One of the films most looked forward to this year was No Time to Die with Daniel Craig’s last stint as James Bond. However, huge delays have caused the film to be shifted back to 2021 instead. Fans are hoping that there will be no more delays and so is the studio MGM, since these delays have caused the studio a significant loss, about $1 million every month.
Reports came out recently that MGM was negotiating with some major streaming platforms to shift the film there. But it does not look like anything has arisen out of that. THR, however, has stated that one of the reasons for MGM being willing to move the film to a streaming platform is because it has become the proverbial cross on their back. The studio borrowed money to make the movie and that is now accruing interest but this cannot be paid back until the film begins to make money.
This is probably the case for most studios with all the unreleased films this year. This is a side of Hollywood that most people aren’t even aware of but the huge amounts that are borrowed against the expectations of box office returns are a fact of life behind the scenes. This current situation, where everything comes to a standstill, was totally unexpected.
Now, it becomes even more essential for the films to do well so the studio can make up all the money that has been lost but this does not seem likely with the pandemic still raging. Even if people do attend the theatres they will not be going in large numbers.
Allegedly, AppleTV+ offered something between $350 to $400 million to debut the film but since MGM was looking for a much larger number than that, it is going to have a theatrical release after all.
The previous James Bond films brought huge profits. Skyfall made more than $1 billion and Spectre also made $800 million so the studio was expecting profits of that level from No Time to Die as well.
