James Bond was the main focus of the Academy Awards 2025 and the main focus – and something strange.

In a music numberLisa von Blackpink, Doja Cat and Raye sang the Bond Titellieders “Live and Let Die”, “Diamonds Are Forever” or “Skyfall”. No bond movies were nominated for an award, and none of those singers have a connection to the Bond franchise, although they recently worked together on the only “”Reborn. “”

The strange exercise felt less like a celebration and more like an enormous query mark for a screen for a screen symbol, the longer term of which has never felt more insecure.

Since shocking The news was dropped on February 20, 2025The Amazon MGM Studios from Jeff Bezos would take creative control over the James Bond film franchise, commentators and fans asked why.

Why should the broccoli family, who’ve long given the rights of movies by its Eon's rights, to regulate the film series to a Tech partner? They were contradicted?

Two options have appeared.

First, Eons Michael G. Wilson And Barbara BroccoliThe stepson and daughter of the legendary Eon producer Albert R. “Cubby” Brokkolican have reached some extent of creative exhaustion. This theory could give something. According to Pucks Matthew BelloniThe 83-year-old Wilson and the 64-year-old Brokkoli had difficulty finding her next step after 2021. “No time to die. “”

A second reason could possibly be the impatience of Amazon near Eon. In December 2024, The Wall Street Journal reported The Barbara Broccoli struggled back when Jennifer Salke, manager of Amazon Studios, suggested several Bond spinoff projects, including a bond series with a female leadership, for Prime Video. Perhaps frustrated with the patient situation, Amazon Wilson and Brokkoli can have made a proposal that they may not reject to clear them out of the way in which and roll them out of the production of bond content.

Speculation is definitely fascinating. But a more central query mustn’t be ignored: the “what”.

What exactly did Amazon MGM acquire? And what can it actually do with the Bond story?

Remove the rights of bonds

In my research on the 007 franchiseI actually have found that this property has never been a standard film series.

Long before “Star Wars” began 1976 And the Marvel Cinematic Universe was began 2008Bond was based on a lot of media to inform his story.

The Bond franchise didn’t start with a movie in 1953, but with a novel, Ian Flemings “”Casino Royale. “” A 12 months later was “Casino Royale” adapted for American television As a live anthology show. Four years later in 1958 a preferred Bond -Comic strip made his debut.

It was only in 1962 with “Dr. No.“With Sean Connery that the now Iikonic film series began.

Since then, James Bond has been spun in A Animated show for kidsPresent Choose books within the OWN adventureA Romance series “Young Bond”Present Video gamesA Reality showPresent Radio drama and more.

Here is what’s crucial: With its recent deal, Amazon MGM has a controlling proportion only in the fitting Eon holds. Eon has had the fitting to supply future movies and tv programs from Fleming since 1961. Eon secured global merchandising rights and production rights for video games within the early Nineties in 1964.

Other 007 media – the literary, comic and audio series – are managed by fleming estate and Ian Fleming Publications.

I call the James Bond Media franchise a standard right and license network.

No company controls all bond rights, and no one produces all bond media. Although this agreement is complicated, the parts and licensing of rights have made bond it possible as a lucrative and fertile product line. According to my calculations, it now has 330 original stories in 72 years of media production.

In other words, Bond is rather more than the 25 movies published by Eon.

James Bonds many live

So far, the fitting sharing and licensing have ensured that the Bond franchise differentiates between “Star Wars” and Marvel.

The firms that produce these series – Lucasfilm and Marvel Studios – belong to Walt Disney Company. With their rights under a company unit, which also monitors the complete production, “Star Wars” and Marvel were capable of prepare under their stories to a high degree of creative consistency and unity. About movies, TV, comics and video games strive for “Star Wars” and Marvel after what media specialists call ”.Transmedia storytelling. “”

By sharing rights, the Bond franchise is a totally different form of storytelling that broke the story and multiplied the James Bonds as a way to be experienced in various media. The effect just isn’t transmedia storytelling or perhaps a multiverse in Marvel style. In Bond, characters cannot switch to alternative realities and make other versions of themselves.

James Bond exists in many alternative worlds and leads many alternative lives.

