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... had symbolically become the norm for successful blockbuster movies. TDK (2008), Avengers (2012), TDKR (2012), SF (2012), Iron Man 3 (2013), ... I heard sentiments like "Jurassic World is awesome; it made over a billion dollars!", "Wonder Woman tanked; it didn't make a billion dollars!". People were really obsessing over this billion dollar line, going so far, at times, as to dismiss a film as a failure simply because it didn't make a billion dollars. Hence why, according to some, Aquaman is the only "good" film in the DCEU. Hence why, according to some, SP is a major disappointment.
I really don't see it that way. Mad Max Fury Road made around 400 million, and that is still one of the very best action blockbusters of the '10s. Batman Begins is my favourite film in the Nolan trilogy, and it "only" made 370 million dollars which, even in 2005, wasn't at all spectacular. I also think that both films are held in high regard, more so, I bet, than certain billion dollar plus films like Age Of Ultron and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. The qualities of a film, as well as my enjoyment of it, are entirely disconnected from its BO results.
I like SF, but it's the least of the Craig Bonds for me, regardless of its impressive BO takings, which I think constitute a bit of a fluke. It's rare that a Bond film manages to go up there at all. My immediate response was that Craig's fourth was going to have a very hard time maintaining that position. It didn't, but it still made several hundreds of millions more than CR and QOS. SP made close to 900 million dollars. For something not Marvel, Star Wars or donasaurs, I'd say that's a bloody awesome result!
Rosie Carver is the worst.
He's only four years old in my world ;))
Then an inventive action ski sequence.
Oh, John Wick and EON? The connection?
CGI blood, naturally.
I think it is about Eon's creative leverage and confidence now. Back in 1997, Cubby had just died. I imagine they were convinced by MGM that Hatcher/Richards/Berry were good ideas. All three of those actresses seem to have been a bid for the American market...and they weren't wrong financially. TND held its own against Titanic!
Flash forward to 2005 and Eon confidently cast Craig and the rest of the CR cast. Quite a difference in casting quality.
Certainly Amazon has leverage in setting the budget. But I also think Eon has to realize, "Well, do they want a Bond film or not? We can do this at our own pace."
P.S. Yes, Slow Horses is an amazing show. Tough to find a new spin on the spy genre but they did it. I'd like to see what they could do with a Bond script.
Brosnan wasn't Dalton either. He was a safe bet.
Prop blood/fake movie stuff. The audience thinks Bond is dead/eaten, but seconds later he bursts through a cloud of blood with his harpoon gun aiming at the bad dudes.
Basically, they would need Herron *and* Smith & Co. What works really well for it though is how *local* it all is, which isn’t necessarily something that would carry over into Bond.
Bond films in Hackney, but tells you it’s Cuba, whereas Slow Horses is right there in Hackney. (And the City, and Islington.)
The tone is a mix of Roger Moore Bond — and putting a pin in that and Le Carre, by way of Deighton — and Craig Bond Gritty, but *almost* played for laughs. Until it isn’t. It lets the air out of a lot of tropes, until it puffs them back up again. Which could work for Bond, but is also something it’s been doing a while now, in a slightly muted form. (‘Where’d you get the Book of Mormon?’ Is a very Slow Horses sort of line.)
Is that how Herron describes her?
Nope, but it’s how it reads, quite strongly, at first. In a good way. Like I said, it feels like (in the first books) that it’s a riff on Spooks and Ashes to Ashes. (Lamb is very Phil Glenister, and it’s easy to see some of the characters and relationships as funhouse mirror versions of early Spooks. Even the stories, to a certain extent.) It’s more than that, especially as the books go on — but you can see the evolution. Originally they were marketed as ‘River Cartwright’ series, then ‘Jackson Lamb’, and now the focus has moved again and they are more ensemble than anything. With the advent of the TV Show there’s also been a definite swing back to River not being finished with. It’s a bit like how Fleming worked in Scots for Bond after Dr.No. Herron is clearly responding to audience reaction, and to changing state of the world. Which is a good thing. He’s also very good with the locations.
