Film For thought breaks down the top trends and stories from this week in showbiz.
1. The Name’s Prime, Amazon Prime: The Day Jeff Bezos bought James Bond
The film industry was sent into a tailspin on Thursday as the news was announced that Amazon had controlling rights to James Bond. Now that the franchise is no longer a family heirloom that has been carefully protected in a glass case over the years, there is doubt cast over a beloved character and story that could be mercilessly squeezed to a pulp by a technology conglomerate. Change is not always bad however, and maybe Amazon’s extraordinarily deep tech pockets will allow it to make one of the biggest Bond’s yet with the biggest directing names in the business. On the other hand, it may get its way and create dreaded spin-off shows because they can. Only time will tell how Jeff Bezos will handle the beloved franchise. But for now, the news leaves an industry both shaken and stirred.
2. Bridget: Mad About the Box Office
Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy was all loved up this weekend as it recorded the biggest opening weekend ever for a rom com in the UK and Ireland. Over a four day opening weekend (including Thursday previews) the filmed debuted to a whopping £11.8 million, surpassing the opening all three of the franchises by a country mile with the second film in the franchise opening to approximately £8 million. It sends another significant signal to the market that filmforthought.site mentioned last week in that the under-served female audience can and will deliver results. Despite how lucrative the upside can be, films for the female movie going audience remain few and far between.
3. Best Bets for the Oscars with one week to go
While many of the acting and craft categories can be generally easier to predict, Best Picture is notoriously hard to predict correctly due to a confluence of factors including; campaign momentum, the cultural zeitgeist, preferential voting and – specific to this year with Emilia Perez – the knock on effects of cancel culture. Film For Thought outlines the best bets for the Oscar wins this year..
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