James Bonding - Amazon Deal Discussed!

Episode Date: March 17, 2025

Okay, let's come to terms with this? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Matt and Matt and James Bonding Podcast. Myra, Goreley, Gorely, Marla, James Bonding podcast, it's the James Bonding podcast, it's the James Bonding podcast, it's the James Bonding podcast, it's the James Bonding podcast, it's the James Bonding podcast with Matthews Myra and Goreley, Matthews Gourley and Myra. It's really been too long. I faded that out manually. It was a very quick fate. Not long after No Time to Die came out is the last time we recorded something? Wow.

Is that right? That is accurate. Yeah, much like the Bond franchise, we go into hibernation every couple of years, you know. And it's only one. And it seems to coincide. Yeah. The cicadas of. Something pokes us, and it's like, oh, yeah, let's do that.

Sadly, the thing that's poked us this time has been the internet reacting to Amazon being the coolest bond villain of all time. Are you talking about the company or the owner? You know, it's really, it's either or the beauty of it is he fits the part. He's already bald. He already builds rockets. He already dresses like he's a henchman. So like he's everything in one. It's like Amazon itself.

Yeah. Just think that this whole thing, imagine in the mid-90s when you were buying only books from Amazon, you didn't even know who was running this company and to one day think they will own our beloved James Bond property for better or for worse. And I know most people are saying worse. And I am here to provide a not much differing opinion. I don't know. We'll talk about the nuances and stuff like that. I am going to try to remain a little bit hopeful.

You know, there will be some things that probably will benefit from this, like frequency, whether that's going to end up being quantity over quality, we will find out. But I think we'll certainly get a bond film this way than we were the other way for whatever that's worth. I don't know. I'm just really trying to not only grasp at straws, but see the silver lining, I guess. It does feel like the kind of thing where you're just, you've been hungry for a while,

and suddenly you've found a buffet, but it's like a golden corral. And you're like, I've been hungry, but I don't, this is not good food, but. How many high quality buffets do you know of, Matt? Well, you're asking them. I can't think of any gourmet buffets. Maybe there's some Vegas ones, but those are usually the shitty ones, right?

There's, look, there's a couple in Vegas I like to stop at. I think Bacchanal at Caesars is great. If you want to mix everything in one spot, that's your place. It's called Bacchanol? It's called Bacchanol. Which is the Roman term for a sex orgy, basically? Essentially, it's in your mouth. Yes.

Yes, okay. Well, we should first of all say that I'm Matt Gourley and you're Matt Myra. That is true. I am. It's good to be back. It's good to, uh, you know, honestly, the last time we recorded, Matt, I thought, oh, the next time we record, it's going to be like some concrete casting news or maybe even a teaser trailer.

Just, oh my God, just because that's how long it would take us to get our ducks in a row to record. It's not even our ducks. It's more like the franchise's ducks, which to the point, honestly, I think, I mean, this is a larger issue. in general. If you look at the frequency of James Bond movies we were getting once Cubby

passed the every other year thing stayed for what six years so like we had GoldenEye 95 97

Tomorrow Never Dies 99 World is not enough 2002 so they were at three years slipping a little right then we have

to wait a full three years to 2005 for Casino Royale. Oh, four years. Four years. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So Casino Royale, they do the reboot. And then I don't know if it was Daniel Craig's knee or if it was just the way things get made now. They were taking longer and longer.

Well, they got Quantum of Solis out in two years. It was Skyfall. With the writer's strike. Yeah. With the writer's strike. They still got out in two years. And then Skyfall, I think, went through a lot of script issues and director stuff. And then same with Spector and No Time to Die.

You know, time to die. I still, by the way, haven't seen it since the theater. Really? Yeah. And why is that? You're afraid to get hurt? Yeah, I don't. Why would I go back to the lover that's disappointing me?

