In the future, Fleming’s original James Bond novels may be remembered as historical curiosities rather than the foundation of one of entertainment’s most valuable properties.
Full Disclosure
The 20th-century James Bond books and films are often criticised by 21st-century audiences for their outdated gender dynamics, with Bond frequently portrayed as a misogynistic womaniser who objectifies and manipulates women.
The series also reflects colonial and Eurocentric attitudes, often stereotyping non-Western cultures and presenting simplistic, caricatured villains. Violence is frequently glamorised, and ethical complexity is minimal, with Bond operating above the law with little accountability. The dialogue and humour, once seen as suave or daring, now often come across as sexist, culturally insensitive, or tone-deaf by contemporary standards of diversity, consent, and representation.
Do I care? Nope. Not a bit. Not just because I love them just the way they are (okay, maybe not A View To A Kill). But because they are of their time, and they have evolved.
While the books remained static museum pieces after Ian Fleming died, at least until the novel franchise was revived with new editions, the films documented social change, political turmoil and technological progress. When the next Bond movie finally materialises, it’s a given AI will be a key weapon the bad guy wants to rule the world with.
But here’s the thing. The new Bond novels aren’t published by mainstream publishers anymore. Least of all those that still have the rights to publish the original novels. The Fleming estate makes the decisions on these modern Bond novels. Mainstream publishers grovel and touch their forelocks in thanks for being allowed a tiny role in distribution.
And Amazon owns the rights to pretty much everything else Bond, past, present and future.
One of the most lucrative publishing-originated franchises in history, and publishers get to peck at the crumbs. What on earth went wrong?
The Amazon Bond: A New Era Beyond Books
In 2026, a young, brash James Bond with a mysterious scar will make his debut – not on the printed page where he was born, nor even on the silver screen where he found fame, but as a playable character in Amazon’s first wholly-owned Bond project. The upcoming video game 007 First Light, developed by IO Interactive (the studio behind the Hitman franchise), represents more than just another adaptation of Ian Fleming’s creation. It signals the complete migration of one of literature’s most valuable properties away from the publishing industry that gave it birth.
This isn’t merely about another Bond game – those have existed since the 1980s. This is about Amazon MGM Studios’ acquisition of complete control over the franchise, wresting it from the hands of Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, and the subsequent creation of an entirely new Bond for the digital age. The implications for publishing are profound and troubling, representing perhaps the most significant loss of intellectual property control in the industry’s modern history.
I touched on this with regard to the movies back in March, but today to look at the bigger picture.
The Original Sin: How Publishing Lost Its Golden Goose
The story of how James Bond escaped publishing’s control begins with the industry’s historical approach to intellectual property management – an approach that now appears remarkably short-sighted. When Ian Fleming created Bond in the 1950s, the publishing industry operated under fundamentally different assumptions about media convergence and franchise value.
Fleming’s original publishers – Jonathan Cape in the UK and various American publishers – secured rights to publish the novels, but the broader franchise architecture was never properly consolidated under publishing control. The film rights were licensed separately, television rights went elsewhere, and merchandising was treated as an afterthought. This fragmented approach allowed the Fleming estate, through EON Productions, to become the primary custodians of the Bond legacy whilst publishers retained only their original, increasingly narrow slice of the pie.
The crucial error was treating James Bond as a collection of individual books rather than recognising the character as a potentially unlimited intellectual property universe. Publishers focused on their traditional competencies – editing, printing, and distributing physical books – whilst the real value migrated to other media formats and licensing opportunities.
When Amazon acquired MGM for $8.45 billion in 2021, they weren’t primarily buying a film studio – they were acquiring one of the world’s most valuable entertainment franchises. The fact that this transaction barely registered concern within publishing circles demonstrates how completely the industry had already mentally surrendered Bond to other media.
The Current Landscape: What Publishers Actually Control
Today’s publishing relationship with James Bond is depressingly limited. The Fleming estate effectively kicked out Random House and Penguin in 2022 and took control.
Now, the original UK and US publishers have become custodians of historical documents rather than active participants in a living franchise, and relegated to distributors of the very books they once published. You couldn’t make it up.
The Fleming estate now also controls new Bond novels through its own publishing arrangements, again typically working with major publishers as distributors rather than true partners. Recent continuation novels by authors like Anthony Horowitz and William Boyd have been published, but these arrangements are fundamentally different from the integrated franchise management that Amazon now employs.
