It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ 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
Any film with nostalgic elements that markets heavily does well due to lack of competition in this day and age.
The casting announcement will generate huge buzz by itself if it’s a big name, a controversial pick, or an intriguing unknown actor. Which will wane off if the trailer isn’t good and the premiere is set too long after (anticipation only applies to fans).
People will definitely talk about the film, and it will have a high minimum of ticket sales. Now if you can make it glamorous, action-packed, suspenseful and sexy with a good script and a few big name actors in the mix, the people who went to see it will recommend it. It has to please several different audience groups (with the young woke crowd being the hardest imo.). But I think it will garner a global audience if it isn’t banned because of geopolitical sensitivity.
I reckon the conversation would go:
- “Have you seen the new Bond?”
- “No not yet, was it good?” or “Was the new actor good? Better than Craig?”
The question is: How do you get people to say it was amazing and that he is the best Bond yet? How do you get people to make memes about it.
You might be able to skirt quality with a known director with an established fan base like Nolan, or household actors like Cavill/Pattinson/Fassbender or Margot Robbie. But it might kill the brand in the long run and make it seem like another superhero movie, or it might be absolutely necessary to even contend with marvel/warner.
It’s a hard call.
I guess the main thing they need to do is to consciously reintroduce the series to younger audiences. No cheap gimmicks like casting Henry Cavill or overinflated budgets/gaudy special effects. No nostalgia for the 60s films either. We need creative decisions that will come across as interesting and fresh, especially when it comes to advertising the film. What these creative decisions will be and how they're presented is the main thing to worry about.
There are always other films, other sequels, that do more business than Bond. But eventually, these franchises die out.
Yet Bond has survived.
For example, DAD was the highest grossing film of the Bond franchise in 2002 unadjusted, and in the same year LORD OF THE RINGS and HARRY POTTER each doubled that gross.
EoN must find a balance between keeping the release of a Bond film an event without forcing themselves into too much longer hiatus between chapters, especially since they already confirmed that the next era will deal with a continuity driven storyline. At least with Amazon financing we won’t witness longer gaps because of MGM’s financial troubles.
Sadly I feel that is a major reason the productivity will likely continue to decrease, even with a new actor in the role. I wouldn't be surprised if a full decade or more goes between Bond entries with Eon expecting the general audience to remember the plot details of the previous film.
Even after QOS they took extra time to prepare SF, made it a stand alone film, leaned into the nostalgia/classical Bond film elements for the 50th Anniversary (which some fans felt was missing in Craig's first two films), while at the same time keeping it 'down to earth' and tonally in line with Craig's previous films. It was a huge success. NTTD also irons out many of the issues people had with SP and earned them better reviews and higher earnings.
I mean, there's actually a case to be made that MGW and BB are just as savy, if not better than Cubby was in this area.
;)
I guess also because Maverick is a far superior film to NTTD in just about every aspect too - gripping, emotional, some of the best action sequences ever seen on film, and the most important factor - feelgood movie. The film hits those 80's notes again, and you leave the cinema on an absolute all time high.
With NTTD, you are subjected to a dejected lonely Bond, silly nanobot plots, Felix dying, Bond becoming a father and yet having it cruelly taken away from him in the end when Bond dies. NTTD seems to want to punish the character, which makes for miserable viewing for some, the action sequences were too few, and the film was too long.
Overall, you leave the cinema on an absolute low, which is not good for a popcorn action flick.
Not every Bond film needs to be fist pumping at the end. I loathe this sentiment because it basically further confines Bond into strict formula with no leeway. If Bond films were that strict about formula, we’d never have OHMSS. And I don’t even think NTTD’s ending is as much of a downer as OHMSS. But then again, I don’t really view Bond as some kind of wish fulfillment or something worth being aspirational.
You missed the bit where you start ranting about gangsters and rape scenes.
That is the only metric where DAD beats the Craig films though; globally you have two of them each making close to double what DAD brought in, inflation-adjusted.
Surely you lot are bored of me ranting about gangsters and rape scenes. You don't want me to keep repeating myself endlessly, do you?
OHMSS is the exception, not the norm, and I only make allowances for that tragic ending because Fleming wrote it, and also because Bond didn't die.
But give me winking fish, Maggie Thatcher in her kitchen, Moore keeping the British end up, beeping keyrings, Connery on a rubber dingy, any time over that abomination in NTTD.
And yes, I do find Bond aspirational. I thought most fans walk out of the cinema after a Bond film walking that bit taller, wanting to mimic the panther walk, or exuding macho coolness. With NTTD, Craig's Bond was a tragic character that you felt sorry for, and took pity on instead.
They also felt it themselves - they were already worried about xXx and then, during the production of DAD, BB, MGW and Lee Tamahori went to see The Bourne Identity. I think it was Tamahori who said they came out feeling like 'we were dead in the water'! DAD was massively successful and Brosnan still hugely popular, but they obviously thought they were running out of road and took a major detour. They then veered back a bit after QOS (unfortunately!). This willingness to change course is one reason it's hard to gauge how they'll go this time around.
Bond has only died once (in Eon films anyway!), it's not the norm. The Fleming thing I can't understand to be honest, I don't decide on whether I like something or not based on the identity of the writer alone.
With the exception of NTTD, I walked out of each Craig film with some sort of high. If I hadn't been on a time crunch during opening weekend of CR, i would have went right back in line to see it again. Even with the lesser Craig films ala QOS and SP, it was nice to see his character get closure over the Vesper/Quantum angle and him in Madeline riding off into the sunrise in SP. Even if they weren't as great of Bond films, I never walked out feeling pissed or sad as I did after NTTD.
Eventually, I accepted the fate and understood it from a character and plot point to some extent, but it would have been a top 10, maybe even a top 5 without the death ending because I enjoyed so much of it up until the final 15 minutes or so.
It's not the norm, but it shouldn't have been done just once either. When comparing NTTD to Top Gun, the two films are light years apart. Bond has a lot of catching up to do.
As for Fleming, its a personal thing with me. I'm not usually big on author's control over movies, or sticking rigid to a novel for adaptation. I think Kubrick's decisions over King's for The Shining, for example improved the movie, and the affair between Hooper and Brody's wife in Jaws was best left out of the film.
But when it comes to Bond, its the only time I really want the source material to be in as much as possible, as I do think Fleming was gifted in creating stories that adapted perfectly to cinema (most of the time). Whenever the films stray too far from Fleming, I feel the franchise looses its way slightly.
But hey, that's just me.
No it's fine, and it's twice if you count OHMSS.
Yes, it would be great if every Bond film was as good as one of the best films in years, but they do try.
He was great, but I think the films have exceeded him at several points; I'm happy to take everything on its own terms and not just because he did or didn't write it.