To name just a couple of: there’s the binding of Fleming's novels of the Fifties and Nineteen Sixties, which loses his old flame, Vesper Lynd, and hunts her murderers, the members of Smerh, the attack of the Soviet secret services. Flemings Bond also lives within the novels from further Kingsley Amis And John Gardnerwhich were published within the Seventies and Eighties.

There is Eons Silver Screen Bond, who never fell in love with Vesper from 1962 to 2002, but loses his wife Tracy di Vicenzo against the crime syndicate SPOOK And stays drawn by the loss. And in modern times there’s the bond that “appears” within the creator Samantha WeinbergsMoneypenny diaries. ““ The series was released from 2005 to 2008 and shows a version of Bond, which has withdrawn right into a small Scottish island with its lover, Miss MONYPNY from MI6.

The impact of the common structure of Bond is what I’m Dahle “Calculating stories. ““ The novels present different versions of bonds live in other places in history. The film series Creates two own. The comic series offers much more life from 007.

Every version of Bond runs available on the market next to the others and focuses on a bond character that only exists in its unique history of history. This gives the fans an unpredictable, always growing canon of stories that they will pursue and even compare, akin to a Grand-Spot-different game in good time.

Where next to Bond?

The deal between Amazon MGM and Eon Wait the regulatory approval within the USA and Great Britain.

When it goes through, Amazon MGM has a powerful property in its hands. Over the a long time, Eon has intensified certain elements for the character and history: James Bond is a debonair -hitman. Mi6 Chief M gives him high missions. MI6 Armorer Q suits him with the newest devices. And Bond lives tall, enjoys beautiful women, high quality food, Savile Row Mode and Omega watches.

It is unlikely that Amazon MGM will make this Bondian elements. You will probably also keep the movies “” “Bond form” – The gun barrel visually That starts every film artistically designed loan sequencesPresent Film -specific title songsAnd the closing title card with the inscription “:”James Bond will return. “”

However, some fans fear that Amazon MGM will develop “Woke” storylines. Others stipulate that the product is diluted with countless streaming spinoff series.

For me, the more fascinating way is whether or not Amazon will attempt to create a more uniform bond universe that resembles the Marvel Cinematic universe. Yes, the fleming estate will proceed to administer the novels, comics and radio. But with creative control over Eon's rights, Amazon MGM could theoretically develop an elaborate Transmedia strategy that has never been researched on this franchise.

A relaunched film series that will function an “mother ship” by Amazon MGM would slot in video games and streaming shows in satellite series. These games and shows would connect and expand the universe of the movies.

If this had happened, the Bond franchise would really enter right into a recent phase and take the danger of losing a big a part of creative flexibility that it has observed up to now.

Sonic bring to the massive canvas

“We really screwed it up”

The way forward for Sonic

No player is irreplaceable, not even an aging, broken, 2030-signed Mike Trout. But with Trout's recent injury, the terrifying thought that he could spend the remaining of his profession with the Los Angeles Angels is getting closer to reality.

Trout, who turns 33 on Aug. 7, is anticipated to miss not less than 8 to 12 weeks while he recovers from surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his left knee. He is guaranteed $35.45 million this season and the following six seasons. For example, even when he got here back on August 1st and had success, which team would trust him enough this offseason to tackle most or all of his remaining $212.7 million? From 2021 to 2023, Trout missed more games than he played. And since he's historically a slow healer, he's not exactly on target to reverse that trend in 2024.

“We can do it” @EricaLWeston @Angels l #RepTheHalo pic.twitter.com/2pxLf8JJfn

— Bally Sports West (@BallySportWest) May 1, 2024

Of course, a trout trade was still removed from possible. To the dismay of many opposing fans, the three-time MVP and 11-time All-Star steadfastly refused to go away Anaheim, claiming he desired to spend his entire profession with one team like his boyhood idol, Derek Jeter, winning with the Angels.

At the beginning of spring training, Trout said he was “pushing, pushing, pushing” upper management to herald free agents, perhaps a sign of his growing impatience. Well, his fuse needed to be shorter. He waited too long.

In order for a trading scenario to change into realistic, the next was mandatory:

• The angels stink again, which was anything but a given.

