James Bond is worth $600 million

That's the price MGM, the franchise owner, seems to have put on the latest film of the English spy.

No Time To Die should have been released last April (2020) but has been postponed to April 21, 2021 due to the ravages that the COVID-19 is causing in movie theater attendance. But it seems that the studio has been tantalizing the possibility of selling it to streaming services like Apple TV+ y Netflix for US$600 million.

The motive behind this "option bThe "loss already accumulated due to the stoppage of the premiere, estimated at between 30 and 50 million dollars, and the uncertainty as to whether the film can finally be released next year.

The truth is that we are seeing a transfer of releases from theaters to streaming services since the beginning of the pandemic, given the impossibility of releasing films and the need for studios to find revenue.

Greyhound was sold to Apple TV+, and has been the platform's big cinematic hit. The second part of The Prince of Zamunda, Coming 2 America is to be released in Amazon Prime Video, Disney traditional Christmas premiere, this year the Pixar Soul moviedirectly to Disney+ skipping theaters, Warner Bros. had to sell Enola Holmes a Netflix so that the film would not remain in a drawer without being released... and so the list keeps growing.

But the possibility of streaming No Time to Die seems to be more complex due to several factors, such as the high price placed by MGMThe film's sponsorship contracts, which the platforms consulted see as excessive, and the sponsorship contracts that the film has.

For years, the adventures of James Bond have in fact been expensive advertisements for major companies, such as Land Rover, Omega y HeinekenThe Bond vehicle is a very popular vehicle for the public, who pay large sums of money to appear in them in order to benefit from the high visibility of the Bond vehicle.

But if the film is not released in theaters, brands lose access to the large mass of audiences they were hoping to reach, and so the Studio should consult with the firms involved in any final decision regarding the distribution channel for the tape. Such as, for example, the sale of Coming 2 America Amazon was dependent on its promotional partners, McDonald's and Crown Royal, agreeing to the change of plans.

In addition, the Study would also have to consult with producers. Barbara Broccoli y Michael G. Wilsonwho exercise control of the series through their company Eon, y Universal Pictureswhich has the foreign distribution rights to No Time to Die. The distributor would undoubtedly ask to be rewarded for any sales and reimbursed for any expenses already incurred..

In the end, everything will be decided by the pandemic and its development. For this reason MGM is contemplating various options, as are the rest of the movie studios and commercial brands, about their promotional campaigns. Companies need revenue to survive and if you have a product that can give you liquidity, everything becomes a gamble, either I sell now, or I wait a while to see if I can make the investment profitable with higher margins by doubling the distribution channels, theaters and streaming.

As I said Cohen the Barbarian in the novel by Terry Pratchettthese are interesting times".

Cover image taken from an unrelated article at Financial Times

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