From the very first James Bond film, Dr. No (1962), producer Albert R. \u201cCubby\u201d Broccoli had an iron grip on the super-spy movie franchise, a stewardship that would remain in the family as his daughter Barbara Broccoli and stepson Michael G. Wilson took over in later decades. And also from the very first James Bond film, Steven Spielberg was a huge fan.<\/p>\n
In an interview with The Rest Is Entertainment<\/a> podcast (via The Guardian<\/a>), Spielberg revealed he decided to shoot his shot after Jaws was released in 1975 (that would\u2019ve been between 1974\u2019s The Man with the Golden Gun and 1977\u2019s The Spy Who Loved Me in the James Bond chronology). \u201cI\u2019d always wanted to make a James Bond film from the day I saw Dr. No,\u201d Spielberg said. \u201cSo I called Cubby Broccoli after Jaws and I volunteered. I said, if you need a director, I would love to direct one. And he said, \u2018No.\u2019 And he moved on.\u201d<\/p>\n But Spielberg wasn\u2019t about to give up that easily. When Cubby Broccoli contacted him in 1977 about using five notes in a distinctive musical theme from Spielberg\u2019s Close Encounters of the Third Kind in the 1979 Bond film Moonraker, Spielberg told him, \u201c\u2026I\u2019ll make you a deal. I\u2019ll give you permission to use the five notes if you let me direct a Bond film. And he said, \u2018Nope.’\u201d<\/p>\n Proving how nice of a guy he is, though, Spielberg added, \u201cBut I gave him the five notes anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n He continued, \u201cSo they consistently turned me down\u2014at least, Broccoli did. He never explained why he wasn\u2019t letting me into the Bond family.\u201d The who frustrating saga did have an upside, though: when Spielberg told George Lucas what happened, Lucas offered him the Indiana Jones franchise instead, which has gone on to become one of Spielberg\u2019s signature series.<\/p>\n Decades later, the Bond franchise got a major shake-up in 2021 when Amazon bought MGM Studios, which co-owns the Bond franchise with the Broccoli family. Barbara Broccoli immediately clashed with Amazon leadership, and she ultimately stepped down from the franchise and relinquished full control to Amazon in early 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n With the Broccolis removed from the equation, there is, naturally, a follow-up question to Spielberg\u2019s story: if he was asked to do a Bond movie now, would he do it? Spielberg has a world-class answer to that, too. \u201c\u2026If they ever asked me to make a Bond film now, my answer would be: \u2018You can\u2019t afford me.’\u201d<\/p>\n Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From the very first James Bond film, Dr. No (1962), producer Albert R. \u201cCubby\u201d Broccoli had an iron…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":860443,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[28],"tags":[171,15223,53,2407,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-860442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-james-bond","tag-movies","tag-steven-spielberg","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116732921882831754","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=860442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860442\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/860443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=860442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=860442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=860442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n