Fans Upset After Amazon Removes Guns From James Bond Posters

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James Bond fans have expressed disappointment with Amazon, the company that now owns the rights to the famous spy series, due to unusual alterations made to the movie posters on their website.

Fans of James Bond recently spotted that Amazon Prime Video had altered the thumbnail images for the Bond films. They removed any visible guns from 007’s hands, sometimes using Photoshop and other times by simply cropping the pictures.

After facing criticism online following James Bond Day on October 5th, Prime Video U.K. quietly removed the artwork that had caused controversy. They replaced it with standard movie stills. Interestingly, fans have pointed out that none of the chosen stills show Bond with a gun. Prime Video has not made any public statement about the changes.

I noticed something really strange when I was browsing for James Bond movies on Amazon. All the images they use to represent the films show Bond *without* a gun. It’s super obvious Amazon changed something! You can even see it right there on the product pages – the Prime Video version is listed next to the Blu-ray or DVD, and those physical copies have the original cover art. Take *Spectre*, for example. The Blu-ray cover shows Daniel Craig looking sharp in a white jacket, gun in hand, but the version you stream on Prime Video just shows him standing around, looking off into the distance. It’s like they deliberately removed the guns from the streaming images!

If you search for Bond films on services like Apple TV+, you’ll notice the cover art differs. For example, searching for *You Only Live Twice* on Apple TV+ shows a picture of Sean Connery holding a gun. However, the same search on Amazon currently displays a different image—Bond wearing a funny helmet and looking over his shoulder while flying an autogyro.

Following a period of stalled development after the 2021 film *No Time to Die*, Amazon is finally starting work on a new James Bond movie. This marks the first Bond film under Amazon’s ownership, following their acquisition of MGM. Reports indicate Amazon paid $1 billion to Eon Productions, the longtime producers of the series, to have complete creative control. However, the *Wall Street Journal* reports that Amazon and Eon disagreed on several key ideas for the future direction of James Bond.

Earlier this year, Amazon tapped producers Amy Pascal and David Heyman—known for their work on *Spider-Man* and *Harry Potter*—to lead the first James Bond film under their ownership. Pascal and Heyman subsequently hired Steven Knight to write the screenplay and Denis Villeneuve to direct. However, they haven’t yet chosen an actor to take over the role of James Bond from Daniel Craig.

The Best Action Movie Every Year of the 1990s

1990: Total Recall

Many consider Arnold Schwarzenegger’s *Total Recall* to be his best film. It’s a thrilling and confusing sci-fi story about a construction worker who gets a memory implant of a Mars vacation. This implant unexpectedly reveals what seems to be a hidden past as a secret agent. Or, perhaps it’s all a hallucination caused by a bad reaction to the implant, showing the final thoughts of a failing mind. Either way, director Paul Verhoeven keeps viewers guessing and brilliantly uses Schwarzenegger’s strengths – portraying a man on the run, questioning who he is, uneasy at home, craving excitement, and delivering surprisingly funny lines. (*Total Recall* captures everything great about Arnold: it’s over-the-top, action-packed, darkly humorous, and surprisingly makes you think.)

1991: Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Arnold Schwarzenegger dominated the action movie scene in the early 1990s, and the long-awaited sequel to *Terminator* was a prime example. Director James Cameron went all out with the action sequences, pioneered the use of CGI with the groundbreaking liquid metal T-1000 Terminator, and introduced audiences to one of the most iconic female action characters ever: Linda Hamilton’s determined and hardened Sarah Connor. Schwarzenegger delivers a surprisingly funny and poignant performance as a reprogrammed robot trying to understand humanity, and his final gesture of approval is famously moving – if it doesn’t affect you, you might be a machine yourself!

1992: Hard Boiled

John Woo’s *Hard Boiled* begins with a simple scene: someone making a drink. Tequila and soda are poured into a glass, then the glass is slammed onto the bar, mixing them together. This seemingly small moment actually hints at the entire film’s theme. The movie is about what happens when two very different people are thrown together and collide. Both Chow Yun-Fat and Tony Leung are fantastic actors on their own, but when they work together, the result is explosive action and movie magic.

