{"id":1910991,"date":"2026-04-30T15:15:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T12:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1910991"},"modified":"2026-04-30T15:15:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T12:15:00","slug":"despite-live-action-bonds-reported-toils-007-first-light-dev-says-working-with-amazon-mgm-has-actually-been-surprisingly-straightforward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1910991","title":{"rendered":"Despite live-action Bond&#8217;s reported toils, 007: First Light dev says working with Amazon MGM has actually been &#8220;surprisingly straightforward&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<article class=\"article \" data-ads=\"true\" data-article-type=\"news\" data-article-group=\"news\" data-paywalled=\"false\" data-premium=\"false\" data-sponsored=\"false\" data-type=\"article\">\n<header class=\"article_header\" data-component=\"article-header\">\n<div class=\"breadcrumbs\">\n<nav class=\"nav_breadcrumbs\" data-component=\"nav-breadcrumbs\" aria-label=\"Breadcrumb\">\n<ul class=\"nav-links\">\n<li>\n                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/\" data-active=\"false\"><br \/>\n                      Home<br \/>\n                <\/a>\n            <\/li>\n<li>\n                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/news\" data-active=\"false\"><br \/>\n                      News<br \/>\n                <\/a>\n            <\/li>\n<li>\n                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/007-first-light\" data-active=\"false\"><br \/>\n                      007 First Light<br \/>\n                <\/a>\n            <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/nav><\/div>\n<div class=\"headline_details\" id=\"main-content\">\n<h1 class=\"title\">Despite live-action Bond&#8217;s reported toils, 007: First Light dev says working with Amazon MGM has actually been &#8220;surprisingly straightforward&#8221;<\/h1>\n<p class=\"strapline\">&#8220;The premise is the easy part\u2026 delivering it, that&#8217;s the challenge.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"headline_asset\">\n<figure class=\"headline_image_wrapper\">\n<p>        <img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"headline_image\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/bond-amazon.jpg?width=570&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;dpr=3&amp;auto=webp\" alt=\"Image of a female lead from 007: First Light, overlaid with the official logo for 007: James Bond and Amazon MGM Studios, in gold on black background\" loading=\"eager\" data-uri=\"bond-amazon.jpg\" data-lightbox width=\"570\" height=\"321\"><figcaption>\n          <span class=\"attribution\">Image credit: <cite>Eurogamer \/ IO Interactive \/ Amazon MGM<\/cite><\/span><br \/>\n        <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"metadata\">\n<div class=\"avatar\">\n<p>    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Chris Tapsell avatar\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/1521645531.jpg?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"180\" height=\"179\"><\/p>\n<p>  <img alt=\"Chris Tapsell avatar\" data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-uri=\"1521645531.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"180\" height=\"179\">\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text\">\n<div class=\"byline\">\n                  <span class=\"article_type\" data-slug=\"news\"><br \/>\n                    News<br \/>\n                  <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"by\">by<\/span> <span class=\"author\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/authors\/chris-tapsell\">Chris Tapsell<\/a><\/span>                    <span class=\"job_title\"><br \/>\n                      Deputy Editorial Director<br \/>\n                    <\/span>\n            <\/div>\n<div class=\"published_at\">\nPublished on <time datetime=\"2026-04-30T15:15:00+00:00\">April 30, 2026<\/time>              <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"mypop-header-wrapper\">\n<p><button class=\"mypop-button button wide\" data-state=\"follow\" data-type=\"tag\" data-uuid=\"24adb1e6-72cb-4443-8b19-1f32869e160f\" data-name=\"007 First Light\" data-follow-text=\"Follow 007 First Light\" data-unfollow-text=\"Following 007 First Light\" data-aria-follow-text=\"Follow 007 First Light\" data-aria-unfollow-text=\"Following 007 First Light\" data-popup=\"true\" data-force-login=\"true\" aria-label=\"Follow 007 First Light\" title=\"Follow 007 First Light\"><br \/>\n  Follow 007 First Light<br \/>\n<\/button>          <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"article_body\" data-component=\"article-content\">\n<div class=\"article_body_content article-styling\">\n<p>For all the reported toil and general sluggishness with the James Bond license at owners Amazon MGM, working with them has actually been &#8220;the easy part&#8221; for 007: First Light developer IOI Interactive, according the game&#8217;s art director Rasmus Poulsen.