How the Disney-Lucas deal could affect 007

The big entertainment industry news on Oct. 30 was that Walt Disney Co. agreed to buy George Lucas’s Lucasfilm Ltd. for about $4 billion. Mickey Mouse meets Luke Skywalker. But it couldn’t affect 007, could it?

What’s your next move, 007? Bond 24 in 2014 or 2015?

Don’t count on it.

Disney already planned to release The Avengers 2 in 2015. Now, the studio wants to jump start the Star Wars franchise with a new movie that same year.

The question for Eon Productions and its business partners Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (which controls 50 percent of the Bond franchise) and Sony Pictures (which is releasing Skyfall and the next two 007 movies) is when Bond 24 comes out. MGM and Sony want that to happen in 2014. Eon says 2014 or 2015.

Michael G. Wilson, in an interview with the Den of Geek Web site said Bond 24’s schedule depends. “If we’re rapid it’ll be two years, if we’re not it’ll be three,” the veteran Eon co-boss said in the interview.

Here’s what Eon has to consider: Is 2014 sufficient time for the next movie after Skyfall. If not, do you run a risk waiting for 2015, when The Avengers 2 and Star Wars 7 may suck up a lot of the box-office oxygen? If the answer is 2015, can MGM and Sony find the right place in the schedule where Bond 24 won’t get squeezed by two potential Disney blockbusters?

The Ian Fleming character Kronsteen (in his screen incarnation) once claimed to have considered all the possibilities of move and counter move. For that character in the 1963 movie From Russia With Love, things didn’t work out so well. Eon, Sony and MGM have more time on their hands. But they also may want to ponder move and counter move.