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I mean, they sort of did after QOS and spent more time on SF (I know not every Bond fan likes it, but for me it's an extraordinary Bond film and among general audiences one of the most well regarded and successful). Having worked even on smaller films it's not uncommon that these sorts of things can happen - ideas get dropped, deadlines approach fast, actor's schedules start to get more and more specific... perhaps Danny Boyle is fired because your lead actor wants a dramatic death and he isn't budging on that or something and you have to completely redo the entire film. Maybe that one's oddly specific... Anyway, if anything they'll have a longer pre-production time for this one, more like how they did with SF, and will hopefully take advantage of that.
I just don't think it's how films work though.
This is becoming a strange repeated meme that Daniel Craig insisted on killing Bond and this somehow threw off the whole production, but I'm not sure there's any proof of that happening.
Yes, I'm not sure if we'll ever know what happened 100%. I doubt either Boyle or Craig/the producers would give the whole story, and I suspect that if it did involve Bond's death, it would have been amongst a long line of creative differences about the story and direction of the film that both parties had different ideas about. That said should Bond's death have been discussed earlier on for this film it obviously came up and was probably in Hodge's script.
Boyle said no one but Hodge touches the script.
And that’s where the relationship died. I think I’ve been saying this since 2018, but here’s a recent interview with Hodge where he admits he was about to get the boot, and Danny supposedly took a bullet with him (but there are those close to the production that said the director was uncompromising and pissed a few ppl off):
“I think it was me they really wanted rid of, but Danny took the bullet, too,” says Hodge. Do non-disclosure agreements cover their departure? “No. Just decent British discretion!”
It happens on big films: writers get fired.
I heard the script they submitted was dull and “changed the culture of Bond” (and this could be a response to the rumour that Bond was imprisoned for a great portion of it).
Either way the producers and distributors didn’t like Hodge’s script. That is clear.
The story pretty much ends there.
Regardless, whatever the creative differences were, it did set the film back, especially if they were on a schedule. I think for this one they'll be able to avoid such a situation as instead of months to develop a script they could potentially have about a year to do so. Like I've said before, I think if NTTD and SP had had another few drafts I think much better films could have been made. It makes a difference.
I believe they went back to the ideas of P&W, but there were heavy re-writes of their material:
Cary Fukunaga did a page one re-write.
He hired Scott Burns to punch up the action.
PWB was hired on for character and dialogue (and some media reports stated she also finessed the exposition dealing with the nanobots).
I’ve heard rumours of more uncredited scriptwriters, like Burns, who were brought on for polishes, and; I heard Cary was like the on-set script doctor who worked on the story as more changes came in (this is also common on bigger films; for example: a location may not offer what the script was asking, so they re-write pages on the spot to make it flow with the film)…
Hmm, makes sense. Would support the idea that everything was a bit 'all hands on deck' due to a tighter than normal schedule. I've always thought the finale suffered most from this. To be honest it shows how well Fukanaga did to make the film we got under such conditions (I have many problems with NTTD, but I do think much of the film until Blofeld's interrogation is very good and it's near perfect in places). Often it can't be avoided with films, but perhaps the gap being created with casting a new Bond will mean more focus on the development of the story.
Script doctoring is the most lucrative job as a writer in Hollywood. Every major film you’ve watched in the past 25-30 years likely had way more writers than were credited.
(I’m talking blockbusters, not indies or smaller budget art house films, but even then, doctors aren’t foreign to these productions either).
A doctor, like Burns, usually comes on board for a specific reason and only work a few days to a couple to three weeks, focused solely on their assignment.
In NTTD the original story and draft goes to P&W, then CF and PWB did some heavy lifting (therefore they’re recognized in the credits); the doctors don’t really change the overall tone of a script because their assignments are so specific (give us more action in our set pieces starting on pages 12- 24, and I want you to find a better way of utilizing the climactic action sequence, or; so-and-so was hired because the dialogue between our protagonist and his love interest is weak….).
A doctor writes within the tone set by the draft they are working, and is specific to his or her assignment.
Saying that, once a script is written, making a film isn’t just point a camera and shoot what’s on the page. As soon as the director calls “Action!”, anything can change what was written on the page and what we see in the final film….
I didn’t have an issue with tone of NTTD, but for those that did, I have to figure that it likely wasn’t too many chefs in the kitchen this time, but perhaps just the nature of wrapping a bow onto the five film arc of this era.