<\/p>\n<p>Talking to Eurogamer during a recent interview, which you can read much more from in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/007-first-light-preview-james-bond-hands-on-interview\">our big 007: First Light hands-on preview,<\/a> Poulsen shed some additional light &#8211; pardon the pun &#8211; on what that relationship with Bond&#8217;s sort-of-new, if not exactly productive, license holders was like.<\/p>\n<figure>\n<div class=\"video_wrapper youtube\">\n<a aria-label=\"007 First Light - Official Trailer | IGN Fan Fest 2026\" class=\"video-facade full-size\" data-platform=\"youtube\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/bqHfI51TXKw?autoplay=1\" title=\"Click to play video from YouTube\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Cover image for YouTube video\" class=\"video-facade__image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/bqHfI51TXKw\/hqdefault.jpg\"><span class=\"video-facade__title\">007 First Light &#8211; Official Trailer | IGN Fan Fest 2026<\/span><\/p>\n<p><\/a>\n<\/div><figcaption>Here&#8217;s a First Light trailer from earlier this year.<a class=\"video\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=bqHfI51TXKw\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch on YouTube<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&#8220;We all have these expectations ahead of us,&#8221; he said. &#8220;How do we want to play with these expectations? Then it starts with the youthfulness, which becomes a differentiator &#8211; something different, something that isn&#8217;t what you expect. At the same time, we all have these things that we know we want to be a part of &#8211; experiences, locations, flavours, vibes, whatnot. And then you start crafting from that with these tenets in mind, or this tension between the expected and the new.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>In terms of working with Amazon MGM, and indeed the other &#8220;partners&#8221; involved in a licensing mega-vehicle such as Bond &#8211; think Omega, Aston Martin, and so on &#8211; &#8220;these expectations I just described to you, everybody&#8217;s got them,&#8221; Poulsen said. &#8220;That makes it either easier or more difficult to have a conversation.&#8221; That&#8217;s why, he explained, when the studio did what Poulsen calls &#8220;the DNA work&#8221; on reverse-engineering the right elements for their version of Bond, &#8220;all of a sudden it is more factual and easy to speak to, because the research has been done.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In that sense, it was very easy, from a partnership point of view, to discuss these things &#8211; who he is and what we want to achieve and all that stuff &#8211; because we&#8217;ve been very thorough with our homework and quite clear in our intention with the youthful Bond.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So in a sense,&#8221; he continued, &#8220;the premise is easy to understand, easy to discuss and easy to &#8211; we say &#8211; establish a point of view. That&#8217;s the good part, and then, of course, delivering it, then that&#8217;s the challenge. But in all honesty it&#8217;s been surprisingly straightforward to have the discussions about who, what, where, with understanding what we&#8217;re trying to achieve. And I think that part of the journey was surprising to me &#8211; that it has gone so relatively smoothly.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re up to date with live-action Bond you&#8217;ll probably understand the surprise. Since Amazon MGM purchased the rights to James Bond outright from long-time custodians Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson in early 2025 (Amazon having already owned 50 percent since its 2022 acquisition of MGM), very little progress has been made on bringing a new version of the character to the screen. Acclaimed filmmaker Denis Villeneuve &#8211; of Dune, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/blade-runner\">Blade Runner<\/a>: 2049, Arrival, and more &#8211; as well as Peaky Blinders creator Stephen Knight, have been brought on as director and writer respectively. But while rumours have periodically surfaced about who might play Bond himself, little else seems to have progressed.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"2\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The latest twist is a column in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/films\/2026\/04\/29\/what-on-earth-is-happening-with-james-bond\/\">The Telegraph<\/a>, published yesterday, by film critic Tim Robey. It features an extraordinary paraphrasing of a quote from a &#8220;middle-aged American film executive&#8221;, that was overheard by the writer&#8217;s colleague, by coincidence, in a five-star European hotel while the unnamed colleague was there on holiday.<\/p>\n<p>The exec reportedly called Bond &#8220;an old British spy&#8221; and a bit of a nightmare, and described Amazon MGM&#8217;s management as &#8220;fed up with even thinking about 007&#8217;s future&#8221; &#8211; in Robey&#8217;s paraphrased terms. According to this overheard conversation, per Robey, &#8220;no one expects the next phase of Bond to be a success for the studio at all.