Do you understand what I'm saying here? I'm able to somewhat divorce myself. from this, and maybe it's out of self-preservation. I don't know. It's the same kind of thinking of, you know, in Craig's tenure and really Barbara Broccoli's tenure, I think, where she had such a creative umbrella over that, we got a mixed bag. I wouldn't say of, like, they were really curating and I think really treasuring what they had with Daniel Craig. There were circumstances is beyond their control, and there were a lot of issues that made a couple of the films less than ideal. But on the whole, we got what we probably both agree is the best Bond film Casino Royale,

and then one of the most fun, if not one of the all-time greats, Skyfall. Tomorrow never dies, right? Yeah. And you and I, I think, both appreciate Quantum. No, I won't. I won't accept that. Quantum as a dark horse favorite, leaving Spector, you know, behind, and time will tell with no time to die. have not revisited it. I have. I think it's still in the middle there. But what's interesting is that prior to this thing we're going to talk about with Amazon, the only news we had was that Barbara Broccoli was fighting the power and protecting the brand. And then took what is reported to be a billion dollars to give over. This is the most amazing part that I think a lot of people,

I know bond fans know this, but a lot of casual people reading this don't fully understand. Like when I talk to people, like my family always asked me about this stuff. Yeah. That they got a billion dollars for the intellectual property. They sold the intellectual property, meaning the creative control. They will still share, and I believe, half of all the earnings of the bond franchise in perpetuity. So when people say like, well, what happened to Greg Wilson, Michael G. Wilson's son? wasn't he going to take over and all this stuff.

I wonder if they just went to him and went, do you want to deal with this thing and these people? Or do you want to have 50% of all of James Bond for the rest of your life and all of your descendants? I don't know. I'm sure other people will share in it. But the point, you could understand where they're so frustrated. And then there's this reporting that comes out too where Bezos said,

like, I don't care how much money it takes. Right. Get rid of her. Get rid of her. That was such a bond villain line. Oh my God. See that some harm comes to her. It's a moonraker.

It's crazy. It wasn't stated whether or not he was petting a cat when he said it, but I think there's a high probability there was a cat nearby. Oh my God. It's incredible. It's really turned into a situation where we've been dealing with sort of franchise glut over the last 20 years. or so. For sure.

And that's, you know, and that, a lot of that has to do with the, I would say, I mean, I wouldn't say it's entirely streaming's fault, but it's not not streaming's fault. Yeah, and Bond has been able to avoid that due to, I think, all of these complications, but more so because of broccoli, always wanting to keep this a rarefied cinematic experience. And to their credit, they, they managed to do that. Like it is, it has been, if you look at all of the spinoffs of all of the various franchises, going back to even like the early Marvel shorts they did. I don't know if you remember those, but they released like some shorts.

And then like early on in the run of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, they had Agent Carter on ABC. Right. Like there was this whole like expansion of the property. And even with Star Wars, when it was under Lucasfilm, they had you know they had the cartoons they had clone wars

they had you know a bajillion books a bazillion comics iwax and droids the cartoon equivalent to james bond junior iwax and droids

is quite possibly the most underrated cartoon i've ever seen in my life i gotta go check those out again as well as the ewalk movies the iwok movies are the most terrifying movies of everything The bad guy.

Not terrible? No, no. The bad guy in the EWalk movie who looks like a cross between like skeletor and shredder. Like that's right. I had so many nightmares because where I grew up, our backyard sort of like it was backyard. We had like a garage in the back. And then it like turned into woods. And it was like a wooded area.

And I would always. imagine it being Endor as you do. Sorry, the moon of Endor, the forest moon of Endor. Don't write in, guys. And I had a bunch of nightmares as a kid about that bad guy from the EWalk movie coming after me, like coming through those woods. So I, you know, personally, that movie can go to hell. I don't care for it.

All right. Well, I side with you then. Thank you. Thank you, man. I appreciate it. But yeah, so the idea of Bond coming to Amazon, I remember the stories early on when they purchased MGM, it was like, oh, now there's going to be a James Bond Money Penny TV show and so on and so forth. And it's hilarious to me. The only thing they got off the ground was the Brian Cox hosted Amazon game show.

