It’s the end of an era, but it doesn’t seem to be the start of a better one. Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, the daughter and stepson of storied James Bond producer Albert R. Broccoli, have given up their long-held creative control of the $7 billion-grossing 007 franchise about an international super spy who stops billionaires from taking over the world. 

And they’ve given that creative control to one of the billionaires who is currently taking over the world.

Amazon MGM Studios, owned by Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, acquired the James Bond series in 2022, after the release of Daniel Craig’s final installment, the incorrectly-titled “No Time to Die” (spoiler alert: it was literally Bond’s time to die). The Broccoli family retained their creative control in this acquisition, which was to be expected since they’ve closely guarded the 007 franchise and overseen its direction since its inception. This was to the chagrin of many Bond fans who wished to see more radical changes in a franchise that has repeatedly struggled to remain relevant over the last 63 years, with notoriously mixed success. Then again lots of Bond fans wanted nothing to change. Ever.

Barbara Broccoli was skeptical about Amazon’s purchase of the series. Actually, that’s putting it mildly. She allegedly said the executives at Amazon were “fucking idiots.” Now, after three years of struggling to find a new creative direction for James Bond — Amazon’s sole output so far is the reality TV series “007: Road to a Million” (which you’ve either never heard of or already forgot about) — Amazon MGM Studios can do whatever they want with the property.

It’s a scary time in the world at large, in no small part because billionaires like Jeff Bezos own large parts of it and are increasingly exerting a disturbing amount of control. Like the “Tomorrow Never Dies” villain Elliot Carver, played by Jonathan Pryce, Bezos is now a multimedia mogul. He famously owns the once-venerable Washington Post, the newspaper that printed the Pentagon Papers and broke open the Watergate Scandal, speaking truth to power and altering the course of American history multiple times. Now it’s not even allowed to publish a political cartoon that points out, accurately, that moguls like Bezos, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, the Disney Corporation as a whole, and the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times, Patrick Soon-Shiong, are cozying up to billionaire President Donald J. Trump.

If Jeff Bezos won’t even let a newspaper with a storied history of political commentary run a one-panel comic strip satirizing himself, one can’t help wonder if there’s any chance the new James Bond movies — or a TV series, or however else Amazon chooses to strip mine this property — will have anything resembling principles anymore. James Bond was never a particularly subversive figure. You don’t become a billion dollar franchise by completely tearing down the establishment, because the establishment has all the money. But he did at least oppose dictators, corrupt politicians, and power-hungry billionaires. Which would make him extremely relevant today.

James Bond and Auric Goldfinger in “Goldfinger” (EON)

James Bond has been kicking billionaire ass for so long that even his most infamous misfires are relevant again. “Moonraker,” the franchise’s (lucrative) attempt to milk the sci-fi zeitgeist in the aftermath of “Star Wars,” was often criticized as one of the franchise’s silliest installments. And yet its vision of a corrupt, fascist capitalist who privatized space travel and wants to end the modern world to build a new one in his own image, in space, now makes him one of Bond’s most plausible villains, since he’s practically a prototype for Elon Musk. Even the outlandish Auric Goldfinger would be ripped-from-the-headlines today, since the gold-obsessed current president is trying to get into Fort Knox.

Can we really expect Bezos to let James Bond kick a billionaire’s ass again? The Broccolis were hardly paupers, so maybe they weren’t exactly punching upwards, but at least they were willing to punch laterally. What kind of villain will a super spy who works for a billionaire who can’t take a joke be allowed to fight?

Unfortunately we’re about to find out. It’s possible, of course, that Bezos will take a laissez-faire approach to the whole James Bond production, letting the executives and filmmakers in his employ do whatever they want with the franchi… oh wait, he’s already crowdsourcing casting ideas. There goes that little fantasy.

Then again, it’s fair to say that the James Bond franchise has always been hit-or-miss, even under the Broccoli family. Which films are hits and which ones are misses, however? That’s a matter for heated debate. There are 007 fans who want the hero to be stern and serious, and others who like him light and goofy. Even the so-called “worst” James Bond movies have their defenders. I’ve met people who think “Spectre” is good. (To quote Rip Torn in “Defending Your Life”: I wouldn’t want to hang out with them… but I’ve met them.)

But the worst James Bond movies haven’t, until now, been made by Elliot Carver, while he was sucking up to Auric Goldfinger, while he was letting Hugo Drax undermine the American government. Maybe Amazon MGM Studios will make a good James Bond movie, or a good live-action TV series, or a good reboot of “James Bond Jr.” But the fact that they even get to feels antithetical to the whole 007 concept, serious and goofy interpretations alike. James Bond has taken a stand against power-hungry capitalists for over half a century. Sure, he sold some cars and wristwatches along the way, but at least he never let those supervillains tell him what to do.

Until now, I guess.