In more than 60 years of adventures, James Bond has faced off against villains ranging from Blofeld to Le Chiffre. But none of them has managed to do what Jeff Bezos and his henchmen did to the international superspy: take his weapons away.
Last week, eagle-eyed movie fans noticed that the promotional images used on Amazon Prime Video for the various James Bond movies had been edited to remove any trace of the character holding a gun. For example, in a promotional shot for Dr. No, showing Sean Connery as Bond, the spy’s famous Walther PPK was missing. Images of other James Bonds, including Daniel Craig (in Spectre), Roger Moore (in Live and Let Die), and Pierce Brosnan (in GoldenEye), had also had their weapons edited out.
James Bond with and without gun – Click to enlarge
The changes came just in time for James Bond Day, October 5, which marked the 63rd anniversary of the first Bond film, Dr. No. Amazon had just recently added the catalog of films to its streaming service.
Judging from the reactions on X, fans were not pleased with the new, peace-loving Bond. “The snowflakes don’t belong anywhere near 007,” opined one user. “Next … they will probably eliminate any scenes from the movies with guns,” wrote another. Someone going by the handle Agent Smart posited that the editing is “the most American approach to gun control imaginable.”
After fans caused an uproar on social media, Amazon appeared to change the promotional images it uses for James Bond movies. This time, the promo images show Bond in famous scenes from the films, but in those scenes, he is not holding a gun.
A screenshot of a search for James Bond on Amazon (no idea why some non-Bond movies come up) – Click to enlarge
For example, the Dr. No image shows Sean Connery behind the wheel of a car now. Interestingly, when we clicked through to Dr. No specifically, Amazon did show an image of Bond holding his gun on the movie page itself.
Amazon has every right to take Bond’s guns away. Not only is Prime Video free to control its own promo images, but in February, Amazon MGM reportedly paid $1 billion to long-time Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson for creative control over the spy franchise.
However, the idea that the company would try to downplay gun violence in the promos for an assassin who has a license to kill doesn’t inspire fan confidence in how it will handle this franchise going forward.
At present, we don’t even know who the next actor to play James Bond will be. However, we do know that Denis Villeneuve will reportedly be directing the upcoming flick, which is expected to begin production in 2027 for a release the next year.
A recent Deadline article on the casting quotes an unnamed source as saying of the potential actor, “whoever it is, has to look like he could kill you with his bare hands in a trice.” So maybe Amazon was just getting fans ready for an assassin who kills without weapons. We’ve reached out to everyone’s favorite megacorp for comment and will update this article if we hear back. ®