Well, don't look at gift horse in the mouth because there's a second season coming. Oh, no way. Is there really? Apparently that was in the works pre-Amazon deal or something. So I don't think that's representative of what this will be. I think it is more likely that we're going to see MoneyPenny Q, M spin-offs and TV shows. You know, I have to say, it's not going to be, to me, the death now if they start doing those. Because it's like I still appreciate the original three Star Wars movies after.

all of this, you know, varying degrees of quality streaming stuff has come over. It doesn't, it doesn't detract from me. So, first of all, we'll still have the original 25. And if they're able to kind of do all this other ancillary content, but still make these like cinematic ventures, these just one-time movies or, you know, if they're episodic or continuing, I don't know. but if they keep those quality, then not a lot has been lost. And we might, on the silver lining side, see some more autours come in with actual creative

control. You know, there is a lot of talk about a Nolan doing it. I don't know if Tarantino is going to waste his last film on a Bond movie, his reportedly last film. But what if you did really get someone that could come in and truly do an autortship you know, production. I don't know. Here's a radical thought.

I think autorship and the James Bond franchise do not mesh well. Yeah. I mean, what's the best case scenario of that? Is it Skyfall? Yes, it is Skyfall. But that was very much on the rails of Broccoli and Wilson. You know, that was very much like, let's, let's thread this needle.

Here's where the, here's where the hole of the needle is. Let's go right there. And he did. And he did it with his own San Mendez style. And the, you know, the deacons cinematography is all wonderful and beautiful.

But I think what I, the fun of James Bond has always been the spectacle. And I think that it has always been a spectacle in the truest sense of the word, meaning it was spectacular. The thing that you were going. going to see was unlike anything else you were seeing in movie theaters or to actually I think more accurately it was a lot like the popular things you were seeing in movies right but done in a in a grander way you know done with you know the live stunts the the the the sheer luxury of the

character. The Amazon world to me does not, I can't quite compute like what watch will he have? Does that deal? Talking about doing this that Heat Bond would be dressed in all Amazon basics.

I mean, well, does it feel like that's what would happen? They can't. I mean, that luxury and class is, that's just synonymous with Bond. If they do that, then it's 100% over. My concern, more than spin-offs and anything,

is metric and algorithm-driven content. So Amazon seems to be their big things they're putting out, like red one and stuff like that, seem not only written by algorithm, but actually made for an algorithm to watch just to entertain, like, the future AI. Because it is, I'm sorry, I, you know, Amanda and I used to watch during the quarantine, we wanted something just so digestible

so we would watch Bosch, the kind of neo-neurr based on the movies. And that was a divorce dad's best friend. That's the Bosch series. I mean, it's incredible. I mean, it just hits a sweet spot, but it was still made by humans. It was a little silly. And then they put out Cross recently, which is just based on an unsubstable. series of like dad noir.

Yeah. We thought, oh, we'll give that a chance. And we turned it off no joke within 90 seconds because it was so obvious how much it was written to hook you. And it felt like right out of the gates, we were watching reshoots that people weren't even in the same room, even though they were outside. Oh, no. It was abysmal.

And we, even for, like, you give middling kind of genre stuff a pretty, you know, easy pass. This was unwatchable. That's actually surprising because those billboards, I will say, those billboards appealed to me. I was like, oh, Washington, D.C. detective. Like, this feels good. I love that actor was, that actor was in a Star Trek short, and I thought he was incredibly charismatic.

And, like, because he does his whole short that he's in, it's just him alone on a ship, interacting with an AI. But he was compelling enough to just like to enjoy. It does. Well, like Red One, which I call Redone, which if you look at the title,

it is, it is such a, it's one of the movies that would have been advertised in the blockbuster they go to in Last Action Hero. Right. Where Sylvester Stallone is the Terminator. and it's just like

who made this and also I put beekeeper in that as well because that also seemed like a fake movie but it came out I think the Amazon if you look back to streaming services doing original content the thing that pops to mind

is Netflix early on they were like wow David Fincher movies do great oh my God all these Kevin Spacey movies are getting streamed and rented a lot what if we put them together and they may House of Cards. And I think the success of that sort of really opened the floodgates of not just reading

the algorithm and going like, like, what are people liking, but like, let's cater, let's try to cater something to that. Never accounting for the fact that it was Fincher and Bo Willemann. Yes. The human creativity side of that, that was making that successful, you know. Well, they wanted to do it cheaper, right? You can't pay an Autour to do it cheaply. You have to, you have to do what you can to spit out what you think people are going to.

