If a new company buys the Eon franchise what would they get?
Sadanoyama
Posts: 35MI6 Agent
In terms of Intellectual Property rights, if one of the media giants buys Eon what would they actually get? I'm not talking about the rights to repackage the old movies, branded merch etc, but solid IP elements that they could practically use to make new films.
When Disney bought Star Wars they got a ton of stuff, characters, aliens, ships, light sabres etc. that they immediately set about exploiting. It's fair to say that things haven't worked out so well but that's not for the lack of source IP material.
With Bond however it seems there's very little IP they could flog. We had a brainstorm in the pub last night and came up with the following IP elements:
The James Bond character
M,Q, Moneypenny and Tanner (though none of these are in the Han Solo league)
The James Bond Theme
The Gunbarrel
The 007 logo
SPECTRE and possibly Blofeld again
And that was it. All the other memorable characters are baddies who have been bumped off, Jaws, Le Chiffre, Oddjob, so unless the new company wants to start doing remakes they won't get much else. And Bond doesn't have any unique light sabres, just Walthers, Astons and Martinis: product that could presumably be featured in any film.
Did we miss anything?
Comments
Those are pretty good though, aren't they?
I guess you'd get Felix too.
Good point. Forgot about Felix. Yes they are pretty good IP elements. I enjoyed the way the Craig films reworked Moneypenny, Q etc, it's just that I'd love to see someone do a modern interpretation of Red Grant or Rosa Klebb outside of video games. I find Fleming's villains way more interesting than the Universal Exports staff. Actually, Universal Exports! That's another IP point, although they don't really bother with a cover anymore do they?
Actually, in addition to bumping off Jaws, Le Chiffre and Oddjob, they've also killed off Blofeld, Felix and Bond himself. So in order for the saga to continue at all, they have to bring back the dead anyway (either by remakes or ignoring what has happened) which leaves the door open to bringing back the first three if someone so desired.
In addition to Bond himself (herself?), I think the value lies in the music, the gun barrel, and the 007 logo and it's hard to put a price on them. NSNA was a Bond film, but without the music, the gun barrel and "shaken not stirred' etc, it doesn't quite feel like one so those EON bits are quite integral to the story. Yes, you can merchandise the life out of everything, but that's pretty much happening now any way. I'm not sure that even Disney could merchandise more than they're doing and have recently done.
I agree entirely about the Fleming villains as well.
Jaws is still alive, I'd like to see a film showing what happened after he went straight. and what about Sheriff Pepper?
they were once hyping a potential Jinx spinoff series and think they may also have been thinking about Wai Lin. And Nomi's an obvious spinoff, her old number's once again available
Amazon did buy half the rights to the franchise last year. They paid an obscene amount of money. I forget the legalities, I remember Barbara saying their new corporate overlords wouldn't have any creative input, that she and Michael would still make all decisions.
But at the time we were speculating what Amazon would want to do to exploit their new IP, and the precedent that came up was their then-upcoming Lord of the Rings prequel series, now recently released as Rings of Power.
So did anybody watch Rings of Power, and does it give any clues as to what an Expanded Bond Universe could look like? I gather from reviews it deviated in many small ways from what Tolkien actually wrote, but our Bond films have been doing that all along.
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EDIT: I think I phrased that wrong. Amazon bought out MGM, not half of the rights to the franchise. I'm not sure what MGM's role was (distribution?), but there was some discussion at the time as to what Amazon's new involvement could mean. apologies for confusion
You are right about Jaws, I forgot that!
Amazon did buy half the rights to the franchise last year.
I must admit I didn't realise MGM own half of Bond, I thought EON had the whole thing.
I don't know the legalities, I guess I phrased that wrong. Perhaps someone else could explain what MGM's role was before I confuse the matter any further?
I just remember we had this thread a while back, speculating what effect Amazon's buyout of MGM would have
also this thread "I Wrote James Bond Movies. The Amazon-MGM Deal Gives Me Chills."
As I've said before I'd like to see a henchman with the background and scary personality of the Red Grant of the novel. There Grant is a psycopath and a serial killer who gets recruited by SMERSH because of these "qualities". SMERSH protects and supports Grant so that they can direct his urge to kill towards their enemies. Essentially TV's Dexter working for SPECTRE or some other villanous organisation. I don't want the character to be named Red Grant. I don't need him to be blond, using a wrist watch garotte or drinking the wrong wine. I just want the personality and the symbiotic relationship with the employer. Fleming's idea for the character wasn't fully used in the movie. I hope we get that in the future.
Rings of Power is another sobering example of a Megacorp buying an IP and it going wrong. Amazon bought the rights to a lot of the mythology and mythic backstory of Middle-Earth and then tried to fashion an epic narrative out of it. But none of the characters (Frodo, Gollum) ordinary punters know feature in the show so it feels like a knock-off. And overall ROP hasn't really hit the audience heights that it should have considering it's the most expensive TV show of all time. The Guardian's review was fair I thought:
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/oct/17/now-its-over-lets-come-out-and-say-it-the-rings-of-power-was-a-stinker
We definitely don't want Bond to end up in a similar situation.
And Tolkien even more than Star Wars has massive amounts of unique world-building. That's the problem with Bond: it takes place in a hyper-stylised version of the real world. You can't sell the IP rights to Istanbul or Sardinia.
No I think you're right: EON's own website says that they co-own Bond with MGM.
Harry Saltzman ran into financial difficulties so sold his half share in Bond to MGM…that’s kind of the simplified version 🍸
Actually, if I am not mistaken, Harry Saltzman sold his half of Bond to United Artists in 1975 and United Artists was taken over by MGM around 1981?
Hence why I said the simplified version…as MGM was mentioned not UA 😉
An unused Jinx script! ;)
Danjaq together with MGM own the license to make James Bond movies, which is a considerable pile of IP right there. EON is strictly a production company.