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10/30/15 @ 2:39 pm EST
Ask anyone in the hunt for the next batch of James Bond films that are now up for grabs, and this is what you’ll hear, as voiced by one exec whose studio is among those in the chase: “They might not say they’re actively shopping it, but they are certainly making it known their deal is up and they will be.”
The James Bond distribution deal with Sony is done after Spectre bows in the U.S. on November 6. It could stay at Sony or it could head to Warner Bros., or Fox (which handles MGM’s home video), or Universal, and Paramount. Or even Disney, where Bob Iger has shown the wisdom of making big bets can work out in buying out whole companies like Marvel and Lucasfilm for cash and stock.
At a time when studios are hungrier than ever for proven global franchises, James Bond is Hollywood’s longest-running success story. Consider that 50 years after Sean Connery launched the character in 1962’s Dr No, 007’s last outing Skyfall became the series’ biggest grossing film, topping out at $1.1 billion globally. With Daniel Craig and that film’s director Sam Mendes a week away from the U.S. launch of what might be their last Bond film together, there is every expectation that Spectre will chase that high-water gross mark. It already opened briskly overseas.
So it’s not surprising that a hit-starved studio like Warner Bros, or any other major, would covet the franchise. Indeed, a source sighted Warner Bros chief Kevin Tsujihara at the Montage Hotel recently with Gary Barber, the point person at MGM whose job it is to figure out the distribution future of 007 for MGM and Danjaq producers Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli. According to our source, the chatter seemed more intense than a meet and greet. It looked like they were throwing around numbers. Not surprisingly, Warner Bros has been oft mentioned as the most aggressive in this hunt.
What’s odd about this is that nobody is saying that Sony hasn’t done a fine job in marketing and releasing the Bond films. But the last deal was made by Amy Pascal, and she is no longer in charge. The new guy in the seat, Tom Rothman, is known from his days running Fox as a tough, bottom-line-minded executive who most feel would walk away from a deal that gave the studio market share at the expense of profit. Indeed, some say that at Pascal’s urging, Sony gave up too much the last time around to keep 007 in the fold.
The Wall Street Journal rifled through those hacked Sony documents and pried out a memo that underscores the troubling risk-reward disparity. According to WSJ, co-financing and marketing and releasing Skyfall brought Sony $57 million on a film that grossed $1.1 billion globally. MGM, in turn, made $175 million, while Danjaq made $109 million. And that doesn’t factor in all the other things Sony gave up and the movies like the 21 Jump Street franchise that MGM was kissed into when the last re-up deal was made. Some would consider the math on this to be on par with the old first-dollar gross deal scenarios which became toxic to studios when owners like Sumner Redstone realized that a star like Tom Cruise had earned way more than $50 million on a Mission: Impossible movie through first-dollar gross participation before Paramount — which financed the whole film –had even recouped its outlay. His generous portion on video pushed that payday to an estimated $80 million.
So much is up in the air right now on 007. First off, the odds are against Craig and Mendes returning for another go, which would mean starting again with a new actor. When Craig recently observed that he would rather “slash his wrists” than do another Bond movie, it certainly echoed loudly around Hollywood, even if those close to him attributed it mostly to the bad idea of putting Craig in front of a journalist right after he completed a time-press and arduous Spectre shoot in which he seriously injured his knee. It would be similar, they said, to asking a woman just out of childbirth how eager she was to have another.
Here’s what we hear. 007 rights gatekeepers Barber, and Wilson and Broccoli, will wait until Spectre plays around the world and accumulates an ungodly global gross that will only strengthen their leverage. And then, early next year, they will make the best deal. If that means bidding farewell to Sony, so be it.
Sony had initially gotten rights to Casino Royale years ago in a deal orchestrated deftly behind the scenes by former Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO John Calley, who revived James Bond while head of United Artists. Because of that, Sony released Casino Royale with a new Bond — Craig — and grossed about $600M worldwide.
When it came time to re-up, Pascal was running the studio and people are still debating whether her zeal to keep Bond led Sony to give up too much. On the plus side, Pascal was invited to have a creative voice in the process over the last few films. Sony co-financed movies that were big hits, and received a distribution fee that some say was capped.
