AceShowbiz -

Five big studios are engaged in a bidding war for "Bond 25". According to New York Times, Sony Pictures, Warner Brothers, Universal Pictures, 20th Century Fox and Annapurna are fighting for the rights to distribute the next James Bond movie.

The rights to 007 films are actually owned by EON and MGM, but they only produce the movies and need a distributor to handle the marketing. Sony was picked for the job starting with "Casino Royale" in 2006 and continued until 2015 with "Spectre".

NYT reports, "Under its previous agreement, Sony paid 50 percent of the production costs for 'Spectre' - which totaled some $250 million after accounting for government incentives - but only received 25 percent of certain profits, once costs were recouped. Sony also shouldered tens of millions of dollars in marketing and had to give MGM a piece of the profit from non-Bond films Sony had in its own pipeline, including '22 Jump Street'."

Now MGM and EON are allegedly offering a one-film contract only. "MGM, which is owned by private equity firms, including Anchorage Capital Partners, probably wants to keep its options open as it considers a sale or public offering," the report says.