FT : Amazon taps Hollywood veterans to produce next James Bond film

Amazon taps Hollywood veterans to produce next James Bond film
Amy Pascal and David Heyman to take over after Broccoli family gives up 60-year control of franchise

Amazon MGM Studios has named two veteran Hollywood executives to produce the next James Bond film, just weeks after the Broccoli family gave up control of the franchise after more than 60 years.

The streaming giant appointed Amy Pascal and David Heyman on Tuesday, turning to two producers with a record of blockbuster successes to revive the franchise.

Pascal was the head of Sony’s motion picture division and launched the studio’s successful Spider-Man franchise. Heyman produced the Harry Potter and Paddington films.

Barbara Broccoli and her stepbrother Michael Wilson surrendered the rights to the franchise last month after reaching an impasse with Amazon executives over critical issues including who would replace Daniel Craig as 007.

Broccoli’s father, Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, oversaw the franchise for decades before his daughter and Wilson took control of it. Barbara Broccoli helped cast actors such as Craig and Pierce Brosnan for the role of the British secret agent.

Amazon has been eager to capitalise on the rights to the Bond franchise, the crown jewel of its $8.45bn acquisition of MGM in 2022. No Bond film has been released since No Time to Die in 2021.

Broccoli and Wilson retained creative control in the sale to Amazon, including final say over casting and direction, and they resisted ideas from Amazon Prime Video executives Mike Hopkins and Jennifer Salke, causing relations between the camps to deteriorate, according to people familiar with the situation.

The appointment of Pascal and Heyman came a day after Broccoli and Wilson finalised the deal announced last month, which will form a joint venture to house the James Bond intellectual property rights.

Under the terms of the venture, Amazon will gain creative control of the Bond franchise, but Broccoli and Wilson remain co-owners.

Amazon has sought to reassure fans that its Bond films will live up to its legacy. “We are approaching every creative decision with James Bond, which Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson have so masterfully steered, with the greatest sense of responsibility,” said Courtenay Valenti, Amazon MGM Studios’ head of film, in a statement.

Pascal and Heyman will face an early challenge in casting a new Bond. Amazon executive chair Jeff Bezos hinted at the process last month, posting on social media platform X: “Who’d you pick as the next Bond?” The post received more than 30,000 responses.

Pascal has experience with the Bond franchise, having been involved with Casino Royale, Skyfall and Quantum of Solace at Sony Pictures, which distributed the films.

Heyman was involved in Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 film Once Upon a Time . . . in Hollywood and the blockbuster Barbie film in 2023.

In a joint statement, the executives said they were “humbled to follow in the footsteps of Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson who made so many extraordinary films and honored and excited to keep the spirit of Bond very much alive as he embarks on his next adventure”.

>>> US After Hours Summary: GME +5.5% higher on earnings; CMP +4% on cost struct

After Hours Summary: GME +5.5% higher on earnings; CMP +4% on cost structure reductions; HUMA -19.7% on stock offering

After Hours Gainers:

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: PAYS +6.8%, GME +5.5% (also to add Bitcoin as a treasury reserve asset), AIRJ +3.9%, WOR +3.1%

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to news: CMP +4% (announces cost structure reductions, including 10% workforce reduction; shutters fire retardant unit), EVAX +3.4% (to present new phase 2 data for EVX-01), GH +2.8% (Shield blood test now covered for VA community care beneficiaries), FTI +1.8% (awarded a major contract by Shell), TNGX +1.7% (to present data at AACR), YOU +1.4% (extends partnership with AXP), COGT +1.4% (announces four preclinical poster presentations), ABCL +1.2% (to present preclinical data on its PSMA x CD3 T-cell engagers), DLO +1.1% (CFO to step down), GIB +1.1% (acquires Momentum Technologies), VSTM +0.6% (to present data at AACR), QCOM +0.5% (QCOM takes legal fight with ARM to global antitrust agencies, according to Bloomberg), DRS +0.3% (launches its high-performance AI Processor computing system), LODE +0.3% (stock offering by selling shareholder), BA +0.1% (US judge sets trial date for 737 MAX, according to Reuters), GFL +0.1% (several shareholders to offer for resale 15.74 mln subordinate voting shares)

After Hours Losers:

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: NOAH -3.1%

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to news: HUMA -19.7% (stock offering), GWRS -5.4% (commences stock offering), OTLY -2% (ADS offering by selling shareholders), EXEL -1.9% (to present data at AACR), IVR -1.5% (decreases dividend), ERAS -1.4% (to present data at AACR), FHTX -0.8% (to present data at AACR), LAES -0.3% (files $500 mln mixed shelf securities offering), ADT -0.2% (names new COO), CIM -0.1% (sponsors residential mortgage loan securitizations), FG -0.1% (CEO bought 10000 shares)

FT : Qantas to start world’s longest direct flights from Australia in 2027

Qantas to start world’s longest direct flights from Australia in 2027
Carrier says customer satisfaction is high on its current direct service between London and Perth

Qantas is expecting delivery of twelve Airbus A350-1000 planes at the end of next year © James D. Morgan/Getty Images

Qantas Airways has said it will start its “Project Sunrise” ultra long-haul flights in early 2027 as the Australian carrier bets on strong passenger demand for direct routes.