But it was the other concessions granted by Sony that still has tongues wagging. Sony offered up some of its plum projects to be co-financed by MGM. At the time, the sexiest one the studio had was The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. That film, which starred Craig, went into the pot and while the movie didn’t come close to meeting everyone’s out-sized expectations, 21 Jump Street — another film offered up for co-financing — certainly did. MGM got to be part of that hit and its sequel and presumably will be part of the next film that is rumored to meld that series withMen In Black. Sony, in turn, got to co-finance and release some MGM films, including the Robocop remake. Sony is now gearing up for another Dragon Tattooinstallment with The Girl In The Spider’s Web, the book written by David Lagercrantz, who was installed by the rights-holder relatives of the late author Stieg Larsson. Pascal is a producer on that movie, and MGM is expected to be in the mix if the studio wants to be.
The proceeds from these co-fi deals went into into a split pot, but the unsung coup for MGM was that it got to broker almost all of the international TV deals. That studio was still getting back on its feet after being frozen in a bankruptcy, and it’s believed they didn’t have the kind of clout to get as high a price as Sony would have. It also left Sony’s loyal global customers on the outside looking in because MGM was making the deals and had its own list of customers. The prospect of all that led to widespread internal disagreements within Sony divisions over whether the studio should make such a deal, but Pascal won the day.
Two blockbusters and Spectre later, and Pascal is now off producing movies. And the studio will have some serious decisions to make as it formulates how crucial it is to keep James Bond. Many believe that no studio will replicate the horse trading that took place in the last Sony 007 deal. It is an open question whether another studio will find some ground on which they can get the market share bragging rights that come with 007, while not feeling they made a loss leader deal.
If ever MGM was going to get back into the distribution business — it disbanded distribution when it emerged from bankruptcy and has placed big movies like the Ben-Hur and The Magnificent Seven remakes all over town — the 007 franchise would be the one to relaunch. That’s always an option, but more of a long shot than the notion of Craig returning to His Majesty’s Secret Service.
The betting here is that if Sony’s brain trust led by Michael Lynton and Rothman won’t do it, another big studio like Warner Bros — which successfully partnered with MGM on the billion-dollar The Hobbit trilogy — will swallow hard and make the deal. Tsujihara and Barber are tight, and you can bet that Warner Bros will move heaven and earth to make a hit out of MGM’s upcoming Rocky film Creed, the Ryan Coogler-directed film that opens Thanksgiving with Sylvester Stallone and Michael B. Jordan starring. Is it too much to imagine that soon, the most important entries on Tsujihara’s call sheet will be Barber, along with Harry Potter author JK Rowling and James Packer? 07/04/26 @ 3:22 pm EST
Long before Lin Manuel Miranda took the Founding Fathers to Broadway with the Tony Award Winning Hamilton, the likes of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin sang about the birth of the United States of America and the musical led to an amazing musical called 1776. With this being the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, now would be a good time to watch this classic film that’s available on streaming services like Hulu and Tubi. The film adapts the celebrated musical by Peter Stone with an all-star cast that includes William Daniels ( Boy Meets World), Ken Howard ( The White Shadow), Howard de Silva ( The Great Gatsby) and Blythe Danner ( Meet the Parents). The film focuses on the days leading up to the Continental Congress debating and eventually declaring independence and gives us look at the chaos that existed leading up to the birth of the nation. While dealing with a serious topic, the film is laced with humorous moments and unforgettable songs while showing just how difficult it really was to get the thirteen colonies to agree and how different parts of the country had different priorities. Not too unlike the way the country is now. 1776 is entertaining and sneakily educational and I watch if every July 4th… which I’m doing as I type this article.  07/04/26 @ 3:00 pm EST
