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I'd just like Bond to be the trendsetter again. The one everyone else wants to copy and does it so poorly in comparison. It can be done.
I realize that people made comparisons between Cage and Bond when XXX came out, but I don't see any influence whatsoever. The characters are quite different and the stunts and concept behind DAD is more 'Bond' than 'XXX'. They just dialed everything up to parodic levels, including the characterizations and crude humour. I contend that this is more on account of Powers than XXX.
However, when I saw the film for the first time, the impact of Austin Powers was painfully clear to me in the cheesy childish humour and in the overly caricatured villains. It just wasn't dialled up to that degree.
The same thing exists with QoS. I know some who don't agree, but the deliberate influence of Bourne grafted onto a Bond template was clearly apparent to me in 2008.
I don't want to see 'Logan' obviously grafted onto a Bond template in 2019.
I'll be the first to vocally speak that QoS was a Bourne ripoff. I remember reading a lot of MI6 articles back in the day when I newly discovered the Bond news site that QoS had a lot of following to do with Bourne. Heck, even they even hired the same second unit team, as far as I know.
I'll also state that I don't want a Logan-type Bond film, either. Because, I'm fed up with the tragedy and drama seen in the Bond films.
If that is the case, then is it not logical to assume that either 1) an existing (but not yet announced) distributor has ok'd this 'dueling' script idea, or else 2) a prospective distributor has actually asked for it prior to signing off on a much delayed deal?
If it's the latter, things are much more 'up in the air' than we know.
I don’t think so. Even if like Sony, whoever distributes international and/or AP (everyone in the film press is assuming Annapurna is a done deal for US) contribute, most of the budget as well as decision making power is MGM/EON. So at this early stage, it’s completely down to them.
If anything, the initial reports from yesterday seem to hint that it may have actually been at Annapurna’s encouraging that they are still pursuing big names for this instead of locking in Démange.
RE: Annapurna potentially asking them to look for big names - yes, I made that out from yesterday's post too. I can't say I'm excited by the prospect of their increased involvement given their 'arty' predisposition to date, but it certainly will fit in with the Broccoli/Craig modus operandi. Honestly, they are going to need a big name director to get traction in the US market.
Marketing is always from the distributor, but the production budget is mostly MGM/EON, Sony contributed something like 25% of the budget on SF and SP so they had some input but very limited. In this way, Bond operates more like an independent film than a studio franchise (which is where obviously the majority of the budget is from the studio itself). And yeah, with Bond the distributor’s sign off is less crucial ultimately. It’s fully Barbara/MGW’s show.
There was likely an initial concept in place when he agreed, but since that point he will have been across the development process to a certain extent. For that reason a completed script was never a deal breaker in my mind. After all, he has significant purchase when it comes to the creative decision making - including script/director.
Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool (BB's "dream project"), Nancy, The Rhythm Section.
No. Sony contributed HALF of the production budget. It only got 25 percent of the profits.
Also, Eon contributes nothing to the final production budget. It fronts money for scripts and other costs. But it's reimbursed by the releasing studios. Eon, in the end, plays with the money of other people (not a bad place to be).
All this plus decision control on Bond actor casting and retention? I can appreciate that some studios wouldn't be too keen on such an arrangement.
It's a high income, low profit proposition.
When MGM was coming out of bankruptcy, Sony clearly was desperate to keep Bond. That's why it agreed to such a bad deal.
Also, according to Michael G. Wilson (in that 2015 video that's been referenced multiple times in this thread), Eon really does the marketing. (Which probably explains this recurring talking point among Bond actresses about how their characters aren't like those bimbos in the old Bond films). So if you're the distributor, you're responsible for the marketing costs (on top of the production costs) but you're letting Eon do the work.
Ah, I see. I think it might be time to pass that marketing task onto someone else then because I haven't been all that impressed with these actresses parroting that line each time there's a new release. Quite frankly, they sound like bimbos themselves.
About the 1:40 mark: Wilson says, "We pretty much run the marketing ourselves....We create it, they execute it."