CommanderBond.net

MGM To Take Back 007 Distribution From 'Bond 23' On

Variety also clarifies Daniel Craig's new James Bond contract

Is this good news? Bad? I honestly thought Sony did a good job with Casino Royale.


This post has been edited by craigbegins: 5 November 2007 - 13:04

Someone, somewhere, is going to have to explain what has just happened.

I thought Sony taking over MGM was the end of it. So how on earth has Sony just 'sat back' and let MGM walk off with what is obviously a prized possession?

No law suits? No arguments?

Sony stills owns MGM/James Bond but it looks like they're letting MGM have sole distribution of it instead of having a partnership between Sony/Columbia and MGM.

I say Sony and MGM give distribution rights back to the renewed United Artists. Oh wait, that would be giving 007 to Tom Cruise. Nevermind!

Well, this I understand but does Distribution earn anyone any money?

I am thinking yes, so why would Sony let Bond go without an argument? If MGM is still operating as another company, what is Sony's strategy to put Bond under an obvious umbrella other than their own?

Remember, Sony is not THE owner of MGM. They own something like 20-30% of MGM as part of an investment group.

Contractually, MGM was able to re-start their distribution wing after a year with Sony. Sony execs didn't think the guys running MGM would actually fight so hard to keep their company's independence, but they did. The other owners in the investment group liked what MGM did and agreed with it so there isn't anything Sony can do to stop it - it's in the contract!

I like it. I didn't like the way Sony gave us basically a barebones DVD release (compared to the SE's that MGM had put out on EVERY other Bond title), and something always struck me as too corporate about them.

We'll see how this works out, but I think it's a positive move. Sony was more likely to interfere with production of Bond movies than MGM is.

Sony doesn't own MGM outright. Sony was only one of the partners in a group that bought MGM a couple of years ago.

Heck, Sony isn't even the majority partner.

Ok, thanks. didn't know about the 20-30% ownership, nor the year's contract.

As for intefering, it was MGM that gave us Teri Hatcher and Denise Richards. I don't have a problem with Hatcher but that was where the pressure to have her came from.

Interesting about that poll EON ran to test Craig’s global acceptance. Had they ever done something like this before signing the previous Bond actors?

As for the pressure that MGM put on the producers to hire certain stars… it doesn’t seem like that same pressure would have the same effect these days. Pressure is one thing – demands are another. As I understand it, MGM has no actual say in who gets cast and who doesn’t. EON does, and they can let the pressure from MGM affect them as much as they want. (Obviously, 5-8 years ago, that was quite a bit.) I don’t think they’d even entertain requests for casting the likes of those bubblegum Hollywood stars now. They seem to be pretty level headed about where they want to take Bond.

Nevermind who owns what. Bond in 2010, baby!!!

Well I don't think they've ever renegotiated a contract before. I mean they had Craig locked at 3 films (#1 being Royale). They didn't need to renegotiate, but it probably helps them now before he becomes possibly too popular and then demands a far bigger salary. In the past they'd ride out the contract then sign up the actor to play again on a film by film basis. That can be pretty pricey given a popular actor. Polling just reaffirms their decision to lock him in for more films. It's just good business sense.

I guess I'll look forward to not seeing a Columbia logo before the gunbarrel (yes, I'm optimistic that it will be back ).

What's the significance of that year in terms of Bond?

I think, and I hope that this isn't the last that we hear of this. Just look at what happened with CR, MGM was taking forever to do anything with it, letting it get pushed back more and more. It wasn't until Sony came in and said "sit down, and get it done". And one thing that's already got me worried, Remember on DAD and previous films, when the DVD would take like more than six months to be released (I remember seeing DAD in theatres in November and didn't get the DVD till June), but on CR, Sony had the rights and it was out like three months later. That definitly has to be a Sony thing. Plus, I think Fox, who will be handling the DVD, will give us the shaft by giving us a DVD with nothing on it, with a commentary at the very most (I know Sony did that with CR, but at least it has a couple of nice featurettes, just too little of them). I was actually hoping that Sony will take on the Bond series full time. So, I don't think Sony's going to take this sitting down.