Speaker 1: super fans worrying about what Jeff Bezos will dream up.
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  Speaker 1: Amazon's hired a film director, Denis Villeneuve of Dune and
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  Speaker 1: reportedly begun auditions, but we still don't know who'll play
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  Speaker 1: Bond on the big screen or what else Amazon has planned. Luckily,
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  Speaker 1: we have a Bond super fan on staff. Technology editor
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  Speaker 1: Jared Lynch and he's here in just a moment. We've
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  Speaker 1: been through so many iterations of Bond. My favorite is
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  Speaker 1: the twenty fifteen film Specter with Daniel Craig.
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  Speaker 2: Where Are You Going Hold Me?
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  Speaker 1: That opening A Day of the Dead parade is so
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  Speaker 1: evocative and cool, I reckon and fantastic action sequence.
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  Speaker 2: What's your favorite Bond moment?
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  Speaker 3: I'm actually a little bit more kitch than you. I
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  Speaker 3: want to go back to Roger Moore, the Spy who
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  Speaker 3: Love Me.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, I'll put our best man one of them.
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  Speaker 3: When he's on the slopes of Sweet and he's going
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  Speaker 3: down there with that sort of like pop since soundtrack,
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  Speaker 3: and then he goes over a cliff jem I Need You,
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  Speaker 3: and then the parachute comes up and there's the Union
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  Speaker 3: Jack and then the Bond theme.
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  Speaker 2: Starts up again. I mean, it doesn't get any better
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  Speaker 2: than that, surely not.
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  Speaker 1: Have you ever played one of the James Bond video
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  Speaker 1: games that's been out there in the world up till now.
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  Speaker 3: I have, and it was coming up thirty years ago
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  Speaker 3: or twenty nine years ago, which was Golden Eye on
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  Speaker 3: the Nintendo sixty four. It came out in nineteen ninety seven,
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  Speaker 3: sold millions of copies, and that was my peak video
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  Speaker 3: game experience. I have not played anything since that. And
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  Speaker 3: I think it was a Pokemon issued Nintendo sixty four,
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  Speaker 3: which I had not because I was into Pokemon, but
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  Speaker 3: because it was out there for cheap.
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  Speaker 2: So that sort of shows what I was like in
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  Speaker 2: the mid nineties.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm learning a lot about you. You are a
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  Speaker 1: cheap skate in the mid nineteen nineties, and you're also
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  Speaker 1: a hoarder. Clearly, why have you not thrown this away?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I crawled under the house. I've got a future
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  Speaker 3: that I got dirty. I had to find this box
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  Speaker 3: of Nintendo sixty four things, and it's probably worth a
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  Speaker 3: fair bit of money now because this is like vintage,
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  Speaker 3: since it original box, I probably should go on eBay
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  Speaker 3: and sell it.
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  Speaker 1: There's a fine line between horder and collector, definitely. And
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  Speaker 1: we're talking today because there's a new James Bond video
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  Speaker 1: game coming out. It's no doubt going to take over
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  Speaker 1: the world very shortly. It looks really exciting. We meet
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  Speaker 1: James Bond when he's twenty six and but presumably just
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  Speaker 1: starting out in the spy program. What's the story of
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  Speaker 1: the game.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, they're pitching it as like this is the first
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  Speaker 3: time you're able to see Bond rise up through the ranks.
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  Speaker 3: And Ian Fleming in his books, which again, if you're
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  Speaker 3: going to have a crack at me for being a hoarder,
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  Speaker 3: here's nineteen sixties pan paperback editions that were written by
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  Speaker 3: Ian Fleming. Their Ridgie ditch at the cover work on
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  Speaker 3: them is just amazing. You don't really do that much anymore, brilliant,
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  Speaker 3: beautiful and Ian Fleming gave snippets off the backstory, particularly
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  Speaker 3: in some of the short stories, but we've never had
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  Speaker 3: a real dedicated feature that's sort of saying where did
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  Speaker 3: Bond come from?
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  Speaker 2: Bond is immature and reckless.