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It makes for some fascinating context to be releasing a triple-A James Bond game into &#8211; a situation where, curiously and perhaps rarely for a game adaptation of a major license, developer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/companies\/io-interactive\">IO Interactive<\/a> finds itself setting the tone, with the only currently active version of the series&#8217; main character.<\/p>\n<p>On that point, when I put it to him, Poulsen was a little more coy. &#8220;I think it&#8217;s important to say that we are doing our Bond for you, the gamers,&#8221; he said. &#8220;That&#8217;s what we&#8217;re focusing on &#8211; and again, that&#8217;s where the youth comes in,&#8221; referencing the decision to start with a rookie Bond before &#8211; and then while &#8211; he earns his 007 number.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"3\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Of course, we&#8217;ve taken this project immensely seriously, both because, on the one hand, it feels like we were made for it &#8211; I&#8217;m speaking personally in terms of my own career and being inspired by [Bond]. But a lot of us feel like we were made for it.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But also because it&#8217;s a big deal, and [Bond] coming back into games after 14 years is a big deal as well. So we&#8217;ve certainly taken on the task with a huge amount of reverence &#8211; but also a huge amount of excitement for being able to dive in and do that DNA work, take the work seriously. It has been immensely fun. We&#8217;re incredibly proud to have worked on this fresh take on the guy &#8211; for you the gamers. I can&#8217;t wait.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"preferred-source\" data-component=\"preferred-source\">\nLove Eurogamer.net? Make us a <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\">Preferred Source on Google<\/a> and catch more of our coverage in your feeds.  <\/div>\n<\/article>\n<div class=\"article_body\" data-component=\"article-content\">\n<div class=\"article_body_content article-styling\">\n<p>For all the reported toil and general sluggishness with the James Bond license at owners Amazon MGM, working with them has actually been &#8220;the easy part&#8221; for 007: First Light developer IOI Interactive, according the game&#8217;s art director Rasmus Poulsen.<\/p>\n<p>Talking to Eurogamer during a recent interview, which you can read much more from in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/007-first-light-preview-james-bond-hands-on-interview\">our big 007: First Light hands-on preview,<\/a> Poulsen shed some additional light &#8211; pardon the pun &#8211; on what that relationship with Bond&#8217;s sort-of-new, if not exactly productive, license holders was like.<\/p>\n<figure>\n<div class=\"video_wrapper youtube\">\n<a aria-label=\"007 First Light - Official Trailer | IGN Fan Fest 2026\" class=\"video-facade full-size\" data-platform=\"youtube\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/bqHfI51TXKw?autoplay=1\" title=\"Click to play video from YouTube\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Cover image for YouTube video\" class=\"video-facade__image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/bqHfI51TXKw\/hqdefault.jpg\"><span class=\"video-facade__title\">007 First Light &#8211; Official Trailer | IGN Fan Fest 2026<\/span><\/p>\n<p><\/a>\n<\/div><figcaption>Here&#8217;s a First Light trailer from earlier this year.<a class=\"video\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=bqHfI51TXKw\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch on YouTube<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&#8220;We all have these expectations ahead of us,&#8221; he said. &#8220;How do we want to play with these expectations? Then it starts with the youthfulness, which becomes a differentiator &#8211; something different, something that isn&#8217;t what you expect. At the same time, we all have these things that we know we want to be a part of &#8211; experiences, locations, flavours, vibes, whatnot. And then you start crafting from that with these tenets in mind, or this tension between the expected and the new.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>In terms of working with Amazon MGM, and indeed the other &#8220;partners&#8221; involved in a licensing mega-vehicle such as Bond &#8211; think Omega, Aston Martin, and so on &#8211; &#8220;these expectations I just described to you, everybody&#8217;s got them,&#8221; Poulsen said. &#8220;That makes it either easier or more difficult to have a conversation.&#8221; That&#8217;s why, he explained, when the studio did what Poulsen calls &#8220;the DNA work&#8221; on reverse-engineering the right elements for their version of Bond, &#8220;all of a sudden it is more factual and easy to speak to, because the research has been done.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In that sense, it was very easy, from a partnership point of view, to discuss these things &#8211; who he is and what we want to achieve and all that stuff &#8211; because we&#8217;ve been very thorough with our homework and quite clear in our intention with the youthful Bond.