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Robert Iger, CEO of Walt Disney Co., suggested he wouldn’t mind owning the James Bond franchise.
Iger was named “Businessperson of the Year” by Time magazine, an offshoot of its “Person of the Year” issue. At the very end of the article, there was this passage:
But for now, for just this moment, Iger is unassailable. He’s transformed his company from a stuffy media doyen into a sexy cultural force. He can glide to retirement in 2021 on the fumes of that triumph. Except it’s not his style. When asked which IP he would buy if in some fantasy world he could: Harry Potter, Gandalf or James Bond, Iger smiles. “We’re not looking to buy anything right now,” he says. “But I’ve always been a huge James Bond fan.”
The thing is, Disney has a piece of Bond, at least through mid-2020.
Disney paid more than $71 billion for most of the assets of 21st Century Fox, including the 20th Century Fox studio. That included Fox’s home video operation, the current distributor for Bond films.
Under Iger, Disney has also acquired Marvel and its movie-making operation as well as Lucasfilm Ltd., the maker of Star Wars movies.
Some James Bond fans would rather slit their wrists rather than see Disney get more involved with Bond. Currently, the Bond franchise is controlled by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, one of the weakest Hollywood studios, and the Broccoli-Wilson family-controlled Danjaq (parent company of Eon Productions).
MGM has been rebuilding since a 2010 bankruptcy. Financial issues at MGM have affected how often Bond films have been released.
Filed under: James Bond Films | Tagged: 20th Century Fox, Bond 25, Danjaq LLC, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, No Time to Die, Robert Iger, Time, Walt Disney Co. |
The Spy Command 
[…] In December, Iger said he was a big James Bond fan while saying the company wasn’t looking to do another big acquisition. Whether or not that happens, it won’t take place under Iger’s watch. […]