Vanessa Hudson, chief executive, said the first of twelve Airbus A350-1000 planes on order would be delivered at the end of next year. The airline plans initially to offer customers some of the world’s longest flights between London and Sydney, and New York and Sydney. No decision has yet been made about which route will be launched first. The flights are expected to take up to 19 hours.

Passengers on the aircraft are expected to have to pay an estimated 20 per cent premium on London to Sydney tickets, but Hudson said the airline was getting strong customer satisfaction feedback on its current direct service between London and Perth that it launched in 2018. 

Project Sunrise is part of a wider refresh of the airline’s fleet with previous plans to upgrade its planes delayed in recent years. When the carrier ordered its planes in 2022, it had announced a 2025 launch for the ultra long-haul flights.

Qantas was still “very confident” in demand for the services, she told reporters on the sidelines of an Airbus event in Toulouse. She added that customer feedback had shown passengers were prepared to pay for the premium experience.

“There are absolutely customers who say, ‘I value getting there in one stop, I value point to point, I value the premium experience, and I’m prepared to pay for that’,” said Hudson.

Given the length of the flights, the airline is working with the Charles Perkins Centre in Sydney to study how passengers will be able to manage jet lag, “when to eat, when to sleep, when to move,” said Hudson. “We will be building that into an integral part of the in-flight experience.”

Qantas pilots have collected 12 months’ worth of wind data and are doing flight planning simulations. “There will be limits in terms of payload we will be able to manage,” said Hudson on the number of passengers, cargo and baggage the plane can carry. 

The airline will still need to carry out local certification flights before starting services. 

“We will need three aircraft to be able to have a daily service, either from Sydney to New York or Sydney to London. Then, as the other aircraft come on, we’ll be able to fill out the network,” Hudson said, but did not name any other routes. 

The successful launch of the project is a key test for Hudson, a Qantas veteran, who took over from long-serving predecessor Alan Joyce in 2023 as the Australian airline suffered a reputational crisis owing to severe service issues and a regulatory investigation into its practices such as the sale of tickets on flights that did not exist. 

The airline, which also owns budget brand Jetstar Airways, has invested in improving its service — including in-flight food and complaints handling — and its shares hit a record high in January this year after it revamped its loyalty programme.

However, the airline has faced renewed competition from its main domestic rival Virgin Airlines after Qatar Airways acquired a 25 per cent stake in the Australian business, which upped competition on lucrative international routes via the Middle East. 

Asked about disruption to Qantas flights during last week’s outage at London’s Heathrow airport, Hudson said the carrier had to reroute two of its flights to Paris and then bus passengers to the UK. Hudson said the airline had not considered taking legal action but added that such events were “incredibly costly” to operators.

TechCrunch : Bill Gates-backed Commonwealth Fusion Systems hits key reactor cons

Bill Gates-backed Commonwealth Fusion Systems hits key reactor construction milestone

Commonwealth Fusion Systems marked a major milestone Tuesday morning, announcing the installation of a key component of its Sparc demonstration reactor.

The new part is a 24-foot wide, 75-ton stainless steel circle that forms the foundation of the tokamak, the doughnut-shaped heart of a fusion reactor that CFS hopes will be the first of its kind to generate more power than it consumes. Called the cryostat base, it was made in Italy and shipped halfway around the world to CFS’s site in Devens, Massachusetts.

“It is the first piece of the actual fusion machine,” Alex Creely, director of tokamak operations at CFS, told TechCrunch. Work at the site has been underway now for more than three years as the company constructs the buildings and machinery that will support the reactor’s core.

“It’s a big deal for us, because it means we’re transitioning into a new stage of the project where we’re not building an industrial facility — we’re still doing that a bit — but we’re also now building the actual tokamak itself,” he said.

CFS is one of many startups that have emerged in recent years to pursue fusion power, which promises to deliver gigawatts of pollution free electricity from a hydrogen fuel derived from seawater. Investors have been counting on the technology to meet future power needs, which are skyrocketing as heavy users like electric vehicles and data centers proliferate.

The company, which is backed by Bill Gates’s Breakthrough Energy Ventures among other investors, is widely considered to be one of the best prospects to prove whether fusion power is commercially feasible. The company announced in December that its first commercial-scale reactor will be located outside Richmond, Virginia.

Sparc is expected to come online in 2027, and if it works as CFS anticipates, it could be the first tokamak to produce more power than it takes to run. So far, only the Department of Energy’s National Ignition Facility has been able to hit so-called scientific break even in a string of successful experiments, the first of which occurred in December 2022.

But the NIF’s reactor differs significantly from CFS’s, using lasers to compress a fuel pellet to fusion conditions. CFS’s tokamak uses magnets to herd 100 million degree C plasma into a tight doughnut shape, confining and compressing it until fusion occurs.

