Amazon recently decided to remove firearms from promotional images of James Bond films on its streaming service, Amazon Prime Video. After receiving backlash for the decision, Amazon then quietly updated its promotional images to stills from the various films, all of which similarly don’t feature a firearm.
Prior to the second change, images of various Bonds, including Sean Connery, Daniel Craig, Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan, had their respective firearms edited out of their hands as Amazon decided that Bond, whose Walther PPK is one of the most-famous pistols in cinema history, was too politically incorrect for them.
Perhaps the most absurd of the edited photos was Brosnan’s Bond in the Goldeneye promotional image, who simply has a raised fist. But then, perhaps Craig’s version from Spectre was even worse, as it showed him sporting an empty shoulder holster.
The changes also came just before James Bond Day on October 5, which marked the 63rd anniversary of the very first film, Dr. No, which was released in 1962.
All of this does not paint a positive picture for the future of 007. The most-recent film, No Time to Die, was described as a “disappointment” by America’s 1st Freedom Editor in Chief Frank Miniter.
“In this latest Bond, however, director Cary Joji Fukunaga has given us a Bond who is symbolic of the modern, weak men who, I suppose, made this film, not the confident action hero with a ‘license to kill’ that Bond was always supposed to be,” wrote Miniter.
Amazon gained distribution rights to the series following the acquisition of MGM Studios in 2022 and has since made all 25 films available on Amazon Prime Video.