• Trout to A) return to near-MVP form, which not less than had a probability before he injured his knee; and B) request a trade, which even Angels fans would have understood considering he has never won a postseason game since 2014 and hasn't even appeared within the playoffs.

• Angels owner Arte Moreno is showing his willingness to not only fulfill Trout's wish but additionally sink significant sums right into a trade that…never materialized.

Recall that Moreno has repeatedly refused to approve a trade of Shohei Ohtani, though it might have brought a monster return that might have given impetus to his woeful franchise. He then declined so as to add a $680 million deferment to the Los Angeles Dodgers' $700 million offer to Ohtani, a deal that might well repay. Mind you, Ohtani didn’t take the Angels’ money. But all of the Angels are getting in return for him now’s, oh yeah, the 74th pick within the 2024 draft.

With a reduced annual salary – $15 million? 20 million dollars? – Some clubs should still want trout. High-payout deals have change into increasingly common during the last quarter century. Moreno made some serious money, sending greater than $28 million to the New York Yankees in March 2013 to release Vernon Wells and $63 million to the Texas Rangers Getting rid of Josh Hamilton in April 2015. Wells was now not a productive player. Hamilton angered Moreno by falling back into drug abuse. In contrast, the Trout is a model citizen and elite player when healthy, a favourite of the Moreno.

The Angels received virtually nothing for Wells and Hamilton. For Trout, Moreno would probably want, oh yeah, six top-100 prospects, especially if he were to part with tens of hundreds of thousands to make the deal occur. The actual business value of the trout could be much lower even with a smaller financial commitment. So good luck convincing Moreno to try this. He didn't need to trade Ohtani when he had a couple of probability to make the identical deal the Washington Nationals made for Juan Soto.

And where are the angels now? I'm sticking with two players, Trout and Anthony Rendon, who will earn a combined nearly $75 million per 12 months until Rendon's contract expires in 2026, but can't stay on the sphere. At this point, Trout's tolerance for Moreno's erratic administration becomes less comprehensible. The team is a large number, has been a large number and will likely be a large number for not less than the following few years.

's Keith Law ranked the Angels' farm system twenty ninth out of 30, ahead of only the Oakland A's. Even if the Angels by some means turn things around by the tip of Trout's contract, how productive will a player be in his late 30s? His early 30s actually didn't go well.

In spring training, Trout told me he heard he was completely satisfied with the Angels, didn't need to win and wasn't demanding a trade. In an interview I did with him for Fox Sports, he said, “It drives me more.” He was confident he would get back into shape soon and said just the considered the likelihood gave him a thrill Give you goosebumps. And the way in which he was playing, a 50-homer, 30-stolen-base season – proof that he was still the GOAT, or not less than one in every of the present top players – seemed within sight.

His seriousness stays one in every of his loveliest qualities. The suggestion that he doesn't need to operate in a more demanding market has at all times seemed far-fetched to those that know him best, who see how hard he works, who witness his competitive spirit. But Trout's desire to succeed with the Angels somewhat than elsewhere seemed a fantastic notion to most outsiders.

Equipped with full no-trade protection, he could have worked his approach to the Philadelphia Phillies, the team closest to his hometown of Millville, New Jersey. He could have fit right into a clubhouse stuffed with hungry stars — Bryce Harper, Trea Turner and Kyle Schwarber , Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola. And he might have been celebrated for escaping a nasty situation as an alternative of criticized for staying there.

It didn’t need to be the Phillies. It might have been virtually any applicant with flexible payroll. And there didn't need to be a deal. Trout signed two contract extensions with the Angels when he could have change into a free agent at ages 26 and 29. His loyalty was commendable. But at once he looks like a modern-day equivalent of Ernie Banks, who holds the key league record for many games played in a profession without making the playoffs (2,528).

Banks, playing in a period without free agency, never had the chance to decide on one other team. For most of his profession, only the league champions made the playoffs and met within the World Series. He was a preferred character generally known as Mr. Cub. He made it into the Hall of Fame. But for a lot of, there was at all times something missing, some aspect of his legacy that might have been.

Trout is heading into similar territory after his recent injury. More than ever, he seems destined to stay Mr. Angel. As good as his intentions could have been, it is extremely sad to say.