When half-siblings Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson inherited the Bond franchise in the mid-1990s, they received a piece of advice from their dying father, legendary producer Cubby Broccoli, that would end up guiding their creative decisions for decades. “Don’t let anybody else screw it up,” he warned them. “You can screw it up if you want to, but don’t let other people screw it up.”
Alas, it is finally somebody else’s turn. Last week, Broccoli, 64, announced that she and Wilson (who at 83 has been edging into retirement the past few years) were selling their interest in their late father’s EON — the company that’s kept the Broccoli dynasty in creative control of 007 since the character first swaggered onto the screen in 1962 — to Amazon, the powerful international organization run by a bald-headed billionaire who hangs out in a hollowed-out volcano (well, a yacht, but big diff). The shocking turn of events left much of Hollywood baffled. Why, after so faithfully guarding this precious family heirloom, would Broccoli suddenly unload it? And to the very people she’d been locking horns with for the past four years, since Amazon purchased MGM, Bond’s longtime home, for $8.45 billion in 2021? Insiders say there are a couple of theories.
Theory one: After producing nine Bond films over 30 years, starting with GoldenEye in 1995, Broccoli no longer has the stomach or stamina for another years-long Bond production marathon. Although she’s famously adroit at dispatching meddlesome film executives — something she mastered early on with MGM — Broccoli is said to have grown tired of that as well and clearly hit a wall with her new partners at Amazon, whom she recently described in a Wall Street Journal interview as “fucking idiots.” Those choice words, in retrospect, were probably a clue she’d had enough and was ready to bolt. Theory two: Jeff Bezos made her an offer she couldn’t refuse. “He read her quote in the Journal and got on the phone and said, ‘I don’t care what it costs, get rid of her,’ ” is what one source familiar with the franchise hears is what happened, confirming that it ended up costing Bezos something like (pinkie to lip) one billion dollars.
Both theories are plausible, but neither fully explains Broccoli’s head-scratching change of heart. For one thing, she hardly needs money: She’s already reportedly worth close to a half-billion dollars. For another, she’s not only severing herself from the franchise but the rest of the Broccoli family, including several young potential heirs — Broccolini — like Wilson’s son, Greg, who sources say was being groomed to take over the business, as well as a niece who also has worked on the movies. “To tell you the truth,” the source tells Rambling Reporter, “nobody knows why Barbara did it. It doesn’t make sense.”
This story appeared in the Feb. 26 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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