007: On Rupert Murdoch's Secret Service?

Tuesday

06Oct2009

007: On Rupert Murdoch's Secret Service?

Tuesday, October 6, 2009 at 10:12AM

There's no official confirmation, but We Are Movie Geeks is reporting that the James Bond franchise will be moving from its long-time home at MGM to 20th Century Fox, a result of the Lion's financial woes. Last week, the company silenced the rumors that The Hobbit would find a new home, agreeing to terms with its lenders on skipping a few interest payments on a reported $3.7 billion of debt.

According to the new story, MGM has apparently not given up all of its rights to the project, and Fox will only handle the marketing and distribution for future 007 movies, the next of which I would imagine is due in 2011. Movie Geeks points out that the previous two films in the series, Quantum of Solace and Casino Royale, had a similar deal with Sony on the distribution and marketing end.

If MGM still owns the property, why wouldn't it just handle those elements itself? Money. It costs money to market a film and money to put it in theaters, and most likely, Sony previously paid and now Fox will pay a distribution fee in exchange for a percentage of grosses and will tackle the massive marketing expenditure for a James Bond movie, which should be well over $100 million internationally.

But MGM will finance the picture through its usual channels and be content with splitting the profits with a company that does have the cash flow to take on those extra costs. The two Daniel Craig Bond flicks are by far the biggest earners in the franchise's storied history. The films averaged about $590 million in worldwide ticket sales. That means MGM will get some of its production budget back, plus profits, and Fox will pay about an equal amount to put the film in theaters and in the advertising marketplace, getting a healthy chunk of the returns, as well.

That's a speculative model, of course. If there is indeed a deal - and as I said, there's nothing official - it could be worked out differently, but this seems to be a fairly easy way to work it.

Colin Boyd |

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