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
If you look at FYEO, LTK, OP, TLD and CR, all of these adapted Fleming faithfully to modern times (whether its scenes, short story or full novel story), so it can be done.
As for TSWLM, Fleming has been dead a long time now, and I don't think its beyond the wit of man to start legal proceedings with the Fleming estate to use some of the content from that novel, and I doubt the Fleming estate would pass either, if it kept the memory of Ian alive (and maybe a nice wad of cash too). The only part really worth using is the second half of the book, with Viv Michel holed up in a seedy motel by gangsters, and rescued by Bond - but I think this would work well on screen.
EON are no strangers to legal wranglings to use Fleming material. They've spent decades doing it, ever since TB.
I've always said the opening of TMWTGG would make a brilliant PTS, particularly with a new Bond actor.
Who knows. Maybe NTTD ends with an amnesia ridden Craig escaping Safin's Castle of Death, and disappearing off the radar, which leads nicely into Bond 26, and the PTS of TMWTGG.
Yeah more warmed over crap. That's what is wrong these days .
Warmed over crap? Fleming?
Warmed over crap is right when you talk about what has been wrong with Bond for a while now. But the opening scene from TMWTGG is definitely not `warmed over crap.'
Hopefully we've seen the end of you too on this forum.
@jamesbond0007 -- do you know the history of this family?
Do you know that Gregg Wilson has been brought into this "family business" in a similar fashion to his (step) aunt Barbara?
Have you been aware with each passing film/project, Gregg's taken on more responsibility?
Did you know that he was a head producer on TRS (whether you like the film or not, this was his project)?
He was head of locations for NTTD.
Broccoli and Wilson Sr aren't handing this family business over to anyone any time soon, and have in fact been grooming Gregg to replace his father to be co-producer with his aunt.
If things change, things change, but to date, the Broccoli/Wilson family are in control of their legacy and have made plans for the future.
I agree on one thing: (unlike the above which is based on ppl I actually know, the following is an assumption): it may take awhile for EoN to choose the next 007. Perhaps the pressures of a distributor will make this next choice faster, but if EoN has their way, they would love to let the dust settle on the popular Craig era before ramming a new double-0-7 down the throats.
It makes sense: Craig and his films are unmatched (most popular since the original golden era of Connery's films).
So, they're in no rush.
However, if a new distribution company pressures them to get the next film going, we will see a quick turn around.
If not (because Bond will always be bank a year from now and 10years from now), expect a three to five year gap.
P.S. EDIT-- for anyone thinking EoN has someone in mind to play Bond? I bet the house against that assumption. It will come. But not immediately.
EDIT: anything can change in this Covid-world, of course... But as far as I know, this is still a family biz; Gregg is heir to his father; history shows that Gregg has been educated via the EoN school of Bond filmmaking. I have not received any news even close to suggesting "time's up" and EoN is up for sale.
So I stick by my word.
I for one cannot wait to see what Gregg brings to the franchise going forward. The franchise should remain a family business (and it certainly seems to be doing so as you say), and I don't think any other studio would treat it with the same amount of love and care, even if people don't like everything they've put out :)
Nailed it: it's a family business. Until that's not viable, then EoN will likely look to pivot.
Well said @peter . I really hope it remain family buisness forever, although i don't know much about Gregg, hope he is as good as his aunt and value this legacy :)
It's a family business alright.
Like this guys familia businessa.......... :)>-
The issue here is The spy who loved me has already been adapted 3 times
The title and the character of horror were done in 77
The main action sequence from the novel was done note for note in for your eyes only
And Paris always felt like a Vivine substitute (there are two subtle nods to the character the first being the gun under the pillow line the second being the whole Newspaper boy he told me he loved me thing)
I would far prefer them tackle a novel that hasn’t been cut up and done three different times like Diamonds are forever or the short stories from a view to a Kill and the hildebrand rarity hell even octopussy could be updated and utilized for an interesting plot
Where was the TSWLM action scene in FYEO? I don't recall gangsters in a remote motel roughing up a broad, and then Bond rescuing her in a shootout. I must have missed that?
Agreed, DAF hasn't been properly done, nor AVTAK or OP.
However Hildebrand has been done in LTK, split over 2 characters - Sanchez is that character, whip an' all, and then Milton Krest is name checked as another character (who also owns a boat).
Back to 2006 basics, with a faithful adaptation of MR. Not sure bridge will work onscreen, though. Maybe back to gin rummy a la GF.
I don't recall FAVTAK having much story, or DAF for that matter. YOLT or TMWTGG, sure.