With Supergirl underperforming at the box office there is a rush to point fingers… as often happens when it comes to big studios like DC, Marvel and Star Wars. Will there be similar handwringing with the latest Minions film coming in about $17 million below it’s expected opening… probably not. But The Hollywood Reporter has exclusive details about what happened with the Milly Alcock project that seems to pit director Craig Gillespie against James Gunn and the studio. The criticism of the film varies with complaints about the editing, the musical choices, the depth of character for the villain to the changes from the source material. The new report focuses on a few of those and talks about the test screenings happening back in March of this year. Gillespie was given free reign on his film until test audiences had their say and the best the film was able to do was score in the 60s. This led to the studio getting involved and creating their own cut of the film. Gunn brought in Guardians of the Galaxy editor Fred Raskin to re-edit and Jeremy Slater of Godzilla X Kong to work with screenwriter Anna Nogueira on a few new scenes. Then Gillespie’s original cut, edited by Tatiana S. Riegel from Cruella, and the new cut were both shown to audiences to see which would faire better. Neither film stood out too much with the studio version scoring about two points more than Gillespie’s. While the director’s cut came in about 11 minutes longer and scored higher on the villain and the music, two things complained about in reviews, the overall score favored the studio cut and it was chosen to be the theatrical release. Though reports don’t say what the specific scores were, it does say the highest score reached among all the testing was only 70 out of 100. While this may sound like a behind-the-scenes struggle and signs of studio interference, things like this happen all the time in Hollywood with the goal of putting out the best film possible and had the film had a higher opening, this probably wouldn’t be news at all. An on-line movement is now building to have the “director’s cut” released even though a handful of people claim to have been in the audience for the Gillespie cut and claims that the film isn’t that different than what was released to theaters. Perhaps the deleted scenes will be included on the Blu-ray release.  ... 06/27/26 @ 4:07 pm EST
DC Studios and Warner Bros. Animation used this week’s Annecy International Animation Film Festival to signal a broader push into animation, unveiling three new series built around some of DC’s most recognizable characters. The slate includes Absolute Batman, Joker: Laugh Riot, and Krypto, each aimed at a different corner of the superhero audience. The boldest announcement may be Joker: Laugh Riot, described as DC Studios’ first anime series. Produced with Sola Entertainment and directed by Yasuhiro Aoki, the show imagines a Gotham where Batman has been murdered and the Joker hunts for the killer who robbed him of his greatest obsession. That premise turns the usual Batman-Joker dynamic inside out, pushing the Clown Prince of Crime into uneasy detective territory. Absolute Batman adapts the recent comic by Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta, reimagining Bruce Wayne as a working-class hero rather than a billionaire crimefighter. Snyder is expected to serve as executive producer and showrunner, while Dragotta will produce. The series’ “no manor, no money” approach positions Batman as a more grounded figure facing wealth, power, and corruption from the outside. Rounding out the lineup is Krypto, a children’s animated series centered on Superman’s loyal super-dog. Developed by C.H. Greenblatt, the project gives DC a lighter, family-friendly entry alongside the darker Batman and Joker titles. Together, the announcements show DC Studios treating animation not as a side lane but as a flexible creative engine. From anime to kid-focused comedy to a radical Batman reinvention, the Annecy slate suggests DC is betting that familiar icons can still feel new when placed in unexpected formats and tones.  06/20/26 @ 2:31 pm EST
How well is Supergirl going to do in theaters? It’s really hard to say, especially if you are reading on-line takes. Since the tickets were made available for presale, the opening projections have moved all over the place with initial thoughts being between $40 - $50 million, then after a few really positive days it jumped to $60 - $75 and has bounced higher and lower to where now they’re saying $50 - $60. The film is set to open against a popular Toy Story 5 that will be on its second week and likely to stay at the top of the box office if it has an average second week drop. Bottom line the expert seem to be having a hard time locking in on this one. What about critics’ thoughts? The film was screened for reviewers and while originally embargoed until next week, the studio lifted the embargo for reactions a week early and now you can see what they thought. Not their full reviews, but their short initial reactions and if you look online most sites are claiming they’re “mixed”… unless you go into the comments and read them yourself. Even sites like Deadline are saying that yet of the reactions they list, the positives outnumber the negatives three or four to one. There is consistent praise for Milly Alcock, Jason Momoa, the action and the heart of the film. The villain is often called bland and the pacing gets called out, but to call it mixed is a stretch. The problem is that like everything in life, film coverage has become political. Sites use negative headlines to get attention and with DC Studios particularly you have a split fan base between what is happening now and those that prefer the previous films… which means that narrative gets created to further their own cause. The truth is, Supergirl will struggle a bit with a film like Toy Story 5 going against it, the character is not popular on her own and is a derivative of a bigger character and in a lot of ways, the previous incarnations, while entertaining, did nothing to make the character stand on her own. Regardless of how it does, there will be a narrative claiming success and another claiming failure. The only way to judge the truth is to see the movie yourself and decide… but that’s really how we judge all movies isn’t it? ... 06/13/26 @ 2:25 pm EST