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  Speaker 1: He's a bad influence on the other recruits, who inexplicably
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  Speaker 1: fall victim to his charm.
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  Speaker 2: Look, I know where this is going. Do you mind
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  Speaker 2: telling me why I'm here?
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  Speaker 1: I would like you to join His Majesty's secret service.
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  Speaker 3: You won. So it's tracing James Bond, how he became
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  Speaker 3: a blunt, instrument, unrefined spy to be and the tuxedo wearing,
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  Speaker 3: martini swirling, suave spy that we know today.
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  Speaker 2: The name's Bond Games Bond.
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  Speaker 1: It is so camp and so Kitch and so joyfully
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  Speaker 1: politically incorrect those early books in the early movies, and
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  Speaker 1: they really.
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  Speaker 2: Played up to all of that.
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  Speaker 1: It got a lot darker, of course, with Daniel Craig
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  Speaker 1: and then the longtime producers of the Bond franchise, the
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  Speaker 1: Broccoli family, took a massive break and we haven't seen
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  Speaker 1: any movie since. In the meantime, there's been a change
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  Speaker 1: of ownership.
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  Speaker 3: Who is in.
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  Speaker 2: Charge of Bond now?
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  Speaker 1: And when are we going to see another movie?
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  Speaker 3: Do you think ultimately Jeff Bezos is in charge of Bond.
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  Speaker 3: He didn't get along with Barbara Broccoli, who was Cubby
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  Speaker 3: Broccoly's daughter. The casting process has already began now. There
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  Speaker 3: was lots of speculation about who the next Bond may be,
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  Speaker 3: even Jacob A Laude Australian, although I've read an unkind
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  Speaker 3: review saying he can't be Bond because it looked like
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  Speaker 3: a wound at giraffe given how tall and slimmy is
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  Speaker 3: doing those action sequence that.
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  Speaker 2: Amazon likes to play it safe. They're a big tech company.
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  Speaker 3: They love formulas, and we've seen that formula play out
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  Speaker 3: in the footage that's available with Double seven First Light.
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  Speaker 1: It's really quite simple.
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  Speaker 3: Bond is a bullet without a target. Let's give him one.
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  Speaker 3: In that landa Delray theme song where seeing the typical
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  Speaker 3: brassy strings, etc. We're seeing those exotic locations, we're actually
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  Speaker 3: seeing the gadgets, but more than that, we're actually seeing
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  Speaker 3: a return to more Ian Fleming's origins, particularly with the
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  Speaker 3: facial scar that you see in those initial stills of
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  Speaker 3: Patrick Gibson, who is the thirty one year old Irish
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  Speaker 3: actor who is playing Bond. So it's no doubt this
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  Speaker 3: is a calculator play from Amazon to capture a younger audience,
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  Speaker 3: going for a younger actor, going for that origin story,
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  Speaker 3: removing all that camp that Roger Moore did so wonderfully,
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  Speaker 3: And Daniel Craig said, the reason why it went so
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  Speaker 3: dark is he blamed Mike Myers and Austin Powers, saying
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  Speaker 3: we can't go back to those days because even with
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  Speaker 3: Peters brosn and we can't take it seriously because that's
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  Speaker 3: what Austin Powers did so marvelously well with that tongue
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  Speaker 3: in cheek. My One True love is a brom BoNT ululum.
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  Speaker 3: Where'd it tick?
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  Speaker 2: That means I'm single again?
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  Speaker 3: That you just can't go back to what this Bond
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  Speaker 3: was in the sixties, seventies, even nineties. So that's why
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  Speaker 3: Amazon is hitting the reset button.
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  Speaker 1: No Time to Die was the last Bond film that
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  Speaker 1: came out in twenty twenty one and gave me kind
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  Speaker 1: of hope that maybe there was an idea that Lashana Lynch,
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  Speaker 1: who was playing another spy, was going to be the
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  Speaker 1: next Bond. She was going to take over the franchise
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  Speaker 1: and it would be about a woman. Now, by the way,
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  Speaker 1: I'm not just any old double ow I'm double oh seven.