The stark reality is that for decades, publishers sat back and enjoyed riding the success of the film franchise to sell more books, never imagining the time might come when their nemesis Amazon would have the right to create entirely new Bond universes, complete with origin stories, character development, and multimedia integration across games, films, and potentially television series.
The 2026 007 First Light game will feature a young Bond with his own backstory, personality traits, and visual design – essentially creating a new iteration of the character that exists independently of Fleming’s original creation.
The Amazon Universe: Integrated Franchise Management
Amazon’s approach to Bond represents everything that traditional publishers comprehensively failed to understand about modern intellectual property management. Rather than treating different media formats as separate licensing opportunities, Amazon views Bond as a unified brand ecosystem where each component reinforces the others.
The 007 First Light game, developed by IO Interactive, demonstrates this integrated approach. The game features a “young and brash” Bond with “a cutting sense of humour” and “optimism and naiveté” – character traits that can be developed across multiple media formats. This Bond drives an Aston Martin DBS, wears an Omega watch with Q-branch modifications (why else would anyone wear a watch nowadays?), and embodies the franchise’s core elements whilst remaining distinctly separate from both Fleming’s literary creation and the cinematic versions.
This represents a fundamental shift in how major franchises can be managed. Amazon doesn’t need to negotiate with multiple rights holders or coordinate between different media companies. They control the entire ecosystem. They can develop storylines across games, films, and potentially television series, creating narrative continuity and character development that would be impossible under the fragmented rights structure that publishers allowed to develop.
And while the details are not entirely clear, it’s likely Amazon owns the rights to publishing Bond universe books that do not feature the original Fleming-styled adult Bond. Children’s versions, Manga versions, Pop-Up-And-Shoot-To-Kill versions, coffee-table Bond books…
The studio behind the game, IO Interactive, brings particular expertise to this project through their work on the Hitman franchise. Their CEO, Hakan Abrak, explicitly draws parallels between the espionage skills required for both properties, whilst noting the tonal differences: “Agent 47 is not a talkative type, he is more like a chameleon, whereas Bond is commenting on things, and a lot of things you feel through the joypad controller is through him.“
Lessons from the Music Industry: Streaming vs Ownership
The Bond situation parallels broader trends in media consumption and intellectual property control. Just as the music industry initially resisted streaming platforms only to find themselves increasingly dependent on Spotify and Apple Music, publishing has allowed major franchises to migrate to platform companies that understand integrated media management.
Amazon’s Bond strategy resembles their approach to original programming through Prime Video, where they create content designed to enhance their broader ecosystem rather than simply generate direct revenue. Bond games can drive Prime Video subscriptions, which support Amazon’s retail operations, which generate data for their advertising business – a virtuous cycle that single-medium publishers cannot replicate.
This integrated approach also enables Amazon to experiment with different versions of Bond without the complex negotiations that would be required under traditional publishing arrangements. They can develop young Bond for gaming, classic Bond for films, and potentially other iterations for different audiences and platforms.
The Broader Pattern: Publishing’s Retreat from Franchise Management
James Bond represents the most visible example of publishing’s failure to maintain control over major intellectual properties, but it’s far from the only one. Several other major franchises have either escaped publishing control or are in the process of doing so:
The Witcher: From Polish Novels to Global Phenomenon
Andrzej Sapkowski’s Witcher series began as Polish fantasy novels but achieved global recognition through CD Projekt’s video games rather than through traditional publishing channels. While the books have been translated and republished internationally, the primary cultural impact and commercial value comes from the games and Netflix series. The publisher’s role has been largely relegated to capitalising on success generated by other media.
Marvel and DC: The Superhero Migration
Both Marvel and DC began as comic book publishers but have seen their primary value migrate to film, television, and gaming. Disney’s acquisition of Marvel and Warner Bros’ control of DC means that publishers now license these properties rather than controlling them. The most valuable intellectual property in popular culture originated in publishing but now exists primarily in other media formats.
Assassin’s Creed: Reverse Engineering Success
Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed franchise has generated novels, but these are clearly derivative works designed to support the primary gaming property rather than the traditional model where games adapt books. This represents a complete reversal of the historical relationship between publishing and other media.
The Expanse: Television Driving Print
James S.A. Corey’s Expanse series gained significant readership following the television adaptation, but Amazon’s cancellation and subsequent revival of the show demonstrated that the franchise’s fate was determined by streaming platform decisions rather than publishing performance.
The Streaming Parallel: Platform Consolidation
The loss of James Bond parallels broader trends in media consolidation under platform companies. Just as Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Disney+ now control significant portions of television and film content, these same companies are increasingly controlling book-adjacent intellectual properties.