That’s a great question, @talos7 , and I could only make a guess at this:
I’d have to believe they’ve spoken to P and W. EoN may’ve discussed a general vision of introducing the new era, and they may have earmarked a story or stories, or perhaps just chapters from the Fleming novels/short stories. They may have solidified points they want in the new script (just to be simple and derivative: say they’ve decided something like, this new Bond is in year five of his double-0 career; his relationship with his superior, M, is one of a grudging admiration but, of absolute loyalty (grudging admiration because they’re of different and conflicting generations); and we think we want Bond’s assignment to bring in an ex-double-0, a mentor to James Bond in his early years at the service; we want this to be difficult on Bond— he had a personal friendship with this man, but now that man has gone “bad”, so we have his internal struggle as a character; Bond knows his mentor’s tricks and the mentor thinks he knows all Bond’s tricks (because he mentored him); we want this to be a globe-trotting cat and mouse game based off elements in TMWTGG novel)….
I mean the world, at this point, is their oyster, and they could go in any direction. But I imagine they’ll have a general ideas, and novels or short stories or threads that will be the jumping off point; they’ll want to figure-out Bond’s internal and external dilemmas; what his relationships are with key players, and then send off their trusty writers to see what this looks like in outline form, before it goes to script….
I don’t know if I properly answered the question, mainly because I’m making guesses based on my own experiences, and experiences of other writers… (I’ve also never been called into a meeting for a $200 million tentpole; but most development meetings of scripts that haven’t been written yet kinda follow this type of process)….
I would think that they have people researching possible “McGuffins”, something to initiate a story.
Or would this be completely left to the writers?
Edit @peter
I'm being called immature by the smiley brigade!
Thanks. Yes I remember them being known as the Jackson Lamb series back when I first became aware of them, I guess 2017 or '18.
That's great. It must be tricky because not only are they trying to come up with a new movie, but also a whole new phase in the series- trying to find 'an angle' which they can build on and what tone they'll be looking at hitting. It's the sort of thing it almost sounds like they might need a director to help establish.
@mtm difficult to answer. It would depend on the director. Some want a script/story/outline to read (and when these talented people read a script, they’re already deconstructing it and seeing and feeling how they’d be setting up their shots; others may want in on the ground floor. But I have to believe with Bond, there’s so much at stake that most directors would want a story of some kind in place, and then they can take off on development from there…
IMHO, they did a better job of that in NTTD than in SP and SF, where the technology was basically malware. SP was surveillance state something something--I didn't quite catch that? ;)
I think that AI and facial recognition software have to be things they are considering because they are relevant to the moment.
Who knows if there has been a change of heart, but taking Ms. Broccoli at her word, this seemed to be the plan, stated in an interview some time in November.
Saying that, unless someone had read one of their scripts, pre producers/studio notes, and pre the script doctors climb on board, I'm not sure how anyone can judge these two writers? They didn't come up with the I visible car, nor Blofeld/Brofeld. They write on commission, which means they have to massage in things the producers and studios want-- in other words, they don't write on spec.
The only thing I know about them is they seemingly know their Fleming.... So what's the problem with these two working the outlines and a first draft with the producers??
I don't exactly understand the hate for them...
There's a good point here in finding a balance between topical themes and not going overboard with something that'll likely be horribly dated in a few years. Even the couple of horror films I saw in the past few years that really leaned into the COVID pandemic, from social distancing to wiping down groceries after returning home, are already outdated.
I think honestly, @peter its not that they’re bad, Bond just needs a shakeup in the writing department. I don’t mind them. They are turning into those creepy uncles or cousins, who repeat themselves at family gatherings. I imagine if the internet existed back in the Cubby years, quite a few people would be criticized for coming back repeatedly. Particularly, Richard Maibaum, Tom Mackiewicz, maybe even Guy Hamilton, and John Glen as well.
But how do we know they're the creepy uncles repeating things???
Once again, they don't write on spec. They're hired to write what the producers want them to write.
The only recent script I know of that was written as an original piece was John Hodge. They pitched the idea to EoN.
EoN commissioned the script based on this golden idea (although, their DNA was still threaded through Hodge's idea because the producers wanted Bond retired and they wanted Bond to die, so even though they were brought a concept not born at EON HQ, their fingerprints were still baked into what would become Hodge's screenplay).
Purvis and Wade don't write their Bond scripts in a vacuum. They're likely given very clear plot points to hit, and build their stories around the producers notes.
So how'd we know these two are the creepy uncles saying the same things over and over???
I have yet to read a script of theirs that came solely from their brains and ono the page.
I find this dislike and hatred to be odd, especially since we know that some choices that are, mostly, universally panned (like an invisible car, and Brofeld), came from others!