It’s the 300th edition of Popculturology!
Let’s kick off this milestone newsletter with James Bond news. PLUS: Our first look at Nolan’s ‘Odyssey,’ ‘The Last of Us’ gets a premiere date, and Ben Affleck is ready to crunch the numbers again.
Your eyeballs are currently beginning a momentous edition of Popculturology. In addition to being the latest Friday newsletter, this is the 300th edition of Popculturology to go out to the world.
Across the Friday newsletter, The Box Office Report, Deep SNL Thoughts, The Monthly and many special editions, I’ve now published 300 Popculturology newsletters. (And that’s not even counting the almost thirty newsletters I’ve sent out for Snackology.)
300!
When I relaunched Popculturology as a newsletter back in November 2022, the idea that I would eventually publish 300 newsletters (and going strong) never crossed my mind. I just wanted to start writing about pop culture again, and I wanted to bring my thoughts on the news to readers like you.
As always, thank you for being a Popculturology reader. I’m going to keep writing about pop culture — especially now that it looks like that asteroid has zero shot of hitting Earth.
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Take a look, it’s in a book
We’re behind on both Severance and The White Lotus, but I have been working through some pretty great books lately.
After finishing Station Eleven, I moved on to Ted Chiang’s Exhalation. I’ve had this one on my shelf for awhile. Chiang wrote “The Story of Your Life,” the short story that would go on to become Arrival. I then shifted over to some timely nonfiction with Eoin Higgins’ Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left.
By the time you’re reading this edition of Popculturology, there’s a good chance I’ll have finished Mickey7, Edward Ashton’s novel that’s the basis for director Bong Joon-ho’s Mickey 17.
NEWS, NOTES & TRAILERS
Broccolis’ Bond bond breaks
The actor portraying James Bond has changed over the decades since Sean Connery first brought the character to life in 1962’s Dr. No, but one thing that has remained constant across the franchise is that it was firmly controlled by the Broccoli family, from Albert R. Broccoli to his children, Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli.
The control that Broccoli family had over Bond is over.
Amazon MGM Studios announced on Thursday that it had formed a “new joint venture to house the James Bond intellectual property rights” with Broccoli and Wilson, making the Amazon-owned studio a full co-owner of the franchise.
“We are grateful to the late Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman for bringing James Bond to movie theatres around the world, and to Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli for their unyielding dedication and their role in continuing the legacy of the franchise that is cherished by legions of fans worldwide,” Mike Hopkins, head of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios, said in a statement. “We are honoured to continue this treasured heritage, and look forward to ushering in the next phase of the legendary 007 for audiences around the world.”
A December report revealed that the Broccoli family and Amazon MGM Studios had reached an impasse over the future of Bond, with Amazon wanting to turn it into a modern cinematic universe with spinoffs and a streaming series while Barbara Broccoli used her power to kill those ideas.
“These people are fucking idiots,” Broccoli had reportedly told friends.
