Reporting For Duty
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Categories
Replace Purvis and Wade?
Neil Purvis and Robert Wade have worked on the screenplays for james bond films from TWINE to SP. Although many of the recent films are amongst my favorites, the scripts that they have worked on have, in my opinion, been Lackluster, and I think that they should be replaced ASAP. I'm opening a discussion about this because I'm curious about other opinions about this manner, and because I am repeatedly disappointed with them returning for so many films. I wanted them gone after TWINE (although I do like that film).
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
But Logan, as it turns out, couldn't deliver a decent script on his own. Almost everything I read about his SP draft sounded awful. Purvis and Wade though have saved the film, their script is really great. So no I don't think that Purvis and Wade need replacing because they tried that recently and we very nearly had a really crap Bond film because of it.
No they didn't. Bruce Feirstine was also a co screenwriter, not to mention Apted's wife did some uncredited rewrites.
Their sole solo effort was Die Another Day but Tamahori put his hand so deep into the cookie jar he created a Franknstein's monster out of their script.
+1
If SP turns out to be the success that it looks set to be then Purvis and Wade have more than earned their right to stay and even now as mentioned by@thelivingroyale, they were given the boot, Logan was brought in, he did a catastrophic, crappy job and the boys were begged to come back and work miracles on the script. Now, 95% of Bond fans here are pumped and ready to see SP and how it's vying for the best Bond ever crown and how it'll make 1.5billion dollars at least. They get an overly hard time, particularly from people who don't even know the full picture of their contributions to the series.
Where's the logic of this? And maybe it's worth letting Christian Gross manage Real Madrid just to see how good he is too? With Bond films only coming out every 3 years at best I've only got about 10 or 15 left before I'm an old man. Sorry but I'm not prepared to spunk one of them on a vanity project just to indulge the faint possibility that two, lets be honest here, fairly mediocre jobbing writers could come up with another OHMSS if given carte blanche to do what they want.
I suppose if I'm being fair they've done a fairly solid job over their tenure - a safe pair of hands. Sort of the Gary Neville of scriptwriting. 7/10 every week. Unlikely to let you down but also equally unlikely to beat 3 men and smash it top bin from 30 yards. I can't believe there aren't hundreds of other writers out there with as much talent who would bite your hand off to get the gig so don't we think P&W have had a fair enough run at it by now?
Is reliable mediocrity really what we should be aspiring to? I think they've had more than their CV deserves and I wouldn't be devastated to see them go if only to see an end to the repetitive traitor inside MI6 plot 'twist' which has featured in all their films bar TWINE (and even in that we had the start of the whole M roadshow so beloved of their reign).
Another P&W film? I'd sooner have C&W thank you (theyre very big in Brazil apparently).
I think this alien was Lee Tamahori.
I think P&W wrote a great script with TWINE, and if anything the improvements made along the way by further writers also contributed to making that film great. They were young ambitious writers at the time working in London and I admire EON for taking a punt on new talent.
Even P&W admit DAD is a mess and have said they wish they could do it over. Listen to the Empire Podcast, they mention several times how Tamahori bulldozed some of the more outlandish ideas into that film. The haphazard and cutty nature of QOS is all courtesy of Forster, apparently he threw out P&W's script which included Bond being haunted by Vesper's ghost in dream sequences and a plot about lost Nazi gold (it's all in the 007 Archive book).
I think Haggis was the guy who made CR work to be honest, and I know for a fact that Logan wrote all the dialogue for SF. However, for both those films P&W wrote the initial drafts and the story and established the structure. Very little changed structurally from P&W's scripts for both films, only the dialogue was rewritten. Also, by all means they were the saving grace of SP after Logan delivered less than satisfactory screenplays throughout 2014.
In terms of replacement? Jez Butterworth. Great playwright and screenwriter with a brilliant sense of humour. Or maybe EON should do as they did with P&W and hire some bright young screenwriters on the cusp of big things?