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  Speaker 2: You probably thought they'd retire it. It's just a number.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, that didn't happen for whatever reason, and it's now
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  Speaker 1: a cliche to talk about who is going to be
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  Speaker 1: the next Bond. I remember them talking about Idris Elba
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  Speaker 1: when he first emerged in the Wire, that he could
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  Speaker 1: be the next Bond. Of course that hasn't happened, and
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  Speaker 1: Indrice Elber would now be pushing sixties, so.
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  Speaker 3: It's too late.
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  Speaker 1: The Irish actor who you mentioned he is in the
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  Speaker 1: video game, is he a candidate to be the next
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  Speaker 1: Bond when we do see it come back to the
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  Speaker 1: big screen.
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  Speaker 3: Amazon's that pains to point out that the video game
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  Speaker 3: and the upcoming feature film are very separate. But that said,
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  Speaker 3: they like to have some sort of synergy. I think
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  Speaker 3: it's unlikely that we're going to see Patrick Gibson in
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  Speaker 3: that role. But when you look at Patrick, he's in
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  Speaker 3: some way similar to Daniel Craig in that when he
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  Speaker 3: was cast there was a bit of an outcry because
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  Speaker 3: he didn't fit the particular James Bond mold. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: he was blonde, but there was a particular Bond mold
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  Speaker 3: which was had to be over six foot. Now, the
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  Speaker 3: closer you were to six three, the better dark hair
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  Speaker 3: and off.
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  Speaker 2: That particular build.
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  Speaker 3: And Daniel Craig was not any of those, and he
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  Speaker 3: proved to be one of the more successful Bonds. Just
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  Speaker 3: look at his tenure. So anything is possible. But bear
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  Speaker 3: in mind back then it was the Broccoli family who
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  Speaker 3: were controlling it. Now we have Amazon, and as I
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  Speaker 3: mentioned before, they love their formulas. They want a sure bet,
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  Speaker 3: they want to capture a young, digitally savvy audience, because
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  Speaker 3: that's why Amazon is in the movie business, because they
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  Speaker 3: need original titles for their prime video streaming service which
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  Speaker 3: they can feedback into their ecosystem and to give you
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  Speaker 3: an example. I mean, James Bond has always been good
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  Speaker 3: for product placement, I mean shamelessly so even Ian Fleming.
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  Speaker 3: I mean that was part of his literary style. And Amazon,
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  Speaker 3: they're in the online shopping business, and interestingly, now they've
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  Speaker 3: introduced a new feature that you can be watching something
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  Speaker 3: on Amazon Prime, pull out your phone, take a picture
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  Speaker 3: of it, saying, oh, I like those shoes that such
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  Speaker 3: and such as wearing all whatever, or I like that
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  Speaker 3: particular Martini glass that James Bond is swinging back, and
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  Speaker 3: then you can find something very similar on Amazon's online
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  Speaker 3: shopping website. So that just shows you how the cross
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  Speaker 3: pollination and keeping customers sticky and what Amazon's big market
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  Speaker 3: players here. So they're not going to do anything that's
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  Speaker 3: going to rock the boat. I don't think they're going
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  Speaker 3: to stick to something that's proven and will get as
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  Speaker 3: many eyeballs as possible because they're there to make money.
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  Speaker 1: Like all of these well known franchises, there's a group
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  Speaker 1: of people who take it all very very seriously, which
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  Speaker 1: always seems to me a bit funny about Bond because,
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  Speaker 1: as you say, it has always had such a commercial sensibility.
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  Speaker 1: They've kind of been comedies since the beginning that they've
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  Speaker 1: become a lot darker over time and a lot more
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  Speaker 1: sort of serious and artistic. And they've been hiring directors
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  Speaker 1: who I think would consider themselves to be much more
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  Speaker 1: artsy than perhaps the initial as you say, Roger Moore
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  Speaker 1: Movies might have suggested, What do you think about that?
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  Speaker 1: Does it spoil the franchise to have it be shoppable?