Tokamaks use superconducting magnets to generate the powerful magnetic fields required to coral the plasma. Those magnets need to be cooled to –253 degrees C using liquid helium. The cryostat helps maintain those frigid conditions, acting like a thermos by insulating it from ambient temperatures. “The cryostat base is basically like the bottom of the thermos,” Creely said.

Just like someone receiving an Amazon package, CFS had to unbox and inspect the cryostat base before installing it. But unlike an e-commerce package that takes a few seconds to open, it took the CFS team a few days to remove the shipping material and another week “just to make sure that nothing got damaged in shipping,” Creely said.

The CFS team then moved the cryostat base to the tokamak hall, where precisely placed bolts protruded from the concrete foundation awaiting the stainless steel disk. “Then you grout it in,” he said.

Alongside the cryostat base, work continues on the other three major pieces of the tokamak, which will be assembled simultaneously into their final configuration either late this year or early next year. After that, CFS will ensure all the pieces are working together as planned, a process known as commissioning that will take months.

“This is the first of a kind,” Creely said. “There’s not just like an on button and it turns on.”

>>> US Research Calls I

Research Calls I
  • Upgrades
    • Alcon (ALC) upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA Securities
    • Capital One (COF) upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BTIG, tgt $208
    • Carvana (CVNA) upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley, tgt $280
    • CrowdStrike (CRWD) upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BTIG, tgt $431
    • Cloudflare (NET) upgraded to Buy from Underperform at BofA Securities, tgt $160
    • Empire State Realty (ESRT) upgraded to Outperform from Peer Perform at Wolfe Research, tgt $10
    • HealthEquity (HQY) upgraded to Strong Buy from Outperform at Raymond James, tgt $115
    • Miniso (MNSO) upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JPMorgan, tgt $22
    • NXP Semiconductors (NXPI) upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Arete
    • Pentair (PNR) upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Baird, tgt $114
    • United Rentals (URI) upgraded to Market Perform from Underperform at Bernstein, tgt $666
  • Downgrades
    • Ally Financial (ALLY) downgraded to Sell from Neutral at BTIG, tgt $30
    • Brown & Brown (BRO) downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley, tgt $128
    • Dragonfly Energy (DFLI) downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Alliance Global Partners, tgt $1.50
    • EOG Resources (EOG) downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Mizuho, tgt $140
    • L'Oreal (LRLCY) downgraded to Hold from Buy at Berenberg
    • Opthea (OPT) double downgraded to Underperform from Buy at Jefferies, tgt $1
    • Opthea (OPT) downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Leerink, tgt $1
    • Volvo (VLVLY) downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Barclays
  • Others
    • Arthur J. Gallagher (AJG) initiated with a Neutral at Redburn Atlantic, tgt $352
    • Assembly Biosciences (ASMB) initiated with a Buy at Guggenheim, tgt $31
    • Avalo Therapeutics (AVTX) initiated with a Buy at Jefferies, tgt $23
    • Avalo Therapeutics (AVTX) initiated with a Buy at Stifel, tgt $36
    • Coty (COTY) initiated with a Buy at Berenberg, tgt $7.50
    • Crinetics (CRNX) initiated with a Buy at Stifel, tgt $60
    • CoreWeave (CRWV) initiated with a Neutral at DA Davidson, tgt $47
    • Clearway Energy (CWEN) initiated with a Buy at Deutsche Bank, tgt $38
    • Immunic (IMUX) initiated with an Outperform at William Blair
    • Marsh McLennan (MMC) initiated with a Buy at Redburn Atlantic, tgt $281
    • OneMain (OMF) initiated with In-Line, added to Tactical Underperform list at Evercore ISI
    • Palvella Therapeutics (PVLA) initiated with a Buy at JonesResearch, tgt $45
    • Smithfield Foods (SFD) assumed with an Overweight at Morgan Stanley, tgt $28

>>> US Gapping down

Gapping down
In reaction to earnings/guidance:
  • KBH -8.6% (also appoints new CFO), OKLO -7.1% (also appoints two members to the Board), MKC -3.2%, EPAC -3%, PONY -2.7%, CSIQ -0.9%
Other news:
  • MURA -44.1% (provides update on phase 3 ARTISTRY-7 Trial of Nemvaleukin in combination with KEYTRUDA in patients with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer)
  • PROP -19.5% (prices offering of $38.5 mln of shares of common stock at $4.50 per share)
  • UNF -10.4% (CTAS terminates merger discussion)
  • QFIN -6.6% (proposed offering of $600 million cash-par settled convertible senior notes)
  • INV -2.9% (entered into preferred stock purchase agreements)
  • OMCL -2.3% (names new CTO)
  • AEP -1.9% (prices offering of 19,607,844 shares of common stock at $102.00 per share)
  • CCI -1.3% (CEO stepping down)
  • BKH -1% (receives approval from CO public utilities commission)
  • DBX -0.8% (facing pressure from activist to end co-founder control, according to WSJ)