(Even Spectre’s unevenness wasn’t due to the amount of writers/doctors/producers and distributors all jumping in; more that they really didn’t have a clear vision and not one of them were able to come up with a solution (personally I would have scrapped Spectre as it wasn’t working; I would have begged to delay the film and start with a page one draft developing a wholly new script).
I think it's quite interesting that when Mission Impossible Fallout had to shut down because of Cruise breaking his ankle it gave McQuarrie time to improve the script and make the film better, whereas where Craig broke his leg in Spectre he kept going to keep the film on schedule. If they had shut down like MI might it have improved the film?
I guess it's hard to know and the situations may not have been comparable.
I think the only way of answering that is to see Spectre’s shooting schedule; how much had they filmed by the time Craig blew out his knee? And then, depending on how much they had in the can, was it worth changing anything at that point?
I also get the sense that Mendes as a director likes preparation and I’m not sure how comfortable he is working on the fly. Would he want radical changes to a script he’s already shot a substantial amount of? I think he’d be very much out of his comfort zone. Spectre feels like a film where all resigned to a “do the best with what we have” mentality (pure guessing on my part).
McQuarrie I believe started as a playwright, then was a script writer and then director. He obviously had a clear vision of what he wanted to improve upon and it worked for his film (and those films are reportedly written around the set-pieces, so story beats may not be so rigid; a different beast to Bond, for sure).
Very insightful @peter but I just wished the film maintained the Matera atmosphere and feel though. Matera felt like a proper Bond thriller. The bunker shootout was also Craig in serious mode.
But I feel the biggest reason is the film is a surreal study of watching the end to one man’s life; it’s shot very dream-like…, and; since this was his final chapter, they needed to balance the cruelty of death (it robs us all), and celebrate how the man lived (so we got a reminder of his short wick for betrayal, the recluse alcoholic, the friend, the lust for adventure and his professionalism when called to duty; we saw the lover, the father, the protector)….
To me it was a deconstruction of Bond’s psyche, a “flashing of his life” before his (our) eyes encapsulated in this dream called No Time To Die….
Hmmmmm. Nice way of putting it though.
I agree as well. And I'd not consciously noted the dream-like cinematography but that's a perfect way of describing it.
Craig was definitely on top form in CR. Connery, however, had the swagger on full blast from Dr.No through to TB and imho absolutely no one has come remotely close to matching it.
There was an interview with Mendes on Roger Deakins' podcast where he mentioned how Spectre's third act fell apart on him- it sounds like they were up for restructuring it but just couldn't find a way to make it work better.
It's very interesting to hear him speak about being brought on to doctor projects like MI: Ghost Protocol where he speaks about finding out what has been shot, what sets are standing, what's still to be built etc. for the first couple of days and then works out what can be done to steer a film in the way he thinks it needs. It certainly sounds like Spectre could have done with someone like him.
True, I'm still not sure if rewrites could help,
The problem was the subject of "Bond being relevant in today's world", was he relevant? Is MI6 still relevant? That's the plot of Spectre was all about, the relevance of Bond and espionage. Another one was the "villains coming back from the past to haunt them", they insisted on this, Skyfall has Silva coming back from M's past, Blofeld has him coming back from Bond's past, Safin was from Madeleine's past, they all coming back to haunt these characters, that's why we have this brother angle in SP.
Also the plots involving technology, it worked in Skyfall, but no longer in both SP and NTTD, I think they rely too much on this, that they've found it threatening but really not, they tried to make these villains menacing in terms of being too much high tech but none of them worked except Silva.
Another problem of SP was the retconning, they tried to connect all of this villains in thinking that it would have made Blofeld a lot more menacing, but it didn't, the "author of all your pain", the pictures of the villains in the old MI6 headquarters that Craig's bond confronted in the past, all of those things has tainted the Craig era.
About the Madeleine and Bond relationship, it's not just the writing here, Seydoux and Craig just really lacked chemistry, they didn't have the spark.
That’s a great snippet of what it’s like to be a doctor. And yes— they needed aggressive thinking to steer Spectre in the right direction; a nimble creative like McQuarrie would have been just what the “doctor” ordered.
Irma Bunt reappearing only to be killed by Madeleine? That would have been worse. Thankfully they've dropped that idea.
His chin and jawline are rather weak without the beard/long hair though.
He’s certainly one I’d be quite happy about if cast.
He’s still quite unknown to many, and I think that helps. He has an air of mystery about him, and looks like a man’s man.