The arc of THR hasn't been done--Liz Krest (another married woman!), Fidele Barbey, the ambiguous death scene, etc. Bond on holiday is an interesting idea. There is room for adaptation there: maybe it could be the springboard to the film proper, a la TLD 's title story, or the climax. It would be interesting/kind of edgy for Eon to see Bond with a married woman for the entire film (and true to Fleming the man, right?)
Either way I'd love to see some unused Fleming material turn up in future films.
Personally though I’m not too bothered about where we go story wise, at least not specifically anyway. All I want is them to keep the fleshed out, real feeling Bond of the Craig films, but for them to ditch the personal missions. You can do interesting stuff with Bond as a character without tying his whole world to him and his childhood.
I think deconstructing the character from a different angle would be cool too. Because on the one hand, he’s a dinasour. Drawing attention to that is the only way he works in the modern world. But on the other hand, we get it, he’s a sexist assassin. Those points have kind of been explored to death over the last twenty odd years imo. Something they’ve never touched on though is the snobbery. That could be fun to explore. Maybe do it like GE, with a new M who doesn’t approve of Bond straight away, but this time from the angle of the saville row suits and Aston Martins, rather than his sexism. An M from a working class background maybe, who’s got no time for Bond’s old boys club attitude, while Bond sees him as a boring pearl clutching lefty. But as with GE, you could build up a mutual respect there by the end. And then if you wanted to make that a theme that runs through the film, you could have a villain cut from the same old Etonian cloth as Bond, but highlight the difference between them through some sort of evil elitist plan that Bond has to stop.
Something else I hope we’ll see the back of for a while is the burnt out, TLD esque Bond. Since the next actor will be younger than Craig has been for the last few films, lets have him in his prime. Show the side of him that loves his tough, exciting job, the man who gets off on the danger. Going in depth with that would be a cool way of setting the next actor apart. Maybe have a scene of him doing paperwork but he’s bored stiff, itching to get back out there. In the London scenes he could be twitchy and restless, then in the field he’s in his element. Highlight Bond the addict. That could be a fairly novel take. In keeping with that, it’d be nice if he could start smoking again, but obviously that’s unlikely with them being family films.
Yes, to all of this.
Yes. Definitely!
Me too.
I think it's because they still try to keep the essence, the roots of the character intact, from what Fleming originally wrote, even though the screen version has tended to drift and stray from its literary roots from time to time.
Class structures have massively changed in the last 60 years.
I am no expert on this, but Fleming's Bond is upper-class like the author himself and pretty much everyone in the higher circles of MI6 at the time. Ben McIntyre's very good book on Kim Philby, "A Spy among Friends" (in which Fleming appears once on the margins) explains it as MI6 during and right after the war being almost like a club. That is why Philby got away with his double life. He was from the right circles and once he was inside, he was protected fiercly by his colleagues, because he was one of theirs. This is in opposition to MI5 which was more middle class - policemen and enlisted rather than college grads and officers.
Bond's upringing in public schools, international and Oxbridge universities and so on, also mark him as upper class. I think he mentions in Moonraker that he has seperate income to that goven to him by MI6, which would mean a substantial inheritence/trust.
But due to his early orphanhood, he seems to be atypical. He is at home in these circles and knows how to.move in them, but as he reflects about Blades in Moonraker, he is an outsider.
As for the movie version and CR/SF in particular. I would say the producers have always picked and discarded what they wanted from the character quite liberally. My theory is that the thought while CR was being written was that he indeed didn't come from money but that was retconned in SF so that we now would have to say Vesper was wrong and Bond actually was independetly wealthy all along. Bond never answers to her observation.
The other option is that Andrew and Monique had money but that basically went away with their death and there were problems by the time James got to University where his school friends never let him forget about his finacial situation, as Vesper put it.
Final note: Neither Fleming nor Bond are "snobs". Fleming actually considered snobbery to be a deadly sin.
https://literary007.com/2019/08/17/ian-flemings-seven-deadlier-sins-snobbery/
I was going to make this exact point quoting Moonraker, @ImpertinentGoon --Bond is comfortable in expensive settings and enjoys fine living. But he's no playboy or member of high society. He's also not the ultimate Brit, even there Fleming describes him as an outsider. An important part of the character and in line with the dirty profession he's in.
I never really understood that part. I don't think Fleming really makes clear, what exactly makes Bond "un-English" and I don't really get it in concert with the rest of the characterisation. Maybe it was something Fleming felt about himself. Maybe the point is to set up the fact that he will get an assignment in England just the next morning (where then his un-Englishness weirdly doesn't matter at all, because he is surrounded by Germans) or in comparison to the fake-English Drax. Maybe Fleming wanted to pre-empt Bond being held up as this ultimate totem of Englishness - which then happened anyway. Most likely he wanted to underline how this guy is a wolf in sheep's clothing, only that all the other sheep are very aware of his teeth.