Regarding your Person in the News on James Bond (“A British spy under American ownership”, FT Weekend, March 1), as an 11-year-old I took a city bus from a suburb to downtown Minneapolis where Diamonds Are Forever was playing. Subsequently, I begged my mother to take me to an all-night showing of the first three James Bond films at a drive-in. Since then, seeing James Bond films on the big screen has been a highlight of my life.
So to Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson, former owners of the franchise, I send my gratitude for your stewardship of Cubby Broccoli’s legacy. Your departure from the series, which will now be owned by Amazon MGM Studios, leaves me both shaken and stirred.
As for Amazon’s creative control over the Bond phenomenon, where crowdsourcing, streaming services and spin-offs are commonplace, I admit that while Bond may need rebooting, the franchise must remain sacrosanct. In the words of Timothy Dalton, my favourite Bond: “It is one of the few wonderful stories we’ve got in film that is British. The leading character is British. We can call it our own.”
Jeffrey Susla
Woodstock, CT, US
