News

James Bond is going through 99 problems right now, and Jeff Bezos is one of them. The franchise that has reigned over Hollywood since the 1960s has finally hit a rough patch that’s even worse than Roger Moore’s era as 007. Meanwhile, fans still clamor over the absence of Henry Cavill, as the 41-year-old actor is all but done with playing the MI6 superspy.

No Time to Die [Credit: Universal Pictures]

However, Cavill’s missed opportunity is not the saddest part about the Bond franchise. Jeff Bezos’s power move as Amazon annexes Eon Productions under its wings has wrecked, shocked, disheartened, and terrified Hollywood, critics, and fans alike. Now, further scrutiny shows that Cavill being shunned as a Bond contender and Amazon buying out 007 may just be linked, after all.

Henry Cavill snub could be linked to Amazon buy-out Henry Cavill in The Man from U.N.C.L.

The International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C. explores the legacy of global espionage, making its history legible and compelling to a contemporary audience. So, it’s fitting that its latest exhibit displays a dozen-and-a-half vehicles associated with the person who may be, oxymorons aside, the world’s best-known fictitious super-spy.

This show, “Bond In Motion,” opens March 1 and features iconic cars from 007’s six decades. These include the self-cloaking Aston Martin Vanquish from Die Another Day, the remote-controlled BMW 750iL from Tomorrow Never Dies, the surface-to-air missile-firing BMW Z8 from The World is Not Enough, and, perhaps the world’s most famous car, the machine gun–concealing, oil slick–emitting, license plate–rotating, seat-ejecting Aston Martin DB5 used in Goldfinger.

But it also includes lesser-known Bond vehicles, like a snowmobile from Die Another Day, a three-wheeled, motorcycle-based Tuk-Tuk from Octopussy, a hang-glider from Moonraker, and a submarine from Diamonds are Forever,...

When the copyright lawsuit between original Friday the 13th director/producer Sean S. Cunningham and screenwriter Victor Miller came to an end, Miller was awarded with the U.S. copyright to the first film. Miller went on to team up with his lawyer Marc Toberoff, A24, Hannibal creator Bryan Fuller, and Friday the 13th franchise rights holder Rob Barsamian – the last surviving investor in the original film – to start developing the “expanded prequel” / “pre-remake-quel” TV series Crystal Lake for the Peacock streaming service. Thanks to the involvement of both Miller and Barsamian, that series can use all elements from the entire Friday the 13th franchise. But Cunningham isn’t just walking away from the Friday the 13th business. Our friends over at Bloody Disgusting have learned that Cunningham is overseeing reboots of Friday the 13th and the 1985 horror comedy House (which he produced), while also producing an original film called The Night Driver!

Bloody Disgusting has uncovered a big time scoop to finish off the week, learning that Sean S. Cunningham (Friday the 13th) is not only working to get his own Friday the 13th reboot off the ground, but he’s also developing a reboot of a horror movie he produced back in 1985, House. In addition, Cunningham is producing an original film titled The Night Driver, working alongside writer Jeff Locker and director Jeremy Weiss on the various upcoming projects.

Of course, the catch with all things Friday the 13th is that the franchise was up until recently mired in legal issues, with original screenwriter Victor Miller now joining forces with Bryan Fuller (“Hannibal”) and A24 on a franchise prequel series for Peacock. That project is titled “Crystal Lake,” and Jeff Locker explains how a separate project could end up working.

Locker explains, “Sean hired me to do a rewrite on The...

All products and services featured by IndieWire are independently selected by IndieWire editors. However, IndieWire may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.

It’s easy to fall down the rabbit hole when scrolling through a pileup of shows, and not really knowing what you’re in the mood for. If you’re like a lot of people who have been spending more time at home than usual, there’s a chance that your TV watching habits have changed in the last year.

Whatever your ritual – whether it’s settling in for a weekend binge session, or catching up on shows during the weekday, true-crime documentaries are an easy way to feed your obsession.

After more than a year in lockdown, and adjusting to social distancing, working from home, and distanced-learning, watching a good series feels like a form of self-care.

(right to left) George Feltenstein poses with Michael Feinstein, and Roddy McDowall in front of a re-creation of Rick’s cafe for the 1992 Vsda trade show.

By Lee Pfeiffer

Film historian Tim Millard has launched an addictive new blog titled "The Extras" in which he interviews various people in the movie industry. Millard is a former Warner Brothers Home Entertainment veteran who went on to create many of the "extras" (i.e bonus content) found on popular home video releases, hence the title of the podcast. For a high profile launch for the podcast, Millard turned to an appropriate interview subject: George Feltenstein, with whom he worked with for many years at WB. The average retro movie fan may not know Feltenstein by name, although he is a legend in the home video industry, but anyone who appreciates how classic and cult movies are made available to the general public...