Amazon’s position is especially noteworthy because they operate across multiple media formats whilst also controlling significant portions of book distribution through their retail platform and Kindle ecosystem. This gives them unprecedented leverage in negotiations with publishers and authors, as they can offer integrated marketing and distribution across multiple channels that traditional publishers cannot match.
The Bond acquisition should be seen as part of Amazon’s broader strategy to control entertainment intellectual property across all formats. Their investment in gaming through Amazon Game Studios, combined with their film and television production capabilities, creates opportunities for franchise development that single-medium companies cannot replicate.
The Financial Reality: Why Publishers Couldn’t Compete
The fundamental issue facing publishers in franchise management is financial scale. Amazon’s $8.45 billion acquisition of MGM represents more than the annual revenue of most major publishing houses. This financial disparity means that when valuable intellectual properties become available, publishers simply cannot compete with technology companies or major media conglomerates.
Moreover, the revenue potential from integrated franchise management far exceeds what traditional publishing can generate. A successful Bond game can generate hundreds of millions in revenue, whilst even bestselling novels rarely exceed tens of millions in publisher revenue. The economic incentives clearly favour companies that can exploit properties across multiple high-value media formats.
This financial reality is only part of the picture, however. What compounded the problem was publishers’ traditional risk-averse approach to intellectual property investment. Whilst technology companies routinely invest billions in content creation and acquisition, publishers have historically focused on lower-risk, lower-reward projects that fit within their established operational frameworks. In other words, their ingrained resistance to change and innovation lost them the confidence of the very IP rights holders that underpin the publishing business.
The Creative Implications: Different Bonds for Different Media
Amazon’s approach to Bond also highlights how different media formats can support different creative interpretations of the same core intellectual property. The 2026 007 First Light game features a Bond described as having “optimism and naiveté” who is “not completely on top of his game yet” and is “not very well versed in the tuxedos and martinis yet.” (Alex Weprin at The Hollywood Reporter.)
This represents a distinctly different character from either Fleming’s literary creation or the various cinematic interpretations. The gaming medium allows for character development and player interaction that would be impossible in traditional books or films. The young Bond can learn skills, develop relationships, and evolve throughout the gaming experience in ways that static media cannot accommodate.
Publishers, constrained by the linear nature of books and their traditional approach to character development, cannot compete with the interactive and multimedia possibilities that gaming platforms offer. This creative limitation compounds the financial and strategic disadvantages that publishers face in franchise management.
Looking Forward: The Platform Future
The James Bond situation suggests that major intellectual properties will increasingly be controlled by platform companies rather than traditional media producers. These platforms can offer integrated experiences across multiple formats, generate revenue through various channels, and invest at scales that single-medium companies cannot match.
For publishers, this trend raises fundamental questions about their role in the entertainment ecosystem. If major franchises migrate to platform companies, publishers risk being relegated to a supporting role in intellectual property development rather than maintaining their historical position as primary content creators and controllers.
The most successful future publishing strategies may involve early partnership with platform companies rather than attempting to maintain exclusive control over intellectual properties. Publishers who can develop compelling characters and storylines whilst remaining flexible about media format exploitation may be better positioned than those who cling to traditional single-medium approaches.
The Broader Implications: Publishing’s Strategic Choices
The loss of James Bond represents more than the migration of a single franchise: It illustrates fundamental strategic choices that publishers must confront. The industry can either embrace integrated franchise management and platform partnerships, or risk continued marginalisation as valuable intellectual properties migrate to companies that understand multimedia exploitation.
The television industry’s streaming revolution demonstrated that resistance to new distribution models ultimately proves futile. The James Bond situation suggests that intellectual property control faces similar pressures. Publishers who recognise these trends and adapt accordingly may be able to participate in the platform-dominated future. Those who continue to operate under traditional assumptions about media boundaries and intellectual property control risk losing influence over the most valuable creative properties.
The young, brash Bond making his debut in 2026 represents more than a new character. He symbolises an entertainment industry where traditional publishing roles have been fundamentally disrupted. The question facing publishers is whether they can adapt to this new reality or will continue losing control over the intellectual properties that once defined their industry’s cultural influence.
The future of major franchises may well be determined by platform companies rather than the publishers who originally brought these characters to life. In that future, Fleming’s original James Bond novels may be remembered as historical curiosities rather than the foundation of one of entertainment’s most valuable properties. For an industry built on the power of storytelling, that represents a profound and truly troubling transformation.
This post first appeared in the TNPS LinkedIn newsletter.