The sheer fact that like, I mean, for a while, this is more like two to two years ago to four years ago. You know, I talked to my manager, I talked to my agent, I talked to everybody, other writers around town and you'd hear the same thing. And it was that Netflix was looking for things like the new girl. it's just like why that Fox comedy from 10 years ago I mean

besides Steve Agey and his wonderfully charismatic self what was it and my wife that's true that's true by the way

I never watched it but I'm sure those two things are what kept it going on Amazon but it was it was incredibly it was but it was like so popular

and it was streamed X amount of minutes and so on and so forth. And that's the other thing that's sad too about the streaming services and the algorithms. I've had friends who have had shows that have come out on Netflix and they get a writer's room together for the second season and then the call comes in from Netflix where they looked at the streaming minutes over the first week

and they're like, we're not going to do a second season. They don't let anything catch, which I think is a detriment to not only the industry as a whole, but like all these things that keep doing well on Amazon, like suits. Now there's a suits Los Angeles because suits was so popular on Netflix the last couple of years. But it's because there was 150 episodes. It's crazy.

And the biggest thing that I kind of mourn in this is that, to my knowledge, this is the last giant, a piece of intellectual property that was controlled by like a private family that had stewardship over it. They cared. I mean, I think they cared. I thought they did.

I get it. I mean, a billion dollars is a lot of money. And to me, it's probably less the money that they really seem to want to be done with having to deal with this. And I can see also with like fan culture, too. There's just so much,

if they're ever peering under the hood of Reddit or something. Nothing's appreciated, you know, and you can't please everyone. Plus, also, the world is so polarized now, too, that all of these politics come into it. Yeah. And I can see where they just are like, it's the time is done for us. It's just sad. I think also that I always knew that Craig, that era was my favorite. You know, I love the classics too, obviously, but that Phil Nobiel Jr. has said this very wisely that the next.

next bond will be younger than us, where prior to this, they have always been older. And so it won't, in a sense, be our bonds. And that's okay, too, because you have to, it has to like turn over. It has to evolve. And so the next bond will be a little, would have been a little less recognizable to us anyway. Right. And that's, that's fine. That's the way it should be. I think they've always had these fallow periods, you know, the Brosnan era isn't necessarily my favorite, but it had to go through that to get to the Craig era. And what we may see is maybe the most fallow period ever, even if it becomes hugely successful for us. But at some point, it's going to have to change again and again and again and again. And there will be, before our time is up on this earth,

we will probably like a bond film again, I think. Oh, I don't doubt that. I don't doubt that, man. I think I'm not saying that this is so clearly going to be a failure. I'm not saying that at all. And I do hope, I do hope that it's going to be, I mean, I honestly, part of me is excited for finally getting some more James Bond content. And part of me is also excited for seeing what the new Bond is going to be like. But, you know, and who's, you know, and who's, Who's going to do the song and so on and so forth? All the things that we love about the franchise, seeing what those things will become. But that said, I think the idea, I mean, you have to look at it. There's two ways to look at it. You think, oh, no, it's a big company.

They're only concerned with making money. Well, that's all anybody who was making a movie was concerned with was making the most money. And getting. Clearly, Broccoli and Wilson a little bit too at this point. But to that, but like I, for Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, like, after Michael G. Wilson announced he was retiring, she's, I assume, and this is, I don't know anything, but like just person to person, I'd be like, well, fuck, I don't want to do this by myself. I don't, like, I don't want to fight at the gates to keep the Amazon creative out by myself. So someone brought up, too, why didn't they just hand the reins over on their side to a new steward? that they cared about, that they could just take a silent partner backseat and bring in someone, namely me or you, who could fight for the quality of it.

That's us, man. That's us. Because we know how to go up against the biggest behemoth, corporate behemoth there is. Oh, we can take an Amazon return and do it seamlessly. So obviously. I can, man. Let me tell you. I'm at that Whole Foods return counter all the time.

You can go to Staples also. If you don't have a Whole Foods nearby, Staples will do it. But like the idea, I mean, yes, I appreciate the idea. I mean, that's part of, I will say this.

The, the true, the truly worrisome thing about it to me, is it ending up in the wrong, not the wrong hands, but like in the hands of someone who doesn't care? It's bound to.

I think right now, I just got some execs there that do probably know what they have. You know, Courtney Valenti did Fury Road, yeah, Fury Road and Barbie, and those were very original.