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So in a sense,&#8221; he continued, &#8220;the premise is easy to understand, easy to discuss and easy to &#8211; we say &#8211; establish a point of view. That&#8217;s the good part, and then, of course, delivering it, then that&#8217;s the challenge. But in all honesty it&#8217;s been surprisingly straightforward to have the discussions about who, what, where, with understanding what we&#8217;re trying to achieve. And I think that part of the journey was surprising to me &#8211; that it has gone so relatively smoothly.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re up to date with live-action Bond you&#8217;ll probably understand the surprise. Since Amazon MGM purchased the rights to James Bond outright from long-time custodians Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson in early 2025 (Amazon having already owned 50 percent since its 2022 acquisition of MGM), very little progress has been made on bringing a new version of the character to the screen. Acclaimed filmmaker Denis Villeneuve &#8211; of Dune, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/blade-runner\">Blade Runner<\/a>: 2049, Arrival, and more &#8211; as well as Peaky Blinders creator Stephen Knight, have been brought on as director and writer respectively. But while rumours have periodically surfaced about who might play Bond himself, little else seems to have progressed.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"2\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The latest twist is a column in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/films\/2026\/04\/29\/what-on-earth-is-happening-with-james-bond\/\">The Telegraph<\/a>, published yesterday, by film critic Tim Robey. It features an extraordinary paraphrasing of a quote from a &#8220;middle-aged American film executive&#8221;, that was overheard by the writer&#8217;s colleague, by coincidence, in a five-star European hotel while the unnamed colleague was there on holiday.<\/p>\n<p>The exec reportedly called Bond &#8220;an old British spy&#8221; and a bit of a nightmare, and described Amazon MGM&#8217;s management as &#8220;fed up with even thinking about 007&#8217;s future&#8221; &#8211; in Robey&#8217;s paraphrased terms. According to this overheard conversation, per Robey, &#8220;no one expects the next phase of Bond to be a success for the studio at all.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It makes for some fascinating context to be releasing a triple-A James Bond game into &#8211; a situation where, curiously and perhaps rarely for a game adaptation of a major license, developer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/companies\/io-interactive\">IO Interactive<\/a> finds itself setting the tone, with the only currently active version of the series&#8217; main character.<\/p>\n<p>On that point, when I put it to him, Poulsen was a little more coy. &#8220;I think it&#8217;s important to say that we are doing our Bond for you, the gamers,&#8221; he said. &#8220;That&#8217;s what we&#8217;re focusing on &#8211; and again, that&#8217;s where the youth comes in,&#8221; referencing the decision to start with a rookie Bond before &#8211; and then while &#8211; he earns his 007 number.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"3\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Of course, we&#8217;ve taken this project immensely seriously, both because, on the one hand, it feels like we were made for it &#8211; I&#8217;m speaking personally in terms of my own career and being inspired by [Bond]. But a lot of us feel like we were made for it.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But also because it&#8217;s a big deal, and [Bond] coming back into games after 14 years is a big deal as well. So we&#8217;ve certainly taken on the task with a huge amount of reverence &#8211; but also a huge amount of excitement for being able to dive in and do that DNA work, take the work seriously. It has been immensely fun. We&#8217;re incredibly proud to have worked on this fresh take on the guy &#8211; for you the gamers. I can&#8217;t wait.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Home News 007 First Light Despite live-action Bond&#8217;s reported toils, 007: First Light dev says working with Amazon MGM has actually been &#8220;surprisingly straightforward&#8221; &#8220;The premise is the easy part\u2026 delivering it, that&#8217;s the challenge.&#8221; Image credit: Eurogamer \/ IO Interactive \/ Amazon MGM News by Chris Tapsell Deputy Editorial Director Published on April 30, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,253],"class_list":["post-1910991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-eurogamer-net"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1910991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1910991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1910991\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1910991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1910991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1910991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}