When you think of Thanksgiving, you don’t typically think of something that is incredibly British, and while I have two franchises I associate with the holiday, one at least makes sense (that’d be the Rocky movies) but the other…well, doesn’t. I’m talking of course about how I think that the James Bond movies are linked to Thanksgiving. You know, the British spy series?
Hear me out though: It’s because of its releases. Growing up with Pierce Brosnan as my Bond, it seemed like there was always a new movie about James Bond and his spy adventures coming out around the holiday (and he even had a Bond girl named Christmas).
There’s nothing in this franchise that links it to any holidays really, and if there is, it is just happenstance. But these are spy movies most of all. They’re not movies meant to be an emotional holiday tradition. I’ve just made it so because they love to release these movies in November for whatever reason, and thus my brain expects James Bond at Thanksgiving time. And can you blame me? It’s why I was so angry when No Time To Die changed its release date to a different holiday.
But it also has to do with the fact that I feel like AMC or some channel like it would play the Bond movies? That or my brother would pretend like they just happened to be on television and we would watch them because he loved them just as much as I do. The point is, the holiday was always filled with Bond and his Bond girls, and I guess that’s why, to me, this is a Thanksgiving franchise.
Does it make sense? Absolutely not.
Not once is this movie set with a turkey dinner or someone saying that they’re thankful for James and his work. It’s not one of those kinds of “holiday” connections (looking at you, Die Hard), but it is just something that feels right for this time of year.
If anything, it shows what release timing can do to our feelings about movies. Again, this movie franchise often has Bond on a beach somewhere, so it isn’t the cozy Thanksgiving feel you can get away with by claiming that Knives Out is a Thanksgiving movie. But with this franchise, it is completely about when it hits theaters.
That is, arguably, what I would say is the case for most “Thanksgiving” movies. We all know that Spider-Man (2002) is a Thanksgiving movie (if you didn’t before, you do now), and that’s just because Peter has Thanksgiving dinner with Aunt May, MJ, Harry, and Norman. Point is: We play fast and loose with Thanksgiving movies because there are very few overt examples.
That’s why I think the James Bond franchise is a Thanksgiving tradition. Maybe if I am loud enough, others will join in with my absolutely nonsense stance that this franchise belongs to the Thanksgiving holiday, but hey, at least every November I have an excuse to watch James Bond run around in fancy cars and nice suits!
(featured image: MGM)
Published: Nov 24, 2022 11:00 am