So there is some hope to be had, and maybe that'll be fresh air injected into the franchise, too, because I don't know where broccoli was going to go. We've always, you know, talked on this podcast how nice it would be to see some period bond movies. And I was thinking about rather than trying to lock down the same actor, just maybe since you're starting fresh anyway,

do five years of five bond movies and five eras with five different actors. Michael Fastbender in the late 50s. Yeah. Idris Elpa in the 2000s, you know. Bring Pierce Bros. I get it. Yeah. That's totally right. Do an old bond with Brazen. It would be amazing. Oh, my God. And Dalton, you know? I mean, look, he doesn't quite have the head of hair that our Irish pal does.

It also doesn't seem to have the zeal that Braznan. Brosnan is like, he looks like he's secretly on a campaign to come back to the role. Like, he really does. I haven't seen it yet, but black bagged by Steven Soderberg with Michael Fastbender, isn't Brosnan playing like an M figure in that? Oh, that's a good question. I don't know. That would make sense for sure.

But he's always, I mean, he's so, he's, he still looks like James Bond. Like he still completely fits the part of, and the silver foxness of him, I can't, you know, can't be overstated. And the older he gets, the less hurt his acting is because it all feels. It's really hurting. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? So you can't see the acting.

You see the hurt, but you don't see the acting. That's the beauty of it. That's the beauty of late period, uh, Pierce. Roseman. As someone who loves Star Trek, when that franchise sort of got handed over to Alex Kurtzman and, you know, you just, it would, although I suppose it's less, it's less of a concern in the Bond franchise, the sort of stewardship of the canon of everything, because James Bond inherently has always been

replaceable just as a you know and you sort of like you don't as I have always said you know in my mind it's Casino Royale all those other movies happen then Skyfall happens and it's the same guy but you know

there is no there's no worrying about like oh this is should we should we note that James Bond has been married in the past should we note that he has uh now a fucking half brother named Blowfell.

Yeah, that has to go because they try that. I get it. And, you know, that was early in the days of all this overarching story of marvelization stuff. So I get it. They felt they had to do it.

A certain amount of it made sense. But it's not for Bond. Bond, just do the episodic fun romps and adventures. It does lend itself completely to that kind of a thing. And I do wonder, like, I think part of the identity

of James Bond over the last 30 years, you know, of it of its, what, 60, 70 years now, 60, 63 years. 63 years. Part of the identity has been the sort of the products. Like, that's, weirdly my brain is like stuck on that. Like the product placement of the Rolex Submariner or the, and the Dom Paranian champagne or the,

or the, you know, the Omega C Master or the Aston Martin or the BMW or the part of the charm of it has been sort of this like, just what's cool? Let me know. Tell me what's cool. I think they'll still do that. They'll just partner with Amazon.

I'm not joking. So they'll be like Amazon Aston Martin deluxe edition. It's, I know. No. Don't do that. And also, you know, there's nothing more capitalistic than Amazon, but the movies have always been that way. And I think there's enough enough of a downturn has happened in the marvelization of things where Amazon themselves will look at it and go, this is not financially viable or lucrative.

People are tired of this. So it may just be like a market correction that makes them do one-off films or small arcs or something like that. I don't know. Do you think that they will, do you think they're going to wind up doing streaming series as well as movies? Yeah, I would. They have to, right? I mean, they're just sitting on that. And remember, the general public doesn't, not only do they not give a shit about all of this Amazon deal, they probably don't even really know about it.

Right. So all they're going to think is, oh, yeah, I like that character. or I check that out or I won't or I'll check it out and if it's good I'll stick around. If not, I'll go. Absolutely, I would think they would have to. We'll see MQ, Money Penny, Penny, probably Felix Lighter maybe. Can I finally do my Q workplace comedy where all those nerds in the lab are dealing with those very cool agents who are bullies?

Yes, you can. And can I do my fresh out of retirement, not out of retirement. He's just gone into retirement. Felix Lider missing a leg in an arm but just fishing in the floor of keys and doing woodworking and renovating his house. Coral Jr. swings by to help with the help with a couple of things. Like Amazon, we're right here. Just in places. If you want this thing to work out, I'm not saying you have to hire us, but if you don't, it will fail.

Right? And I think the worst thing you can do is design by committee. That being set. Bring Matt and Matt in as consultants. We're happy to do it. All we would require. From the things you don't want to do, the rookie mistakes. And, you know, we'll bring the history along.

