It wasn’t misplaced on folks round city that Jen Salke‘s identify was not listed in any of the latest bulletins that Amy Pascal and David Heyman could be taking on the James Bond franchise, and even {that a} deal had been reached with Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson to cede artistic management. And fewer than every week after Pascal and Heyman had been formally introduced as the brand new stewards of the franchise, Salke was out at Amazon MGM Studios.
Salke had been with Amazon MGM since 2018, and he or she landed large hits like “Fallout,” “Reacher,” and “Jury Responsibility,” whereas additionally doubling down on some expensive swings like “The Rings of Energy” and “Citadel.” However evaluation after evaluation within the trades Friday consider her exit had all to do with James Bond. Amazon acquired MGM again in 2022, and in that span we’re no nearer to realizing what occurs to 007 after we left him on that island ready for a missile strike on the finish of “No Time to Die” in 2021.
Her ouster is being described internally as her selection, with Salke remaining on the lot with a brand new manufacturing entity that can have a primary look movie and TV deal. However some suppose she was pushed out. (Amazon MGM had no remark for this piece.)
So what occurs to 007 now that Salke’s out? Rumblings that one thing was amiss date again to December, when the Wall Road Journal described Bond being locked in a stalemate between the studio and Broccoli and Wilson. It claimed Broccoli in personal described Amazon execs as “f—ing idiots,” and that Bond 26 didn’t have a script, story, or Bond himself. Of Salke particularly, WSJ reported that Broccoli didn’t look after Salke referring to Bond as “content material,” whereas Amazon MGM movie chief Courtenay Valenti was described by the WSJ because the “Barbara whisperer.”
It’s Valenti, not Salke, who struck the deal to purchase out Broccoli and Wilson and to whom Pascal and Heyman are actually reporting. And based on Deadline, that was a stipulation the Broccolis had earlier than Salke was formally out. And Amazon needed to pay an enormous examine as a way to get that privilege, one thing in concept Salke would’ve been tasked with avoiding.
That appears to offer Valenti a variety of energy herself, however she has an enormous slate of as many as 12-14 motion pictures launched theatrically she has to fret about, one thing she and Salke promised at SXSW simply forward of her now heading to Las Vegas for CinemaCon. She’ll now be doing in order her personal movie head reporting on to Amazon Video chief Mike Hopkins. It’s why each Deadline and THR of their evaluation of Salke’s exit shared the rumor that yet one more govt could possibly be introduced on board simply to deal with Bond.
Hopkins stated in his memo yesterday that no substitute for Salke could be named, and so they’d take a few weeks determining what the most effective new organizational construction is for the studio. Bond’s place in that could possibly be so simple as one other govt minding the shop whereas Pascal (herself a former studio chief at Sony) and Heyman (who has managed an equally large franchise with Harry Potter) do the artistic.
Or on the additional finish of the spectrum it may imply discovering an govt crossing over between movie and TV and somebody with the overarching imaginative and prescient for all the things 007. Marvel has Kevin Feige, DC has James Gunn and Peter Safran, Lucasfilm has Kathleen Kennedy. Is there a singular Bond whisperer on the market able to making a full slate of 007 initiatives? Amazon MGM additionally has to make the selection of whether or not it might need to give remaining minimize and entire fabric to an auteur like Christopher Nolan or Quentin Tarantino to do no matter they need with Bond, and that will not line up with a corporatized imaginative and prescient.
No matter occurs, it looks like discovering the following particular person to play James Bond would be the precedence. We simply realize it received’t be Salke main the search.