We’re just weeks away from the release of the first Supergirl movie in over 40 years and with ticket presales well underway, experts are making their projects on opening weekend. After the initial sales started happening, most sites were predicting anywhere from $45 to $55 million domestically, but after a few days of higher-than-expected numbers, some sites have adjusted up to as high as $60 to $77 million. This would put the Milly Alcock lead film right in line with the last few Marvel Studios films (except Deadpool and Wolverine). While there has been some debate, Deadline claims the film’s budget is $175 million and the breakeven point would be around $315 million. Other sites claim it’s as high as $425 million globally to call it a success. Only DC Studios and its co-heads James Gunn and Peter Safran know what would make this film a success for them, but with trying to rebuild a franchise that had been pretty much run into the ground with underperforming films like The Flash, Aquaman 2 and Shazam 2, having a film that makes most of its money back and is a critical and audience success could be more valuable. Coming off the success of last year’s Superman film, DC is hoping that Craig Gillespie’s vision will continue to excite fans and keep building the new DCU to higher and higher heights. The success of this film and this universe may be driven more on word-of-mouth than box office numbers and the studio appear to be confident enough in the film that they have already had media screenings over two weeks before the film’s release. Yes, there is still an embargo so they can have those reviews come out closer to when the film is in theaters, but you can probably tell the way the project is being covered whether or not it was well received.  ... 06/13/26 @ 2:01 pm EST
A new rumor is shaking up what fans are expecting from The Batman Part 2. On the same day that writer/director Matt Reeves posted that filming had begun, insider Jeff Schnieder posted about how everything we knew about Sebastian Stan’s role in the project was wrong. Sites had been reporting that Stan would be playing Harvey Dent/Two-Face and while that had never been confirmed by Reeves or DC Studios, people took comments from Stan as confirmation such as how he would be playing, “multiple roles” as a hint at him playing the split-personality of the Batman villain. But the new report claims that Stan is not Dent but rather the serial killer Victor Zsasz and actor Bryan Tyree Henry would be playing Dent. Other insiders have some out since and claim to have collaborating information. Zsasz is an interesting character, a killer who notches a mark on his skin for every kill. He’s been portrayed in live action a couple of times including on Gotham and in the Birds of Prey movie but has never been the main focus of a story. This would match up to Reeves saying that the film would be exploring a story never done in film before. It doesn’t really match up to Stan’s comment about “multiple roles” or reports that he was already working with make-up to figure out the look. Reeves is not confined by what is in the comics so he could make major changes to characters, even to the point of making Zsasz a divergent personality of Harvey Dent that manifested prior to the acid attack causing Two-Face to emerge. It’s also possible that Schneider’s information is slightly off and instead of playing the serial killer, Stan could be playing Charles Victor Szasz who is also known as Victor Sage or The Question. How’s that for a twist? The bottom line here is that Schnieder is hearing this from an insider, and it has not been confirmed by any official source and I wouldn’t put it past film studios to start leaking false information to protect a movie that is just starting to film. I think this one stays in the, “take with a grain of salt” category and we wait to find out more.  ... 06/06/26 @ 2:40 pm EST
DC Studios and their co-head James Gunn have talked about a lot of potential series and films with some of them being mentioned and then sort of forgotten about. One of those seemed to be Paradise Lost, a Wonder Woman prequel series showing life on Themyscira before the birth of Diana. Though after its initial mention, the project hadn’t been talked about in a while and someone asked Gunn its fate. Gunn insisted the project was still in the works and now we are seeing some possible confirmation. Back in 2024, two names were attached as writers on the series Kira Snyder and Janet Lin and now, according to the WGA website, both are set to work on Paradise Lost for 2027-2028. Snyder is known for writing and producing on The Handmaid’s Tale and The 100 while Lin has credits on Bridgerton, Cursed, and Bones. There has been talks recently about trying to fast track a new Wonder Woman film and while there is no confirmation, rumors persist that the character may debut in Man of Tomorrow, so seeing Paradise Lost finally moving forward would make a lot of sense.  05/30/26 @ 2:41 pm EST