We can be responsible for maintaining the things that matter while giving you a little room to put some freshness into it, which I think we all agree. It needs a little bit, you know? Yeah, I think, I think so. I think we're clear. We both have prime accounts, so, you know, you know where to find us. Mine's under my wife's name. Exactly.

Mine's under me, you find me. I'm the one doing most of the purchasing. I will answer for that in half. Do you think that there is a chance that the first thing they do is a TV series? Or do you think they're going straight to, we got to do a movie? I think that would be a mistake, unless it's like fluff or something. But I think they got to come out of the gate strong. But, you know, I keep thinking this in the mindset of how are they going to treat the bond enthusiasts?

When I don't know that that's going to be top of mind for them. Sure, of course. I think they're going to be how much money can we milk out of this cash cow, you know? Well, there has to be a thing of in their mind of like, yeah, But they made a billion. They got to look at the Skyfall box office receipts and go, oh, this is a franchise that if you put a movie out of good quality, you could make a billion dollars. Which they paid.

And so they are going to have to make some money back. The question is, do you think it will go to the movies first? That would be a real bummer if they just put it on. It has to. Yeah, I mean, it has to, but I would have said Barbara Rockley would have never sold that. Sure. I do think they... All bets are on the table, you know. They want Oscars, right? They want that.

They want... So, you know, what's the best opportunity to get an Oscar? It's the song, right? Yeah. So they're going to have to do with theatrical release. I really hope it's not one of those, like, will release and then two weeks later it will be on Amazon. Because I don't know that I could resist the urge to just watch it in my house.

You know what I'm saying? I would have to go. Do you think, well, there's been a lot of scuttle butt over the years about Nolan directing a bond. And he met with broccoli and the final cut thing seemed to be an issue for him that they wouldn't give it to him. He's anuteur. They have creative control. I think Amazon, if he would come do a bond film with them, would give him anything he wants. But he's shooting the Odyssey right now.

So between production and then post-production, and that. And then pre-production and production and post-production on a bond film, it would be two to three years out, which I don't know that Amazon can afford to wait that long. Well, I think that's the thing they can easily afford to wait that long because of everything else that Amazon does. I suppose, yeah. Whereas if it's like...

Do you think they would wait that long to go prestige out of the gate, or would they be like, okay, you can do the second bond film? I don't even think, I don't... Okay, so I think this... It hinges on the following thing. I think it hinges on, well, I guess they're stuck doing a re- they have to reboot everything. Do they?

I don't know if they do. Well, I'm saying they do just because of the end of no time to die. They have to sort of reset a little bit. You know, we need James Bond hanging around and doing things in this James Bond movie. I, you know, there is a part. There's like, there, I, you know, the back of my mind, I'm like, oh, just put Ray Fines back in there. And he's our M and you get Ben back in there as Q and it's great. And we can keep going.

But I think that you, if you're Amazon, I think you almost have to hit the reset button completely. You have to do a clean. I think so because also just production wise. There's all sorts of questions. Are they going to shoot it in England? You know. Right. Right.

Excuse me. Will we be allowed to shoot things in England? Have there been new tariffs and stuff that we can we even travel outside of the country anymore? We don't know these things. Will we have a world that is not overrun by robots? That's a great question. But you know, when I was talking about how the next bond might not be made for me, that's fine too. It is funny how my tastes, I think as I've grown older, have switched more from,

Fleming to La Caree and I was talking about this with Paul Rust that it's like the older you get, especially with the state of the world, the more you look for your fiction and your drama to kind of make sense of what you are going through. And this is a really hard time to make sense of and LeCarray is very shades of gray. There's no black and white. It's not a fantasy thing like Bond. And so I still love espionage and spice. I love it. I adore it. But my tastes have shifted to that.

And so it's not only that Bond might leave me behind, maybe I'm leaving Bond behind with the understanding that all the stuff I love so much is grandfathered in and I will always be able to watch it the same way I watch Return of the Jedi with no critical eye whatsoever. So, and I think that's just natural with a franchise that lasts so long over a life that last long, you know, you come and go. But like I said, I, it may be that at some point, I'm ready for just some fun bond again if I change, if the world changes. I didn't, I didn't, there was, I was a lifelong bond fan, but I didn't even see, we've talked about this, tomorrow never dies in the theater, because the Brosnan era just wasn't speaking to me.

