Bond 25 questions: The Universal edition

Universal logo

With Bond 25, one of the biggest changes was how Universal, part of Comcast, would be in charge of international distribution.

For the past four 007 films, Sony’s Columbia Pictures handled all the distribution. With Bond 25, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Annapurna, through the United Artists Releasing joint venture, would handle the U.S. and Canada. Universal would deal with international distribution, which is the biggest piece of a Bond film.

With that in mind, the blog has a few questions.

Hey, what about that Bond 25 teaser trailer?

A favorite Bond fan theory was that a Bond 25 teaser trailer might be attached to Universal’s Fast & Furious Presents Hobbs & Shaw, a spinoff from the studio’s successful Fast and the Furious franchise.

Well, Hobbs & Shaw is being released this week. There’s no sign of a Bond 25 trailer. Perhaps it will still happen. Still, these days, trailers debut online days before they show up in theaters. Time is running out for a Bond 25 teaser trailer to be part of Hobbs & Shaw.

What does Universal mean for Bond 25 otherwise?

It may mean the situation is more complicated. Or, as Napoleon Solo once said in an episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., “It’s a three-cornered game.”

For the last four Bond films, Columbia managed marketing and releasing. MGM was the home studio for the Bond franchise but it lacked its own distribution operation.

Now, with United Artists Releasing, MGM and Annapurna are involved in addition to Universal. There’s no single distribution/marketing point.

So?

Recall that the late April “reveal” event in Jamaica didn’t have a title for Bond 25. The MI6 James Bond website has reported there was a title (A Reason to Die) ready to go but Eon Productions and its studio partners opted to hold off. The film still has no title three months later.

Essentially, there are more parties who need to be kept in the loop. United Artists Releasing is a proxy for two different (financially struggling) studios while Universal is a Bond newbie.

Anything else?

Back in 2015, Michael G. Wilson of Eon Productions said Eon really does the marketing for Bond films, its studio partners merely execute the plan.

But is that really the case this time? Or would Universal like to have a say? Perhaps we’ll see.

GoldenEye, Saltzman’s son show up on 60 Minutes

GoldenEye’s poster

A clip from GoldenEye plus an appearance by the son of Eon Productions co-founder Harry Saltzman were part of a 60 Minutes story about Monaco. The story originally aired this spring has was recent rerun.

Naturally, the GoldenEye clip is from the casino sequence where Pierce Brosnan’s Bond shows up to gamble. It was this scene where he got to utter his version of the line, “The name’s Bond, James Bond.”

Steven Saltzman is a Monaco resident and was one of those interviewed by Anderson Cooper, the correspondent for the segment on the CBS News program. (Cooper’s main job is for CNN, but he contributes to 60 Minutes.)

Monaco was carved out of the coast of France and, as the story notes, is very small. It’s less than 1 square mile. Only the Vatican is smaller. Monaco doesn’t impose an income tax, helping to draw the rich as residents.

Steven Saltzman has a job helping wealthy foreigners move to Monaco, according to the story. His father and the James Bond connection is briefly referenced. Harry Saltzman’s first name, however, isn’t mentioned.

Steven Saltzman does a sales job for Monaco in the story.

“Monaco is utopia,” the younger Saltzman says. “It’s a country with no sovereign debt where a hundred different nationalities live together protected, in peace, by a planet-loving prince.”

Just don’t move in unless you have many millions of dollars. As 60 Minutes points out, there are more luxury shops than grocery stores. It was appropriate that 60 Minutes sent Anderson Cooper, whose mother was Gloria Vanderbilt. He had a chance to rub shoulders with people with his wealth or greater.

Footnote: Steven Saltzman was interviewed in the late 1990s for documentaries about a number of Bond films. They were included as extras on home video releases. He also has A TWITTER ACCOUNT. However, don’t expect to pick up any 007 tidbits.