I hate spoilers more than anyone, but if someone would have told me that Luke Skywalker was killed off in The Last Jedi and that it was a woke piece of shit that ruined Star Wars, I would have thanked them and avoided giving Disney the $10.00.
They've ruined:
Star Wars
Star Trek
Ghostbusters
Dr. Who
Terminator
Indiana Jones (if you believe the rumors)
and now James Bond
Let's push back.
You answered your own question.
They will blame both COVID and the decline of the appeal of straight white males as leading men in big blockbusters (very few big-budget theatrical releases that aren't cape films actually star straight white males these days).
They will pivot this into casting either a black male (who will only bed white women) as Bond or replace him with a white woman (and a lesbian of course, because she has to embody all of his traits, including seducing other women).
The simple answer is that they don't care about the money. The entire purpose is to demoralize and destroy cultural symbols. In the New world Order, there can't be any cultural symbols or art or any nostalgia for the "old days." This is why they are hellbent on destroying everything from James Bond to Star Wars to Dr. Seuss.
I honestly don't think they care. It's not about the money for them (obviously), it's about the message.
The new Bond will simply be part of the much larger globohomo zeitgeist that has ubiquitously overwhelmed Western culture.
As others have pointed out, and as you yourself have pointed out, they've been doing nothing but taking a dump on straight white males pervasively for the last decade or so.
Even though we can tune out and stop giving them money for their crap, what about the next generation? That's who this new Bond is for.
The youth generation growing up today will see the new Bond as part of a cohesive entanglement with the rest of entertainment culture where majority of other straight white heroes have been replaced with POCkers, women, members of the Rainbow Reich, or a mix of all three. So a black, lesbian James Bond wouldn't seem so far fetched for a lot of Gen Z'ers when that's what is most prevalent across games, music, comics, books, and movies.
These poor kids are being corrupted at every turn, and Hollyweird right now seems intent on burning as much money into the ground as possible to keep foisting their globohomo agenda on Western audiences. If every Gen Z'er is inculcated with this crap nonstop since birth, it's no longer fringe propaganda for them, it's just normal... and that's the scary part.
That's where archives (and piracy) can do them serious damage, effectively running counter to them. Show kids the good stuff early, and how to find it once they're older, if they haven't figured it out already (and how to cyoa if questioned). they will talk about it with others possably their own age group, possably older or not at all. most impotently however teach them basic cyber security things that should be a duh like separate meatspace from cyberspace or the magic candyman may show up and give you a lollipop in the worst way. these clowns can try to kill the past but they will fail as the past is preferable to their future who know maybe we will get those flying cars after all.
mayb e theyre getting paid to tank franchises because they are more like the first world isis.
The Bond franchise bankrupted MGM. That's how corrupt hollywood is. A studio with a franchise that pulls in a couple hundred million every 2-3 years for fifty years couldn't stay afloat.