By the way, I know, I know we've gone over it at nauseam and you've revisited it and it's still not for you. But I do think it's a little, I mean, the sheer number of Bond villains that have more than three things in common with Jeff Bezos, or Bezos, is insane.

Is insane. Elliot Carver for sure. He's Elliot Carver. The book. Hugo Drax from Moonraker is very very much. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. But also you've got to remember that there's also, you know, Bezos himself has got his own space program going, you know?

I know. And has a super yacht? He's got a super yacht. He's got the discovolante. He really does. A hat and shirt for some reason I'm wearing right now. For some reason. You wear that every day. I close. Wear me. We get up in the morning and they put me on. I do. Does his yacht separate into a smaller.

Master Yacht? It must. It's just we've seen it do it yet. Do you think that there would be a world where he, again, again, this is, I think this is a sort of a worry, too, or he would, he would say no to creative decisions because he didn't like how they were reflecting on him. Like, do you think there's a good question? I didn't expect him to get involved in this negotiation thing. but we really are getting the bond for our times because the world is so topsy-turvy. It's so topsy-turvy that bond is now essentially controlled by someone who is kind of a caricature of a bond villain.

And all of that is happening on a meta-scale behind the scenes, but that's what we're talking about and what we're paying attention to. So not only do they have to create a good bond movie, they have to do one that doesn't make you think of Jeff Bezos the whole time. Right. Right. So they have a real task ahead of them. And again, I'll say Amazon, we can help you with that. Totally. We can actually, right off the bat, I'm going to tell you one thing we could do.

Our bad guy has hair, done. All right, we're already thinking of other things. We're already outside the box. The hair is a white cat just sleeping on his head. Yes. And the reveal is that it's Blowfeld again. And the reveal is the cat has been blowfilled the whole time. Obviously, the cat is a genetically engineered cat.

Yeah. So it's an inspector gadget situation. Yeah, yeah. It's a situate claw. Yeah. I think the idea of Jeff, like in a in a Bezos or Bezos, I guess it's Bezos, right? Bezos run world. The fact that we don't know is actually feels good.

It feels good that we don't know how to pronounce that. And I because I think it's the last time we talk where we won't know how to pronounce that. Yeah, because someone would practice. Yeah, exactly. Resist that urge, listening. I do. I've never heard that Jeff Bezos is a huge James Bond fan. I don't, and I don't know. Like, have you read that anywhere? Have you heard that he like? I haven't heard one way or the other. I have heard that Elon Musk is, right? Yeah. It's all fucked. It's, it really is. It's a tremendous sort of way to.

to be entering, like, because as the world teeters, so too does the Bond franchise. It's a very, it's a very interesting time. And by interesting, I mean, terrifying. It's a terrifying time to be a fan and or a human being on the planet. It is. I'm, I'm, I've stopped all news alerts on my phone, not out of apathy, but out of kind of mental. Self-preservation. This sounds really silly. What I'm about to say is going to sound really. It's not silly. I stand by it, but it seems a little simplistic, perhaps.

But I don't feel like there's anything I can do on an internet scale by reading social media or news that will help me or help the world or make me understand things any better. So I've done something that, and that is to just like try not. I just, I'm just, particularly with my family or people I know that live on a different political spectrum than I do is to just have human moments with them because I think when you're face to face, you treat each other with a lot more respect. And I've learned that obviously it's no surprise on social media, you're faceless so you can just hate each other. I've learned that like social media is the 21st century equivalent of road rage where you're just separated enough in a car and if someone cuts you off, they scream at you like you somehow personally meant

to violate their space or something without any understanding. And so it's crazy. I don't know what I'm saying right now, but I was just at Disneyland yesterday and I met some people that were very obviously, you know, on a different political wavelength than I was. But we were able to go through a 45-minute line laughing and our kids were joking. And it, it, it, was, I have to say, it was nice. And I wasn't thinking about like, why should I be nice to this person? Because they have different political beliefs. They're not things I agree with.

