Selling ‘No Time To Die’ To Streaming Would Devalue Future James Bond Movies

If No Time to Die were to skip theaters for a streaming or even PVOD debut, MGM would have trouble convincing audiences (and promotional partners) that the eventual next James Bond movie is worth seeing theatrically.

We got word last weekend that Apple
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TV and Netflix
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had been in conversations with MGM about buying global distribution rights for No Time to Die, a deal (allegedly worth at least $600 million) which would see the 25th official James Bond movie skip theaters for streaming. MGM denied the reports, but the mere notion that the next installment in the first modern blockbuster cinema franchise would skip theaters sent shockwaves through the industry. Yes, Apple and Netflix have money to burn, and this is as much about showing off than actual “expense versus return” investments. But it would be a dangerous short-term play for MGM and EON with potentially disastrous long-term repercussions for a tentpole franchise that gets much of its allure from theatrical success.

No, 121 million people aren’t going to immediately pay $4.99 to sign up for Apple TV+ (and remain subscribers for the long haul) just because Daniel Craig’s fifth and final 007 flick is premiering there. Although, putting aside my preference for the theatrical experience for a moment, if overpaying for Hollywood’s biggest free agent movie franchise means Apple TV+ gets a massive boost for its star-driven and mostly IP-free (or new-to-you) films and TV shows, well, that might be worth it to them. After all, having modern classics like Bill Lawrence’s Ted Lasso on Apple TV+ only means so much if folks don’t subscribe to Apple TV+. It almost goes without saying that Netflix could consider such an acquisition as a “f*** you” gesture.

Netflix, with a steady supply of buzzy shows and movies, don’t need No Time to Die on their service. They can crow to the press about how wannabe TV pilots like Peter Berg and Mark Wahlberg’s Spencer Confidential movie reboot can snag 86 million “official views” without being too pressed on the obvious differences between clicking on the shiny picture of the big movie star on your Netflix home page and driving to a theater and buying a ticket. Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 can earn strong reviews and Oscar buzz and still vanish from their (domestic) daily top-ten list in under a week. The only reason they’d buy a 007 movie would be to stick it to theaters and rival studios.

The difference, and really the only reason we’re even talking about this, is that the 007 series, currently owned by EON Productions and MGM, is essentially the last super-mega-huge cinematic franchise not explicitly tied to a major studio. Most folks don’t know that Sony distributed the last four Daniel Craig 007 movies. But they know, at least to a greater extent, that Star Trek and Transformers are Paramount
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, Pixar, Marvel and Star Wars are Disney, DC Films and Harry Potter is Warner Bros and Fast & Furious, Illumination and Jurassic World is Universal. Moreover, even if (theoretically) Marvel’s Black Widow or DC’s Wonder Woman 1984 skipped theaters, they’d either go PVOD or debut on their studio’s own streaming platforms (Disney+ and HBO Max, respectively).

Cary Fukunaga’s $250 million-budgeted No Time to Die, which was the first major movie delayed due to the Coronavirus, is arguably the biggest movie that could ever be outright sold to a streaming platform under normal circumstances. Yes, Universal is distributing the film overseas, but if the film bypasses international theaters than Comcast
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will pay back their distribution fee and presumably get a refund on their pre-release expenses. As for the “could it happen?” question, MGM has essentially depended on the periodic James Bond movies to keep itself afloat for at least as long as I’ve been following this stuff. Periodic successes elsewhere (producer credits on The Hobbit trilogy, success with the Rocky and Creed franchise) aside, they’re still essentially living and dying by 007.

With the notion of a healthy domestic theatrical marketplace still an open question even by April 2, 2021, an agreed-upon sky-high asking price would be tempting. Paramount certainly made more money selling Coming 2 America to Amazon
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for $125 million than they would have in conventional theatrical release, as the film would have had to earn around $300 million (possible but not guaranteed) to send that amount, after marketing costs, back to the studio. Presuming No Time to Die earned $100 million in China (where the studio only gets back 25% of the ticket price), it could earn $1.2 billion worldwide (Skyfall earned $1.108 billion in 2012 while Spectre grossed $881 million in 2015) and still bring back “just” $575 million before marketing costs and profit sharing.

