Fans Upset After Amazon Removes Guns From James Bond Posters

James Bond fans are unhappy with Amazon, the new owners of the iconic spy franchise, after some strange changes were made to the films’ posters on their site.

Eagle-eyed 007 nerds noticed recently that Amazon had changed the thumbnail images for the Bond films on their Prime Video streaming service to remove any guns that appeared in the famous gentleman spy’s hand. In some cases, that involved dodgy Photoshop; in others it meant cropping the images to keep the guns out of frame.

According to Variety, “Following James Bond Day on Oct. 5 and growing online backlash, Prime Video U.K. has now — stealthily, much like the super spy himself — removed the controversial artworks altogether and replaced them with stills from each film. However, it has been noted online that none of the stills feature Bond carrying his gun. Prime Video refused to comment on the matter.”

Sure enough, when you search for these movies on Amazon, all of the thumbnails for the films are stills where Bond is not carrying a gun. It’s pretty apparent that something was changed when you search Amazon’s product pages, because the Prime Video version is often listed right next to the films’ physical home releases, which bear the original artwork — as in this example for the recent Bond movie Spectre. The Blu-ray shows Daniel Craig in a white dinner jacket holding a Walther in his right hand. The streaming version shows Daniel Craig just standing somewhere, looking off into the distance.

Amazon

When you look for Bond movies on another digital rental provider like Apple TV+, the images are different as well. Search You Only Live Twice on Apple TV+ and you get the image below on the left, with Sean Connery aiming a pistol. When you search for You Only Live Twice on Amazon currently, you get the one on the right, with Bond in a goofy helmet looking over his shoulder as he pilots an autogyro.

Amazon

After years of minimal progress on a follow-up to 2021’s No Time to Die, Amazon is now moving ahead on their first James Bond movie after acquiring the rights to the character in their purchase of MGM. (They also paid a reported $1 billion to the longtime overseers of the series, Eon Productions, for full creative control of the franchise. Per an article in the Wall Street Journal, Eon and Amazon clashed repeatedly over their differing visions for the future of the Bond character.)

Earlier this year, Amazon hired Spider-Man and Harry Potter producers Amy Pascal and David Heyman to oversee the first of their Bond films. Pascal and Heyman then brought in Steven Knight as screenwriter and Denis Villeneuve as director. They have yet to cast the actor to replace Daniel Craig as the new James Bond.