And I'm sure they'd say the same thing. But there was some goddamn humanity in there. And it was like, I think that's the only way through this. I don't know what to say. Well, I think that's the, I think, I think there's a great merit in what you're saying. I left Twitter in 2016, 2016. 20 whenever it was it was it was right after the you know it was right after the first term of of 47 um and right effort started sort of as i've said many times the last fun thing that

happened on the internet was the fire music festival because we all got together as a community online and made fun of some very wealthy teenagers stuck on an island hoping to see Jail Rule. You know, it was it was a pure, it was a pure expression of internet. And that was sort of the last great soire I remember having. And it just, you know, it became so polarized and it was so, it just became so many people saying so many different things. that were just meant to upset another party. Like, it just, and I was like, I just, I can't, I couldn't do it. It's so depressing.

And that's like, I think why we're talking about this is because the world is complicated in a way that it hasn't been in a long time, if ever, with these particular circumstances. Yeah. To make entertainment in this world is you cannot separate it from not only politics, but social politics. Yeah. And so when a corporation, which in itself is divisive, especially one this big, has the control over that taken or released

from a family that kept quality above quantity. We just have to contend with these things as watchers and it will be interesting. And I think as we get more news, Matt, we should check in more. Absolutely. Yeah. That's where we always say stay subscribed if you're interested in this because as long as we're able to open our eyes and watch a Bond movie, we'll probably have something dumb to say. There's no doubt that we will be here to discuss all the future developments

of the James Bond franchise. And there will be some soon. There are going to be so many. So let's do some quick little final thoughts. Okay. And we'll let everybody wander off into the ether before we reconvene again. Okay.

Do you, I guess you're, okay, here's what I'll ask. Final question, what, in four years when we're doing an episode of James Bonding, when you are going to be looking back, do you think your favorite thing that Amazon has done with the Bond franchise will be a series, a movie? a movie it's not going to be a game show so I won't include game show or even just creative sort of

choice how about like you think it'll be a TV show a movie they've done or do you think it'll just it'll be like the way they allowed someone to do the movie what do you think will be your favorite thing about the franchise I think the movie has the best chance of that because I think people are saying we're in a like golden age of spy television. I think that's true, but I'm finding that the quality is, aside from slow horses, not a lot

has seen me through to the end in a satisfying way. I will say that I just read that they're going to start developing, and I think it's in maybe been bid on by multiple sources, all of the George Smiley stories from the Lecari novel. played by Matthew McFadion, who was Tom Wamskans on Succession, which I think is really good. I'm super excited about that. So that kind of television excites me. Amazon-driven Bond television maybe is the least exciting element of all this to me. If they are to come in and do a film and really take it seriously care about it and put someone

at the helm that will do something new while still finding a way to kind of honor the past, not through fan service, but through tone and style. that would be, that's, that's best case scenario for me. And if that happens, then I think it's, it's good. You know, it's going to be fine. And it's going to be good and bad as it goes, as they always do. But that would be my best case scenario. That's the most I would hope for. I honestly think that if, you know, four years out, I think there's going to be some dark horse thing, some dark horse product or thing that we, that will be the best of the Bond franchise. A lot like a lot of people say

Andor is the best thing to come out of Star Wars you know in 20 years. Yeah, I think that's true. But even that, as much as I like that, I'm not like counting the minutes until that comes out. Right, yeah, yeah, of course. Of course.

I do think that we are at an age, the both of us, where we're no longer counting the minutes until a entertainment product comes out. No. And the thing of that special about bond, part of the bond DNA is that it's rarefied. It comes once in a while and it comes in a big way on the big screen with lavish production and more than that, lavish care. And that's the essential

part of it to me is it's it doesn't inherently, it's not inherently good or bad that Amazon has this. It's how much they care. And that doesn't mean caring about making it the same that it was last Right. But that they care to evolve it and honor it in a way that still makes it good. That would be the goal. So I'm saying, here we are. The best news nugget I could read in the next 12 to 18 months is that Jeff Bezos was on set making spaghetti for everybody. And I'd be like, this guy gets it.

Okay. Absolutely. Yeah. And he's got some. He brings someone from the Saltsman clan back to buy a bunch of shoes for elephants. Matt, it was good to talk to you, friend. A pleasure as always. I've been Matt.

That's been Matt. James Bonding. We'll return.