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ok....
"Yeah, I loved making SPECTRE, it was a blast. Well... apart from the excruciating knee injury. But yeah, I loved making the film. The long hours, the aches and pains. Awesome!"
:P
I fail to understand the point of why Barbara Broccoli gets compared with Cubby on here. She's not him, so you'd expect her to not necessarily do things the way he did them.
Here's a thought: without Kevin Mclory could the series have ended in 1983?
Brolin was cast. Ok they weren't quite as far along the line as Eric Stoltz in Back To The Future where they had started filming but pretty close. It was a done deal. I think the guy had even started renting a house in London.
It was only the threat of NSNA that caused Cubby to realise he couldn't take a risk and had to get Rog back at all costs.
Without the spectre of a rival film on the horizon pressumably they would have pressed on with Brolin which IMO would've been a catastrophe.
Ok perhaps not ending the series but either precipitating a ludicrous DAF style deal for Rog to come back in AVTAK or limping on with Brolin for AVTAK before recasting but possibly with serious damage done to the series.
Cubby may not have been perfect, but I still far preferred his way of doing things. I think they can churn these things out more consistently and they should in my opinion. They should forget about Oscar bait and just get back to the basics of making a decent thriller, with organic (rather than strained) humour, tightly woven inventive action scenes, tonal consistency, charismatic characters & dialogue, and real (as opposed to CGI'd) locations. CR gave me great hope that they still knew how to do it, but I'm now starting to think that this was more Campbell than any one else. Outside of his two entries, they've had a terribly uneven and spotty record over the past nearly 30 years, irrespective of how much money they make.
I know some think CR was a revolution in Bond films, but I didn't see it that way at all. Rather, I just saw it as a welcome return to form after the unfortunate tripe they churned out after GE. It captured the essence of an EON Bond film (which when done well is very difficult to imitate, and has all the ingredients I mentioned above in just the right doses). That is what Cubby knew how to do. That is what has been missing for a lot of the past 30 years in my view, and it has been replaced by character pathos & auteur bastardization. That is essentially what differentiates a Babs Bond film from a Cubby one.
Well said. Babs gets a lot of credit, but I think it was a case of Martin Campbell to the rescue on that one.
Babs gets credit because she was willing to remove a star who had just registered his biggest Box Office success to date and was a firm favourite with the general public. I love Campbell as much as the next man but to suggest he stepped in to rescue the film is largely preposterous. EON had a vision and they put the necessary pieces in place. Campbell came along and knocked it out of the park, but the groundwork had very much been laid.
Fair play that Babs takes credit for casting DC. But she also gets credit for delivering us the abortion that was DAD.
You can't just cherry pick her good decisions.
The big question now will be whether the Craig era will take them further down the path and direction they have been heading in over the past 10 years, or cause them to veer back to what they used to do so well in the past.
SP is inconclusive, because it tried to have everything under the sun and moon (essentially grafting a Craig entry on top of a traditional Bond film), with decidedly mixed results. It seemed very much like an attempt to steer the ship back somewhat.
The door is open for either direction, and that's where the internal debate likely is. If it's Craig again, I'd prefer if they make a Craig film. If it's someone new, I hope they ditch the past 10 years, and take it back to essentials.
I'm not cherry picking, I agree. She also takes credit for allowing Mendes and Logan carte blanche. She's less consistent in her M.O. than her father, but when she gets it right she gets it right and I don't see the point in sweeping her achievements under the carpet as with CR. She's been, rightly, accused of allowing too much control to be passed over to the 'creatives', likewise I feel Cubby, at times could've been less stubborn and allowed a little more creative freedom. One thing they share - when they both get it right, it's magic.
My "Holy Grail" of Bond would be all of the screentest from the past 50+ years, or at least the major ones. This would make a great extra on a future release.
Very true. The problem is with Babs I feel we are often wobbling wildly on the tightrope. Cubby had his wobbles too but never to the extent you actually felt he was in danger of falling off.
I'd just like to get the impression she is less concerned with theatre projects and diversity bullshit and concentrate on delivering a grade A Bond film because with SP she took her eye so far off the ball accusations of dereliction of duty would not be unfair.
There's no doubt in my mind that Craig's casting has allowed Babs to explore ideas she has had for some time about Bond. Her M.O. and stamp is all over the Craig years. He was the right actor for her to delve into her vision for film Bond. Some love it, and others don't. I'm on the fence because the results have been decidedly mixed imho. She faced teething pains (and the wrong actor) when attempting to explore Bond's psyche in the 90's (TWINE & bits of TND), but has been able to revisit the concepts far more successfully & ambitiously with Craig.
The question is where to go now? I remain to be convinced that she can deliver a quality formula Bond film (on the evidence of TND, DAD & SP), and don't even know if she wants to. Additionally, by veering so far off the beaten path during Craig's run, will the audience accept and appreciate (critically) a traditional Bond film again?
I think they will, and I think it can be successful critically too. They just need the right actor, the right writers and the right directors. It's far more difficult to pull off properly than most think though, and one fears that this team gives it lip service.
Cubby had to be convinced of Brossa suitability. Thought he was too lightweight.It was Wilson who wanted Brosnan.
Cubby had been chasing Dalton for the role as far back as OHMSS!
Peter Lamont was pro-DC too.
Yeah he said that everyone's opinion (heads of departments) was thrown into ring. He viewed all the test screenings.
It's interesting to see Visnjic's name brought up. He is one of the very few non-Brits that I could have seen in the role. I even came up with a PTS sequence that would have had him undercover on a mission in Dubrovnik , he would have a beard, long hair and speaking his native tongue. Following an action sequence where he rescues a beautiful woman we see him emerge from from the bathroom of a luxury hotel, hair cut and clean shaven; the woman, equally spruced up is reclined on the bed. As he opens a bottle of champagne he says, " I'm sorry in all the excitement I failed to introduce myself, my name is Bond", pop of the cork, James Bond.
I think it's cliche.