March 25 update: Amazon MGM studios officially announced that Amy Pascal and David Heyman will produce the upcoming James Bond movie. Pascal and Heyman will produce through Pascal Pictures and Heyday Films, respectively.
“James Bond is one of the most iconic characters in the history of cinema,” said Amy Pascal and David Heyman in a press release. “We are humbled to follow in the footsteps of Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson, who made so many extraordinary films and honored and excited to keep the spirit of Bond very much alive as he embarks on his next adventure.”
March 21: First, Amazon acquired creative control of the James Bond franchise. The next order of business is finding producers to lead 007 into the Amazon era.
Per Matt Belloni of Puck, Amy Pascal and David Heyman are in talks to “shepherd the next iteration of James Bond” for Amazon MGM Studios. Nothing is official until the transaction with Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson closes. However, Pascal and Heyman are the rumored top choices of Amazon executives.
Pascal and Heyman have a strong pedigree of running popular franchises. Pascal is best known for producing Tom Holland’s Spider-Man movies, which have combined to gross nearly $4 billion worldwide. While working at Sony, Pascal oversaw most of Daniel Craig’s Bond outings, including Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, and Spectre.
Heyman produced all eight Harry Potter movies through his HeyDay Films banner. The British producer also produced recent box office hits, including Wonka and Barbie, the latter being 2023’s highest-grossing movie.
Belloni notes that Amazon MGM Studios plans to release the next Bond movie in theaters before developing any spinoffs or TV shows.
If Pascal and Heyman sign on for Bond, the next task will be finding the director and writer of the next 007 movie. Christopher Nolan remains the rumored top choice for Bond. It all comes down to Nolan’s interest in the espionage project.
After acquiring MGM in 2022, Amazon finally gained creative control of Bond last month in a historic deal. Amazon reportedly paid $1 billion to Broccoli and Wilson for these creative rights.
With 007 in its hands, Amazon now faces immense pressure to make a successful Bond and steer it into the future.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?
YouTube is changing how its Home page works, giving viewers more control over what shows up there and making some of the app’s most-used sections easier to reach. Custom Feeds are now replacing the existing topic chips for eligible users, while YouTube is also testing a redesigned top bar on mobile that moves Subscriptions closer to the Home feed.
YouTube first started experimenting with Custom Feeds earlier this year, letting you type out what you wanted to watch and turning that request into its own stream of recommendations. Now, the feature is starting to look less like a side experiment and more like something YouTube actually wants people to use as part of their everyday Home page.