Sony’s new Spider-Noir series has out done the MCU when it comes to fans. According to Forbes, the new Nicholas Cage lead series with him playing a 1930s variant of Spider-Man has garnered the highest audience score of all Marvel related television projects on Rotten Tomatoes. In the new series, Cage plays detective Ben Reilly who used to be the web-swinging hero called The Spider but hung up his mask after the death of his fiancée. Audience have really taken to the series that is available in both color and B&W, giving it a 93% (a point higher than when Forbes did their article) and even scored well with the critics at 92%. While the critic score is impressive, other Marvel projects have done better such as X-Men ’97 with a 99% score and Ms. Marvel with a 98% among critics. But on the audience side, 93% is tops beating out shows like Agents of SHIELD, Daredevil (Netflix) and WandaVision. While there has been no word on a second season, it would be hard for Amazon and Sony to ignore results like this.  05/30/26 @ 2:08 pm EST
James Gunn, co-head of DC Studios and writer/director of the upcoming Man of Tomorrow film, was back on social media this week answering questions and one in particular stood out. A Threads user named “boyturizmo” asked, “Will we ever see General Zod, Doomsday, Dr. Fate, Black Adam, Ultraman (with his Crime Syndicate) or Darkseid?” Gunn replied, “Two of them in not too long…” This of course led to a ton of speculation on which two and where? Now the obvious one is Darkseid, and while Gunn has said his DCU isn’t building toward a big Thanos like battle with Darkseid, the character is going to be appearing in the upcoming animated series Mr. Miracle. The series is in production with comic writer Tom King onboard as the showrunner and he recently showed off a clip to interviewer Brandon Davis, who did not share what he saw. Mr. Miracle is an escape artist raised on Darkseid’s planet Apokolips who falls in love with a warrior woman named Big Barda and they escape to Earth. Though no casting has been announced for the series, Gunn has stated that the animated series are cannon to the DCU and actors cast in the animated shows, like Frank Grillo as Rick Flag Sr., would carry over into live action like Grillo did in both Peacemaker and Superman. As for the second character we will see soon, it is possible that Gunn could bring back more characters from the DCEU and have Dwayne Johnson return as Black Adam or Pierce Brosnan don the helmet of Dr Fate once more. And Ultraman could return from the black hole he was sucked into… but I think the most likely possibility will be in flashbacks to Krypton, possibly in Supergirl, where we could see General Zod cameo in a scene with Jor-El ( Bradley Cooper) and Zor-El ( David Krumholtz) discussing the fate of the planet and how to handle it. This would be a great scene for world-building… though part of me really wants Brosnan back as Fate.  ...
05/24/26 @ 1:45 pm EST
With The Batman Part 2 going into early production, fans are eager for news, information and confirmations and we may just have one thanks to one of the newcomers to the franchise, Sebastian Stan. It’s been rumored for months that the actor who has played everything from Bucky Barnes to Donald Trump to Tommy Lee was moving to Gotham in the role of District Attorney Harvey Dent aka coin-flipping villain Two-Face, and while his casting was confirmed by director Matt Reeves a few days back, we have not had an official announcement on the part he will be playing. While speaking to Deadline about his film Fjord, Stan spoke a bit about his summer plans which include a trip to London to work with Reeves where he says he will be playing “many roles in this one”. The article states that he’s talking about the role of Dent and how the character transforms from D.A. to villain when acid is thrown in his face by mobster Salvadore Maroni. Stan goes on to say, ”I’m excited, I’m nervous and trying to keep surprising myself.” He also he has been working with hair and make-up already trying to figure out how his disfigurement will look. Stan doesn’t come out and say in the quotes that he’s playing Two-Face, but Deadline strongly implies it and are one of the sites that had been reporting that he had been cast in the role early on. The Batman Epic Crime Saga, as Reeves calls it, does have one hitch to overcome. During The Penguin series on HBO Max, Maroni was played by Clancy Brown and does not make it through the series. So, either the attack on Dent takes place prior to the events we’ve already seen portrayed or Reeves is going to change up who throws the acid. Not a huge problem but it will be interesting to see how the moment will be handled if we end up seeing it at all. The Batman Part 2 is beginning to film and is on track for an October 2027 release. ... |
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