It's not my fault that Jeff Bezos seems typecast to be a James Bond book/movie villain (bullet head, ineffable wealth, extreme ambitions to conquer Earth and outer space).
Recently, however, he has taken his Bondian bent up a notch. Having previously acquired Bondish screen rights through Amazon MGM, Bezos recently ponied up the cash (future movie title: License to Be a Killjoy) to convince siblings Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson [EON Productions] to relinquish their remaining oversight and approval control so "Amazon can do with Bond what they wish," as the Telegraph put it.
The cloak-and-dagger plot twists are worthy of a spy novel.
Amazon was described by the Hollywood Reporter as "the powerful international organization run by a bald-headed billionaire who hangs out in a hollowed-out volcano (well, a yacht, but big diff)."
Back in December, a Wall Street Journal article about the now-resolved stalemate called it a "hostage" situation instigated by the longtime Bond producers and quoted Barbara Broccoli as allegedly describing Amazon to friends as "f**king idiots," GQ noted.
"The ink could hardly have dried on the contract" before Bezos posted on social media: "Who'd you pick as the next Bond?" The Guardian wrote that EON had kept the quest for a new Bond "behind completely closed doors, like a sort of state secret, but Bezos's first act has been to throw the gates open, with an Elon Musk-esque act of quasi-crowdsourcing. It may be just a PR-grabbing gesture, but it demonstrates that Amazon is planning to do things differently from now on."
As a former bookseller and an editor/columnist who focuses on independent bookstores, my reasons for stereotyping Bezos as a Bond villain have instinctively evolved from a long-held grudge, dating back three decades to the creation of his online book sales weapon of mass destruction.
I also have a personal interest in the world of Bond that began in the mid-1960s, when I was reading Ian Fleming's novels in high school. How deep the obsession went can be gleaned from page 52 in our yearbook, where a "Senior Class Prophecy" predicts what the graduating class of 1968 would be doing 50 years hence. The yearbook editorial staff looked into their crystal ball and wrote: "Bob Gray... famed critic of Ian Fleming."
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Joseph Wiseman as Dr. No |
An even more personal connection: My wife's late father, the actor Joseph Wiseman, played Dr. No in the first Bond movie, released in 1962.
Dr. No: [about his aquarium] The glass is convex, 10 inches thick, which accounts for the magnifying effect.
James Bond: Minnows pretending they're whales. Just like you on this island, Dr. No.
Dr. No: It depends, Mr. Bond, on which side of the glass you are.
Now that Bezos has the rights to the James Bond character, the Guardian looked to author William Boyd, who wrote his own official Bond novel, Solo, in 2013, for perspective: "Boyd foresees a succession of 007 spin-off products and entertainments. Perhaps even be new AI-generated novels? 'Certainly wait for Bond aftershave--and for the theme park and the dinner jackets,' he said. 'The new owners will have to commodify everything about their billion-dollar purchase, so there will be nightclubs and vodkas.' "
Boyd does not see the tawdry future as treachery, however, noting that the line had been crossed long ago: "It is too late. The great schism is that the films have nothing to do with the novels. The films are preposterous action movies that have to sell globally and so cannot have too much dialogue." Since the release of Dr. No, the movies "have got further and further away from the stories and the gulf is now so wide, it doesn't really matter."
Appropriately enough, the Bezos/Bond/Broccolis plot threaded its way though this year's Academy Awards ceremony, with Vox reporting on the "delightfully random James Bond tribute (perhaps a eulogy, given its recent Amazon acquisition?) featuring pop stars Lisa, Doja Cat, and Raye with a slightly shaky but amusing medley of Skyfall, Diamonds Are Forever, and Live and Let Die."
And Collider noted that host Conan O'Brien's opening monologue directly addressed Amazon's Bond franchise takeover: "O'Brien joked that Amazon had named their Senior v-p of Global Affairs, Steve Belsky, as the new 007. He also poked fun at Amazon chief Jeff Bezos for supposedly being delivered to the ceremony by a careless delivery man, only for the camera to pan to an empty seat with security footage showing that the Bezos box was actually stolen by a daring thief."
Halle Berry said at the Oscars tribute that Bond evolves, but GQ wrote that "no matter how British he might have been, the James Bond that existed in the 63 years between Dr. No and last month was also, symbolically, a creature of Hollywood, and on some level we will not see that guy again, and it was pretty crazy to see the Oscars poke Big Tech by acknowledging that--in true Oscar fashion, with a big old flashy dance number."
Everything old is new again.
And what would a James Bond plot be without a ticking clock? The Guardian reported that while Amazon may have captured creative control of the super spy for the moment, "a clock is now ticking that means 007--or at least a version of him--could escape into the wider world in a decade's time." The character and plots of Ian Fleming's novels enter public domain in 2035.