However, and this may be the deal breaker, No Time to Die, like every 007 movie, is packed to the gills with product placement. This is something about which the media pretends to be shocked every time out (“Oh no, Hollywood accepted money to make Mexico look glamorous and tourist-friendly in an otherwise rigorously authentic 007 movie!”), but 007 is one of those franchise where product placements can often compensate for the entire production budget. But the various companies paying money to plug their stuff in James Bond 25 were paying for a global theatrical “commercial.” Moreover, they damn sure weren’t paying for that advertisement to appear on Apple TV+, which A) has a relatively low media profile and B) implicitly exists to plug Apple products.

Would these companies be willing to shell out to MGM and friends for the next James Bond movie without an iron-clad guarantee that the film would get a global theatrical release? And if not, then MGM and friends would be comparatively dependent on the theatrical earnings of the theoretical next 007 movie or however much they could get from a streaming platform. However, once you pull that genie out of the bottle, it’s very hard (if not impossible) to put it back. Once you create the idea that the current James Bond film is no longer a theatrical event, will audiences presume the next one isn’t either? Part of what makes this film a huge deal is its original designation as a global theatrical blockbuster.

This goes back to the ongoing conversation about studios using PVOD to get some money from delayed theatrical releases, many of which would have been questionable commercial offerings even in better theatrical environments. All due respect, John Stewart’s Irresistible wasn’t the next coming of Wag the Dog, and The High Note (which is very good) likely would have suffered a theatrical fate similar to Late Night. Even Trolls: World Tour, a sequel to the $346 million-grossing Trolls, was a commercial coin toss before everything went to hell. Even the animated Trolls sequel, while unquestionably profitable (the DreamWorks sequel earned $95 million in the first three weeks and ruled the VOD charts all summer), wasn’t a game-changer in terms of PVOD potential versus theatrical release.

Neither was Walt Disney’s
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Mulan. Disney tried it with no presumptions of scoring the equivalent of a global blockbuster. But it was worth a try, especially as it wasn’t part of an ongoing franchise. It went out in September on Disney+ in America and other participating territories for a $30-per-lease premium price and proceeded to bomb in overseas theaters, including a bitterly ironic $40 million in China. Sending Pixar’s Soul to Disney+ (in participating markets) at Christmas for no upcharge is entirely about A) punking Universal’s Christmas PVOD plans for The Croods: A New Age and WB’s Christmas theatrical release for Wonder Woman 1984 and B) making sure folks whose one-year-trials are about to run out next month have reason to stick around.

Nonetheless, Mulan was pretty solid evidence that a big and much-anticipated theatrical movie, one released in the middle of a global pandemic no less, could not bring in “at home” viewers anywhere near enough in volume to compare to a theatrical release. One big reason is that I’d argue the folks who might be accustomed to watching movies at home are also accustomed to waiting until they are $5 to rent or outright “free” on a given streaming platform. Either way, Mulan was projected to have grossed $200-$250 million domestic (possibly more than the likes of No Time to Die and F9) before its March release was canceled and it still (mixed-positive reviews and post-release controversies about shooting in locations in China near alleged concentration camps notwithstanding) didn’t move the needle.

Mulan was a big deal precisely because it was intended as a major theatrical release. Remove that distinction, and it’s Lady and the Tramp. If No Time to Die skips theaters, could MGM convince audiences James Bond 26 was a theater-worthy event? If not, that would curtail the franchise’s value in terms of streaming acquisitions and promotional tie-ins. If Marvel movies suddenly stopped being “theater worthy,” Disney could still produce them as loss leaders to drive Disney+ subscriptions. MGM and EON don’t have that luxury. We waited 6.5 years between License to Kill and GoldenEye. We can wait a few more months for No Time to Die. If 007 loses its “worth seeing in IMAX” value to general audiences, it’s deader than Tracy di Vicenzo and Vesper Fairchild.