In my humble estimation, whoever worked on that disgrace of a film should suffer the ignominous fate of Giancarlo Giannini's character (Inspector Renaldo Pazzi) in Hannibal.
Regarding P & W, I don't know enough about what they actually contribute and what is provided by others, but I'm sure there are other writers who can deliver a better product. I find it shocking that 3 yrs after SF, EON was still dicking around with the SP script. I mean how difficult is it (if you're in the script business) to craft a decent James Bond script for pete's sake. We're not talking about Hamlet here!
So if I were EON, I'd keep P&W on standby for emergency surgery if required (since no matter how useless they may be - they at least by now know the lay of the land) and try to find someone competent to draft a suitable initial script for B25.
Having said that, if B25 is a follow on from SP (which it may in fact be given the alleged Blofeld reintroduction), then it's likely that the initial outline is already done, and that it will be the same team again, including Mendes.
The difficulty isn't necessarily finding a writer, even a great writer. It's also finding a director who shares the vision of the writer and vice verse. A director a who can embellish and elevate the script rather than bring conflicting ideas. It's such a difficult balance and the energy to chase and maintain your vision diminishes over time and with further input from execs, producers etc. On the flip side, some writers/directors need the level headedness an exec can bring. It's such a fine balancing act. What Bond could so with is a show runner. Someone who juggles the creatives but maintains a consistent vision. B&M are largely regarded as filling this role, but I get the impression they aren't always on the same page.
I'm somewhat confused. You seem to be defending P&W's record yet that sounds probably a worse idea than the slide whistle, the pigeon and the parasurfing scene combined.
Quite. I'm pretty sure that at the SF premiere they said that Logan was already working on the new script yet as usual they are still writing it the day the cameras start rolling.
I like SF, but not as much as CR and all the Bonds up to DAF. It's time once again for a film that is grounded in Bond, not some other flavor of the moment.
Isnt it a fairly simple equation that most of the best Bond scripts are the ones that had a faithful adherence to Fleming as a basis? Theres a reason CR is head and shoulders the best of the P&W scripts and its not Haggis's polishing.
What Bond films need is a good, original plot. I'd say let EON commission several script writers simultaneously, and let P&W work on the best ideas. Let Haggis come up with something, Butterworth as well. Maybe even Feirsteen can think of something new. P&W indeed know their Fleming, so let them pick the best scripts from that and let them plunge it in some thick Bond sauce.
Personally apart from the PTS and the free running I can take or leave the first half. It's only after we cut to the scene on the train the story proper starts and from then on its 80% Fleming.
I think Hollywood is so formulistic that P&W really are not the problem. Studios and production teams (aka Babs and Mikey) make the final decisions.
They should never have been writing screenplays or scripts. They should have been consultants and helped to re-write the scripts only.
It is, imo, a case of bad executive management because they were not used correctly by Babs & co. to start with. P&W were justifiably hired on the basis of their knowledge of the franchise. They did a good job of infusing the post-Cubby films with 007 soul, and they knew their stuff - but quality-wise as writers they were never up to the task of being responsible for entire screenplays.
Which is why most of their scripts feel lackluster and somewhat amateurish, especially compared to the likes of Maibaum and Wood.
Hossein Amini (The Four Feathers, Drive, Shanghai) & Michael Schiffer (The Peacemaker & Crimson Tide) Hossein Amini optional as Directer.
Ronald Bass (Entrapment, Amelia 2009) & Anna Hamilton Phelan (Amelia 2009, In Love and War. Also she wrote a movie whas directed by Michael Apted)
3 writers mix: Peter Straughan ( The Debt, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy), Jane Goldman (The Debt, James Bond Supports International Women's Day.), Matthew Vaughn (The Dept and Stardust.) and then John Madden (The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, The Debt) or Michael Vaughn (Directer Of Layer Cake With Daniel Craig playing the lead, Stardust and X-men First Class ) as directer.