No Time To Die made a bit of news as we closed out the week last week when a report emerged from a Bloomberg scoop that MGM offered the film to streamers Netflix, Apple, and Amazon for a proposed one-year license of $600 million. While these talks did happen, they reportedly fell apart very quickly and the film will be released theatrically as planned.
According to “Deadline”, dialogue between MGM and streamers did happen in late September, when MGM decided to move the Bond film out of its Thanksgiving slot. The studio and Eon also considered doing a PVOD deal, like the one Disney did with Mulan, charging viewers directly. The deal couldn’t be made, however, because none of the streamers was willing to put up more than half the amount asked for the one year license. More importantly, James Bond franchise principal producer Barbara Broccoli flatly nixed the deal but the whole thing was an exploration because of the uncertain times we’re in due to the pandemic & theatrical releases.
This was clearly an example of MGM weighing their options, especially since it’s not looking like moviegoing will be anything close to normal in the near future. At the end of the day, I think MGM remembered that this latest Bond entry has $1 billion worldwide potential and they leaned on waiting this all out so the film can have the theatrical release it deserves while also having a chance to pull in the estimated money they believe the film can pull in on a global scale. The fact that these talks did happen is a bit a new normal though and, also according to “Deadline”, many studios have had these talks with streamers about many tentpole releases this year but they just didn’t go to press.
