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I’d also make an argument that EON also doesn’t have to worry about “Superhero Fatigue” the way that both Marvel and DC are. People are getting burnt out on generic Superhero movies, and I think the box office failures of films like Flash, and The Marvels is ultimate proof of that. I think ultimately at the end of the day, the cinematic landscape is drastically changing after having over a decade of what’s essentially Children’s entertainment ruling the box office, and I don’t mean that as a dig against anyone who enjoys Marvel movies.
Bond Is the last rat now.
Surprisingly, when Purvis and Wade came on, they always look to Fleming for inspiration. GE and TND really don’t have any Fleming material. Their films generally do. That’s a defense of them.
Please discuss this.
The question was whether they know Bond better than 'us', fans in general. That there are scholars out there who know the ins and out better is another, different question, and doubtless there are. I don't think I'd expect them to know every word of the novels and Fleming's life off by heart to the level of someone who writes books on it, but I don't doubt that they have (much) more than a working knowledge of it all.
Very true- I'd say they've even putting more in as they go along. I guess TWINE and QoS maybe have the least?
Bond films releasing more or less consistently for 60 years with no bombs or failures is incredibly impressive.
It's total horse baloney. Three Takens, four John Wicks, three Equilizers, three Kingsmans, four Expendables, etc., the entire Marvel and DC catalog are also all... action movies and have been very popular all things considered. Plus five Bonds, five Bournes, and six M:I films this century, and a Man From U.N.C.L.E. film, plus also King Arthur, Wrath Of Man, Operation Fortune, and The Covenant from Guy Richie alone lol. Amazon has attempted a few Jack Ryan and Tom Clancy movies as well.
Netflix alone has produced The Old Guard, The Gray Man, Bullet Train, Extraction I & II, Close, Red Notice, Army Of Thieves, 6 Underground, Heart Of Stone, Blackout, and more in just the past few years.
And then there's even more isolated, off-brand stuff like Atomic Blonde, The Town, The Accountant, The Creator, Tenet, and also crap like Plane, AVA, Gran Turismo, and all of those crappy Bruce Willis movies from recent years.
To say the action genre is for an older demographic is preposterous in the age of superhero and video game movies dominating the box office, even if Marvel is hiccuping right now. Super Mario Bros. is an action movie. Dungeons and Dragons, Guardians 3, Fast X, Spider-Man, Transformers, Indiana Jones all on the box office chart this year, and definitely appealed to younger audiences.
Who do you think is watching all of these movies? It's not "old" people:
"The coronavirus outbreak has not changed the fact that teenagers watched the highest number of movies per year in the U.S. The 12-17 age group watched, on average, 2.5 feature films at a movie theater in 2021, or five times more than moviegoers aged 60 and above. According to a mid-2021 survey, variety in titles is what most motivated GenZers to attend movie theaters. This suggests that diversity may still be the spice of life – at least on the big screen."
https://www.statista.com/statistics/187073/tickets-sold-at-the-north-american-box-office-since-1980/
So again, total horse baloney.
Action movies are streaming thing now. Even John Wick 4 only made 400-500 million and it's the most popular action hero right now.
Yeah, action movies are slowly dying.
What would your advice be to EON based on this information?
You're just saying baseless, inaccurate things. Why? What is the purpose of warping the truth. How are action movies any more of "a streaming thing" than any other movie?
In what world is John Wick the most popular, based on what survey or data? It doesn't exist. Going by box office for 2023, Mario is the most popular action hero this year, followed by Dominic Torreto, Spider-Man, Ethan Hunt, Ant-Man, and then John Wick. You mention Wick's box office but left out that there are six bonafide action movies that have made much more than that this year, as well, so your data point actually undercuts your argument. Not to mention John Wick 4 made nearly $110 million MORE than its previous installment at the global box office. You are just wrong.
Earlier this year, this survey determined that Die Hard was ranked the "best" action movie of all time, ergo you could say John McLane might be the most popular action hero among all audiences, followed closely by Indiana Jones (list also includes John Wick and no James Bond movies at all in the Top Ten, so I'm curious how a poll of the main action characters themselves would actually do, but I can't find any research online).
I guarantee that Indiana Jones, James Bond, Jason Bourne, and maybe even John McLane would beat out John Wick in a broad name/IP recognition poll (but again I can't find one online).
Action movies not dying and I'm curious what motivation you have to drive that narrative, especially on a Bond forum.
They should hire Nolan right now ;)
I don't know. It won't be easy, that's for sure.
But they have Amazon Prime. A TV show is not the worst thing that can happen
Also, I would actually say a TV show would have the opposite effect. The franchises we've listed as having issues at the moment have all ventured into the realm of spin-off television shows and are not better off for it. If anything the TV shows are mostly responsible for the down fall of the movies.
Mario? an action hero?
Superheros are not action heros in my book, but yeah, they can make a Moonraker remake. A bigger than life Bond movie with CGI, spaceships, cartoon villains, etc.
A GI Joe movie but better.