What will happen to the billion-dollar James Bond franchise now that the online giant Amazon has bought MGM and its 50% stake in the legendary spy series? One thing is clear: No matter what Amazon wants to do with the Bond franchise — more features, character spinoffs, TV series — something only happens when Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, the owners of Eon Productions, want it to happen. “Nothing majorly will change,” John Cork, an avid Bond fan and director of over 30 Bond documentaries, told TheWrap. “It’ll just be one more studio logo that will appear on James Bond movies.” Consider 007 history, said an insider who asked to remain anonymous, noting the “countless times” MGM and UA have been bought and sold and the many executives that have come and gone, thinking they would be the change with the Bond franchise. “This means nothing,” the insider said of the Amazon deal.

It’s an unusual sight for James Bond fans. Standing in a gloriously green Technicolor field by a California stream intended to pass for Ireland, Sean Connery cuts a more rugged approximation of Walt Disney masculinity, taking breaks between a swing of his scythe to sing, “She’s my dear, my darling one, my smilin’ and beguilin’ one, I love the ground she walks upon my darling Irish girl.”

To be charitable, Connery’s attempt at an Irish lilt was no more convincing in 1959’s Darby O’Gill and the Little People than it would be three decades later for his Oscar winning turn in The Untouchables. Nevertheless, there was something charming, beguiling even, about both performances, with the musical one proving strangely important to Connery getting the role of Ian Fleming’s James Bond 007.

That might be in large part because Dr. No producer Cubby Broccoli anticipated Fleming,...

This Story Has Been Updated.

By Lee Pfeiffer

Molly Peters, who began her career as a nude "glamour girl" model before starting a short-lived film career, has passed away at age 78.  She had been diagnosed with terminal breast cancer according to her husband but it was a stroke to which she succumbed. Peters' voluptuous appearance made her one of the more popular of the provocative models who posed for men's magazines in the 1960s. She posed for England's legendary photographer of nudes, Harrison Marks. She landed the only memorable role of her career in the 1965 James Bond blockbuster "Thunderball". In the film, Bond (Sean Connery) was sent to the Shrublands health spa to recuperate from some wear-and-tear. Here he encounters nurse Pat (Peters), a sexy blonde who conveniently is assigned to look after Bond's needs. Within short order Bond has her naked in a steam room. In another scene, Bond...

Raymond Benson and Peter Janson-Smith in Krakow.

By Raymond Benson

Peter Janson-Smith passed away on Friday, April 15, 2016, at the age of 93. He was a giant in the world of British publishing, a major figure in that arena for nearly seventy years. Serious James Bond fans will know him as Ian Fleming’s literary agent, the man who spearheaded the exploitation of Fleming’s 007 novels around the world from 1956 until Peter’s retirement in 2002.

On a personal level, Peter’s death is a great loss. For me, he was a mentor, a friend, a teacher, and someone I called my “English dad.” He was instrumental in the research for my 1984 book, The James Bond Bedside Companion, and he hired me to write the continuation James Bond novels in the mid-90s. In short, I owe much of my career to him.

Peter was born on September 5, 1922, in Navestock, England, which is...

Florida-based production company Deliberate Murder has commenced principal photography on the documentary about race and sexual exploitation.

You Belong To Me recounts the story of Ruby McCollum, a wealthy black woman in the South who in 1952 killed a white Senator who had sexually exploited her on numerous occasions.

Hilary Saltzman, daughter of producer Harry Saltzman from the original James Bond movies, is producing with Jude Hagin, who served as film commissioner in central Florida for 15 years.

Kitty Potapow, former president of the Film Commission Of Real Florida, serves as executive producer.

John Cork wrote and directs You Belong To Me and also produces alongside Lisa Van Eyssen.

James Bond Encyclopedia

By John Cork and Collin Stutz

334 Pages, Dk Publishing, $40

Nobody does it better. Dk Publishing continues to put out the best assortment of visual reference books on pop culture and as we near the holidays, they keep pumping out one must have collection after another.

Few literary figures have endured changing eras and tastes likes Ian Fleming’s spy, James Bond. Fleming created the spy in the 1950s and continued his exploits through the dozen novels and nine short stories before his death in 1964. He got to see his creation catch the attention of a world made uncomfortable by the Cold War, giving them a clear cut hero to root for as he traveled the world and dispatched the Red Menace in all its guises.

Bond has endured despite the constant change in performer, indelibly begun by Sean Connery and carried through by George Lazenby, Roger Moore,...