Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to What Went Wrong, your favorite podcast, full, that just so happens to be about movies,

and how it's nearly impossible to make them, let alone a good one, let alone a decade-spanning

franchise that is virtually synonymous with the spy film subgenre. As always, I am Chris Winterbauer,

and today we're going to talk about Bond, James Bond. In advance of our coverage of

Gold and I, a film that catapulted Pierce Brosnan to international recognition and brought Bond back to the

silver screen after a six-year hiatus, we thought we'd put together a little primer on the origins of this

British super secret agent and his complicated journey to the cinemas.

We hope this added context

will only enhance your experience with Golden Eye

and serve as a touchstone

for all of our future 007 coverage.

So, without further ado,

we present the origins of James Bond,

as researched by Jesse Winterbauer,

with music and effects by David Bowman.

At the time of this recording, there's perhaps no name more associated with the Bond brand than

Broccoli. Barbara Broccoli, that is, who along with her half-brother, Michael G. Wilson,

held creative control of the

Bond franchise from the mid-90s until earlier this year when it was seated to Amazon MGM

Studios for a King's Ransom. James Bond is, like so many things in Hollywood, a family business.

One Barbara inherited from her father, the Queens-born Albert Broccoli,

nicknamed Cubby, who produced nearly every Bond film through 1989, the first nine

...