1993: The Fugitive

We often underestimate how good a purely enjoyable movie can be if it doesn’t try to be overly profound. But *The Fugitive* makes a large-scale chase movie look effortless. It’s actually very challenging to create a film with such a gripping mystery, clear action, and strong performances – especially Tommy Lee Jones as the relentless U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard. The reason it’s so rewatchable is because it’s made with a level of skill and attention to detail that’s even more uncommon today than it was when the film came out in 1993.

1994: Drunken Master II

Jackie Chan starred in countless amazing action movies during the 1980s and 90s, but if you could only save one to show people in the future as the perfect example of his work, it would have to be *Drunken Master II*. This film brilliantly displays his incredible agility, athleticism, and comedic talent. Chan plays the legendary Chinese hero Wong Fei-hung, who becomes an even more formidable fighter when intoxicated. The premise of drunken boxing allows *Drunken Master II* to perfectly showcase Chan’s ability to combine breathtaking physical skill with clever, inventive humor.

1995: GoldenEye (1995)

Everyone has a special connection to the first James Bond movie they saw as a child, and for me, it’s *GoldenEye*. My dad took me when I was fourteen, and I was instantly hooked – a month later, I received a bunch of Bond movies on VHS for my birthday, which really cemented my fandom. But *GoldenEye* is more than just nostalgia; it’s genuinely a fantastic movie. From the thrilling opening – featuring a bungee jump off a bridge and a daring leap into a falling plane – to the iconic Tina Turner theme song, it has everything. Sean Bean makes a compelling villain, there’s an incredible tank chase, and Famke Janssen is unforgettable as a formidable henchwoman. While Pierce Brosnan might not have reinvented the role of James Bond, I thought he was the coolest person ever when he delivered the line, “No more foreplay,” to Xena Onatopp at fourteen.

1996: Mission: Impossible

While later *Mission: Impossible* films would feature even bigger set pieces, the original still delivers fantastic action. It includes a thrilling break-in at the Pentagon, Tom Cruise escaping a massive aquarium explosion, and a memorable showdown on top of a speeding train where he takes down a helicopter with just a piece of gum. 1996 also gave us other great action movies like Michael Bay’s *The Rock*, but when I think back, the first *Mission: Impossible* stands out the most.

1997: Con Air

When *Con Air* came out in the 1990s, critics were puzzled that Nicolas Cage would follow his acclaimed performance in *Leaving Las Vegas* with such an over-the-top action film. But today, the movie is less a silly thriller and more a deliberately funny and enjoyable action comedy. The action sequences are well-done, and the cast is incredible – featuring John Cusack, Steve Buscemi, Danny Trejo, Ving Rhames, a fantastic John Malkovich, and Nicolas Cage as Cameron Poe, the only genuinely good person on a plane full of dangerous criminals. Everyone involved seems to be having a blast, and that energy is contagious – it’s just a really fun movie to watch.

1998: Ronin

John Frankenheimer’s *Ronin* is a no-frills, expertly crafted action film about a group of tough mercenaries hired to pull off a big heist. While the plot isn’t groundbreaking, the film boasts an incredible cast – including Robert De Niro, Jean Reno, Natascha McElhone, Stellan Skarsgard, Sean Bean, and Jonathan Pryce – and sharp, realistic dialogue (reportedly touched up by David Mamet under a pen name). It’s also home to what many consider one of the best car chases ever filmed. Released in 1998 alongside other great action movies like *The Mask of Zorro* and the first *Blade* film, *Ronin* stands out as the best of the bunch.

1999: The Matrix

While *The Matrix* blends genres like science fiction, superhero stories, and even romance, it’s at its heart a thrilling action movie – and one of the best ever made by a major studio. The filmmakers, the Wachowskis, were inspired by classic martial arts films and insisted their actors – including Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, and Laurence Fishburne – train extensively in kung fu. This dedication resulted in incredibly dynamic and well-choreographed fight scenes. Combined with stunning gunfights and the groundbreaking “Bullet Time” effect, *The Matrix* rightfully deserves to be considered among the greatest action films of the 1990s.

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2025-10-06 17:27