An "action" movie is not a simple formula mastered in the '60s or '80s or whatever, it's an entire genre describing the ... action ... playing out on screen.
Mario is not a drama, hardly a comedy, nor a thriller, nor romcom, nor sci-fi, it is a hero's journey tale with major set pieces and physical conflict between characters. It's animated... but it's an animated action movie. Animated movies still fit into actual genres; animation is not a genre in and of itself.
And to say superhero movies are not action movies, or their heroes not action heroes, is just delusional. Being a comic book movie doesn't negate being an action movie.
I personally ask more of my Bond movie than "GI Joe but better" and Bond to me is not at all cartoonish (but definitely campy, there's a difference), but plenty of people would love to see a lighter, perhaps more ... adolescent, approach to a Bond movie with elements pulled from stuff like superhero movies, like more humor, more sci-fi, and bigger CGI-supported stunt sequences, I'm sure.
It's interesting. I love the '80s films because someone (MGW?) was trying to bring it back to Fleming. It doesn't explain AVTAK, though.
And I love Dalton but Brosnan/the Remington Steele uncancellation, plus UA's financial difficulties (I blame Michael Cimino) ended up dooming Dalton...
Anyway, Bond is not Mario or Spider-man.
can they remake Moonraker? Sure, they can.
You are bizarre. Just to be clear, action movies are for old people and dying out, the Bond franchise needs Nolan to save it, but they aren't interested in making movies anymore, they should do TV, and then somehow you also think they could pull off a remake of Moonraker for modern audiences and have it be successful? Have you even heard of the stories about why they fired Danny Boyle from Bond 25 lol? You don't make any sense.
They need an event and a bigger than life Bond movie can be an event. I don't want a GI Joe movie but It's something they can do. A Sci-Fi Bond movie. It can have dinosaurs if they want. ;)
But yeah, action movies are dying, the pure action movies.
No they are not. Not in any sense, except beyond perhaps your personal enjoyment.
Yeah, they can do that but a Nolan movie is better idea, isn't it?
Whatever it takes to get you to start making some sense.
1. Relax for 1, 2, or even more years after the release of the latest Bond film.
2. Announce the release date of the next film before the script is finished, maybe even before the scriptwriting begins.
3. Realize waay to late that there are issues with the screenplay and try to save it in the last moment or even after the last moment.
4. Try to produce a movie that isn't a total dud based on a screenplay that is a dud.
In the last 20 years they had a solid screenplay ready a month or two before the start of filming only twice: in the case of CR and in the case of SF. The reason the screenplay of CR was solid was that it was based on a Fleming novel. And the reason that the SF scipt was solid was that they had an extra year to develop it because of the MGM bankruptcy.
The script issues of QOS, SP, and SF all were preventable. The writer's stike during the making of QOS was an issue only because they were still writing the script at a time when it should have been finished a long time ago. During the pre-production of SP they realized waay to late that Logan's script was a mess and they already had a release date that they were not ready to move. Same with NTTD. Sure, in the case of NTTD did did end up delaying the movie even before COVID hit, but only by a couple of month and that did not give Fukunaga and the other writers enough time.
The solution for their fundamentally flawed method of developing a screenplay is simple:
- never announce the release date before you have a more or less finished script OR be prepared to delay the release if you did announce a release date but don't have a screenplay the major players are happy with ready in time
- and another change that is not necesssary but would help to reduce the gap between Bond films without the producers having to sacrifice relaxation time between films: hire writers right after the premiere of the latest Bond film and go on holiday while they develop the script
You're right 100%. EON has had a lot of poor screenplays in recent years, because of fast production schedules. And I'm guilty of blaming of Purvis and Wade. It is the higher ups that should be blamed. Writing a James Bond story (book or screenplay) is a thankless job.
When you have as much money wrapped up in these productions as the Bond films do (that's not even to mention availability of the actors/crew and all the practical considerations), you really have to make that deadline for a release. It's the same for any major film. Unless it's absolutely necessary to delay things, you have to get it out once a date has been committed to.
One could argue that beginning the script for the next film straight away has its downsides too. With Bond we've had situations where if they'd taken a bit longer to plan things out we could potentially have gotten a better film (I'm looking at you TMWTGG). You also have to consider that hiring writers (which in itself essentially commissions the film with all that financial investment I talked about) costs money, and having a longer period of time to work out the broad story elements (so what they're doing now) allows them to craft a specific direction and a more solid foundation to start writing the script. They don't just hire writers and get them to write whatever they want without doing that first. I don't think either of those suggestions are particularly practical nor do they account for the realities of making these types of films.
I'm not saying all their scripts have been perfect, but EON don't have a particularly unusual method for developing their films.
Yes. And the entire industry announces release dates years in advance so it's a matter of survival.
@Colonel_Venus, if they hire in-demand screenwriters (like Haggis or Scott Z. Burns), the writers themselves only commit to certain windows between projects. It's not like A-list screenwriters are sitting around for Eon and doing nothing else with their careers.