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  Speaker 3: Not at all, because actually, if you read I'm Another hoarder,
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  Speaker 3: he is a book of Ian Flemen's letters, the actual
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  Speaker 3: Bond creator. He wrote an essay called how to Write
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  Speaker 3: a Thriller back in the sixties, and he said, if
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  Speaker 3: you choose to write, and you choose to write for money,
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  Speaker 3: the only way he can say, really is you must
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  Speaker 3: shamelessly right for money. And Ian Fleming was shameless like
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  Speaker 3: when he came up with James Bond in the fifties.
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  Speaker 3: He shopped it around like crazy from the get go.
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  Speaker 3: He wanted to have film rights. Before Doctor No appeared
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  Speaker 3: in nineteen sixty two, there had been a TV series,
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  Speaker 3: there had been I think a radio play. He was
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  Speaker 3: writing letters to left right and Senator anyone he could
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  Speaker 3: get to get as many eyeballs on his creation as possible.
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  Speaker 3: So I think he would actually be delight that Amazon
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  Speaker 3: is taking his creation to the modern era, because there's
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  Speaker 3: always been that commercial shamelessly so sensibility.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, he had been himself an intelligence officer, but I
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  Speaker 1: think perhaps glamorized his actual spying activities in the character
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  Speaker 1: of Bond much more than they were actually in real life.
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  Speaker 1: He made it all seem a little more glamorous than
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  Speaker 1: it had been for him.
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  Speaker 3: Certainly didn't he Oh, I definitely sprinkled a bit of
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  Speaker 3: MAO on it. But the thing about Bond which made
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  Speaker 3: it so ground breaking when the first novel, Casino Royal
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  Speaker 3: was pub is it was grounded in reality. So sure
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  Speaker 3: he fictionalized it, but everything he had in those early
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  Speaker 3: novels had a kernel of truth because in that essay
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  Speaker 3: that he wrote, he goes, if you're going to write
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  Speaker 3: about thrilling things, then you must have experienced thrilling things.
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  Speaker 2: So it was off that ilk.
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  Speaker 3: So why he might have been prone to exaggeration, it
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  Speaker 3: came from a place to truth.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. Amazing, amazing story and an incredible franchise. I can't
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  Speaker 1: wait for more, and I personally am all for Amazon
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  Speaker 1: making as much money as they possibly can. That's the
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  Speaker 1: only way to keep it alive, really, isn't it.
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  Speaker 2: Definitely? And Albert R.
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  Speaker 3: Broccoli, Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman they weren't benevolent producers.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, the reason why they bought the film rights
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  Speaker 3: way back when is because James Bond really exploded in
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  Speaker 3: popularity when JFK put From Russia with Love on his
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  Speaker 3: reading list. But that was what the producers were thinking
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  Speaker 3: way back then. It was how can we make money
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  Speaker 3: off these things? It wasn't like the ab SEE being
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  Speaker 3: benevolent and saying, oh, we're going to make this drama
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  Speaker 3: that people can be intellectual over. No, it was we
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  Speaker 3: want people to go into those theaters and print a
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  Speaker 3: lot of money as possible.
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  Speaker 1: Well, Jared, I can't wait to play the game, and
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  Speaker 1: I can't wait to interview you next time and find
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  Speaker 1: out what else you've got under that house of yours.
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  Speaker 2: I really do need to get a skip out of
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  Speaker 2: the front. It's no, don't.
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  Speaker 1: I think it's all becoming very valuable.
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  Speaker 2: That's right. I've got to get on to you. Thanks, Jared,
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  Speaker 2: no worries.
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  Speaker 1: Jared Lynch is The Australian's Technology editor. This episode of
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  Speaker 1: the Front was hosted by me Claire Harvey, produced by
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  Speaker 1: Kristin Amiott, and edited by the lead Samma Glue. Thanks
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  Speaker 1: for joining us on the Front this week. Our team
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  Speaker 1: also includes Tiffany Dimak, Joshua Burton, and Jasper League, who
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  Speaker 1: also composed our theme