Sony to Find '007' Heirs Have a License to Kill

It's easy to name the crown jewel in the thousands of movies Sony Corp. will inherit when it takes control of legendary film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

That name is Bond

For four decades, studio chiefs and movie directors have craved the opportunity to put their imprint on the $1-billion franchise that is Hollywood's most successful film series ever. Already, months before they officially acquire MGM, Sony's top movie executives are mulling over ways to refresh the vodka-martini-sipping secret agent.

The prospective new owners, according to sources familiar with Sony's thinking, hope to broaden Bond's appeal beyond older males enamored with the fiery explosions, careening Aston Martins and buxom models. They're aiming for the kind of global audiences that flocked to Sony's "Spider-Man" blockbusters, believing there should be more to Bond's character than machismo.

But Sony will soon learn that many a studio executive has been shaken and stirred when pitted against Agent 007's off-camera bodyguards. Shielding Bond from the minefields of Hollywood pitches are producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, her half brother.

They are the intensely private and fiercely protective heirs guarding the legacy of their late father, Albert R. "Cubby" Broccoli, a Long Island vegetable farmer-turned-Hollywood showman who almost single-handedly built author Ian Fleming's secret agent into a global star and pop culture icon.

"The Sony executives may have stars in their eyes right now as they dream of what James Bond can be now that he's theirs," said Lindsay Doran, who headed MGM's United Artists unit during the making of two Bond films. "But they might get their hearts broken, like so many executives before them, if they look at the deal and realize he's not theirs, he's the Broccolis'."

The Broccolis possess a unique license to kill ideas they don't like. Among the casualties: giving Bond a son, exploring his darker side as a paid assassin and even one top actor's take that the misogynous womanizer is latently homosexual. So protective are Broccoli's heirs that they once commissioned a confidential 60-page Bond "character bible" that continues to serve as something of an owners' manual. What kind of woman does 007 seduce? What does he wear? How nasty are the villains he battles?

"Every decision they make starts with the question: 'Is this in the tradition of Bond? Is this the right thing for the franchise?' " MGM Vice Chairman Chris McGurk said. "They know Bond better than anyone else."