Apple allegedly making big push for $5 billion James Bond 007 movie franchise rights
After a 2015 expiration of the last deal for the James Bond 007 film franchise, a new report claims that Apple, Amazon, and Warner Bros. are sparring over production rights for future films.
An account published by The Hollywood Reporter on Wednesday notes that Apple's emergence into the bidding process is forcing Warner Bros. to press MGM and Eon "hard" to close a deal for the franchise. Sources claim that the future of the franchise is at stake, beyond just film rights.
Reportedly, Apple's new hires of ex-Sony Television Studios executives Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht are driving the effort. They may be fighting an uphill battle, as Eon producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson "remain traditional" in thinking, and appear to be most focused on theatrical movies, rather than digital distribution deals, or migration to a television series format.
MGM has recently secured Daniel Craig to return, after the actor said that he would never return to the role. The next film in the series is expected to release on Nov. 8, 2019.
"Apple is the biggest digital outlet for movies," United Talent Agency's Yale Chasin said to The Hollywood Reporter on background. "I think they are always present in the conversation whether they're upfront or behind any other distributor out there that's turning to them for real control in the digital market."
If Apple is in the running for the franchise, it isn't about profitability. In an email released during the Sony hack and document dump, the former head of Sony's business affairs noted that Bond flick Spectre needed to gross $1.1 billion to earn the studio $35 million. The film actually garnered around $900 million in ticket sales.
Valuation of the franchise is said to be between $2 billion and $5 billion.
Sony programming attributed to Apple executives Van Amburg and Erlicht include "The Blacklist," AMC's "Breaking Bad" companion and spin-off "Better Call Saul," and Netflix's "The Crown."
Other less standard deals for the pair include the revival of "Timeless" after its cancellation by NBC, plus migration of "Community" from NBC to Yahoo, "Unforgettable" from CBS to A&E, and "Damages" from FX to DirecTV.
An account published by The Hollywood Reporter on Wednesday notes that Apple's emergence into the bidding process is forcing Warner Bros. to press MGM and Eon "hard" to close a deal for the franchise. Sources claim that the future of the franchise is at stake, beyond just film rights.
Reportedly, Apple's new hires of ex-Sony Television Studios executives Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht are driving the effort. They may be fighting an uphill battle, as Eon producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson "remain traditional" in thinking, and appear to be most focused on theatrical movies, rather than digital distribution deals, or migration to a television series format.
MGM has recently secured Daniel Craig to return, after the actor said that he would never return to the role. The next film in the series is expected to release on Nov. 8, 2019.
"Apple is the biggest digital outlet for movies," United Talent Agency's Yale Chasin said to The Hollywood Reporter on background. "I think they are always present in the conversation whether they're upfront or behind any other distributor out there that's turning to them for real control in the digital market."
If Apple is in the running for the franchise, it isn't about profitability. In an email released during the Sony hack and document dump, the former head of Sony's business affairs noted that Bond flick Spectre needed to gross $1.1 billion to earn the studio $35 million. The film actually garnered around $900 million in ticket sales.
Valuation of the franchise is said to be between $2 billion and $5 billion.
Sony programming attributed to Apple executives Van Amburg and Erlicht include "The Blacklist," AMC's "Breaking Bad" companion and spin-off "Better Call Saul," and Netflix's "The Crown."
Other less standard deals for the pair include the revival of "Timeless" after its cancellation by NBC, plus migration of "Community" from NBC to Yahoo, "Unforgettable" from CBS to A&E, and "Damages" from FX to DirecTV.
Comments
In the meantime, they can throw their cash around as a negotiating tactic. They might not even be serious but by upping the bidding, they can damage their competition. Of course that also raises prices for us too eventually.
Also, the studio hasn't said what it earned or lost on Spectre.
If the studio lost money on a film (without an astronomical special effects budget) with a worldwide gross of nearly a billion dollars something is very wrong or fishy. I'm sure they did just fine with that or they wouldn't still be in the movie business.
That said, it would be quite a statement to produce the next Bond as an iTunes exclusive outside of going to a theater...
I wonder if these guys are thinking normal 007 for the big screen and other 00s for the TV. Those are often seen dead...I think 008 is the only one that survives in the movies.
Edit --
Actually, there are a lot of potential Bond villains lurking among Apple's competitors and quasi-competitors. The leadership of Google, Facebook, Amazon, Tesla, and Uber all have Bond villain qualities.
Not seeing how that attracts anybody to the platform but the most devoted James Bond fans, of which there are few. Not enough to justify $billions anyway. And what then - buy up Bourne? Then what?
This is an argument for buying NetFlix not starting with their own internal production team. Netflix know what they are doing. Of course, Apple cant really privilege Apple Users if they do buy Netflix, not with the existing contracts that non Apple customers have grandfathered in.
For "Spectre", "Quantum of Solace", "Die Another Day", "The World Is Not Enough" and "Tomorrow Never Dies", the production budget ran from 32.4% to 39.9% of the world-wide box-office and remember, the studio only gets about half of that. Even without marketing, all of these films probably lost money and even if they made a little, they didn't make Apple margins. The Bond film with the highest margins was the first one, "Dr. No", which had a production budget of just $1 million ($7.99 million in 2017 dollars) and grossed over $59 million theatrically worldwide (over $475 million in 2017 dollars). But today, $475 million worldwide is not considered hugely successful. Everyone wants a film to do $1 billion of box-office.
Now if Apple wanted to buy an entire studio or content production company, that might make some sense, although still low margin and highly risky. But spending a lot on just one franchise - one that has produced 24 films (not including the 1967 "Casino Royale" or "Never Say Never Again") in 54 years doesn't make sense to me, except for the name brand value.
And I'm unclear as to what WB has to do with it, since the only film they were involved with was "Never Say Never Again". All the recent films were distributed in the U.S. by Sony, either under Sony Pictures Releasing or Columbia. Before that it was all MGM or UA.