Disney nearly purchased the rights to James Bond not too long ago. While it would’ve been a wild move, the spy franchise may have been saved from a similar fate that Star Wars suffers from now.
According to a recent interview with former Disney CEO Bob Iger following his exit at the company, he recalled back to the early 2000s. After Disney’s acquisition of Pixar in 2006, Iger notes that Disney felt “unstoppable,” and looked to keep picking up companies.
“It was like the clouds lifted and the sun started to shine again,” Iger said (via Variety). “We put together a list of acquisition targets. Marvel was one, ‘Star Wars’ was another, James Bond was one. We had a list and I figured let’s just tick them off and buy them all.”
Obviously, Disney did end up picking up several of these franchises, including the rights to Marvel and Star Wars projects. While James Bond is one of the ones that got away, the legendary spy franchise may have been better off, at least if Star Wars is any indicator.
Disney buying James Bond could have been extremely risky move for franchise
While Disney is not fully to blame for the surprising spiral the Star Wars franchise has been on, the company’s handling of the property has raised eyebrows for many. Following a rocky trio of sequel trilogies, Disney elected to host most of its Star Wars content on Disney+, an effort to not only bolster the streaming platform’s number, but grow the Star Wars universe out into something beyond just movies.
The problem, though, is that Star Wars is known for these big movies. Similar to Star Wars, the James Bond franchise is known for its blockbuster films. Should it have been acquired by Disney, it’s anyone’s guess as to what would have happened. The franchise could’ve gone the way of Marvel and become a global and cultural phenomenon. It also could’ve gone the way of Star Wars, and saw various TV spin-offs made while fans lamented some of the projects being made.
At the end of the day, the James Bond franchise would eventually find a home with Amazon MGM Studios. Funny enough, even though the franchise avoided being bought by Disney, many of the same concerns amongst fans exist with Amazon. Many are hesitant to believe Amazon will leave Bond to being a fully movie-based experience, and have concerns that soon the project will be spun out into a ton of projects, resulting in the bigger stories becoming less enjoyable.
