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I think Pierce looks great with any hair length he wants to have. My only request in the looks department is clean shaven I don't like him with mustache or long beard.
Though I don't mind how he had it in after the sunset or butterfly on a wheel.
I love Pierce but I disagree with him, part of what makes James Bond Special is being a ladies man and I bet would have never like to be a gay Bond.
And the black Bond I don't think it will happen either but who knows ?
We never expected a blond actor as Bond and Monica is the first Bond girl over 40 so maybe not gay but Barbara has changed many stuff since Daniel came into the part
What I don't get is why couldn't they have done a 5th Brosnan film in 2004, and still do CR in 2006 with Craig? What was the reason for that 4 year gap 2002-2006? Why couldn't they squeeze in 1 more Brosnan film?
It seems EON lost a good year after DAD with all the 'will Brosnan return or not?' saga? IMO it wouldn't have been too difficult for them to make a smaller, more gritty film as Brosnan's last in 2004. The search for Brosnan's successor would have been very short, as Layer Cake would be released at the same time as Brozza's 5th, so Craig could have been chosen right away, without 2 years of a search for Bond #6 beforehand.
At around the 4:50 mark to 5:10 mark, Pierce predicts the future almost astrologically.
I didn't know about that. it would appear than EON can forgive quite a but. It was have been ironic if during TND's production, McClory had gotten Dalton on board for a rogue Bond film. I can't imagine Dalton signing on for a film which is nothing more than McClory flipping the bird to EON, but it's an amusing thought.
Yes, I think your post is very insightful, DoubleOhhSeven. =D> I suppose the availability of Daniel Craig suited their image of where to take Bond. I don't know if there was a natural successor to Pierce Brosnan, fans can debate that forever!, but Craig's casting was a way for the producers to give the franchise a genuine face lift. A new look. Another Brosnan type actor may have felt too much like the Cubby era. But that's said in hindsight, of course.
That's fair enough. I just think that the influence of the Bourne Identity wasn't nearly as big an influence on the changing direction as people seem to now think. It was really the two Bourne sequels that went stratospheric. Plus Eon has a long history of periodically 'grounding' the series and going back to Fleming after big budget sic-fi films (OHMSS after YOLT, FYEO after Moonraker.)
I respectfully disagree. Michael G Wilson has wanted to reboot Bond since the mid-80s and pushed very hard for The Living Daylights to be a reboot (to the point that a draft script was written). Cubby refused, claiming that audiences didn't want to watch Bond as a rookie, but Wilson held onto the idea and CR was his first opportunity to make it happen.
I completely agree that CR was suitable for a reboot but I disagree with the idea I've seen floated on here a few times, not necessarily by you, that CR had to be a reboot. It absolutely didn't (although I'm glad it was.)
As I recall, it wasn't so cut-and-dried at the time. There was about a year of wrangling over whether Brosnan would continue or not - it certainly wasn't inevitable that they would not offer him a new contract and the general expectation was that they would. They were generally pleased with DAD at the time and had Brosnan offered to sign a new contract in Jan 2003 on agreeable terms, I'm sure they would have. He was holding out for a better deal much as Moore used to and in the meantime, they decided on a new direction and called his bluff. So it wasn't as though Eon had decided after the DAD premiere that they would produce CR with a new actor in 2006... everything was in flux.
Plus, don't forget that there had been a three-year gap between TWINE and DAD and, as we've seen since, this seems to be the average now - we can probably view the short two years between CR and QOS as a throwback to the previous era of production, much as the short one year gap between LALD and TMWTGG had been.)
It makes sense now that I think about it. A new actor has to establish himself quickly in the minds of the audience, especially in the context of a massive back catalog and inevitable comparisons with his predecessors. Therefore having his first and second films in close succession helps to cement his image in the viewer's mind.
Connery - DN to FRWL - 1 yr
Moore - LALD to TMWTGG - 1 yr
Dalton - TLD to LTK - 2 yrs
Brosnan - GE to TND - 2 yrs
Craig - CR to QoS - 2 yrs
True. But consider this also: There have been only 2 times where a 3 year gap occurred between two films of the same actor.
With Moore - TMWTGG to TSWLM (after the first 2 having only 1yr gap)
With Brosnan - TWINE to DAD (after three movies every other year)
Now with Craig we got a whopping 4 year gap to SF and now another long 3 year gap.
That is just unfortunate and should never occur again. And it may well be that because of this Craig's run is over after Spectre.
I'm pretty sure that post-Craig they will take it back to a more regular schedule, at least with a new actor's first two, as evidenced above.
I don't think so. There was a lot of speculation after Skyfall about how long it would take for Bond 24 to come along (probably some speculation is still upthread on this board, I imagine). MGM and Sony were pressing for a quick follow-up in 2014 and both Wilson and Broccoli came out to say that they're not doing that anymore and plan to stick to a more relaxed schedule from now on, and suggested a film every three years would be about right.
In practice, we've averaged 3.2 years between films since 1999 (2.8 years between films since 1995)
While purely speculation on my part, I think a lot of that has to do with DC, who has quite a bit of creative control, and their desire for Mendes to return (which was quite apparent in hindsight, but which they didn't really go out of their way to tell us about or reveal......now we know they really wanted him back).
If/when there is an actor change (and a possible upcoming studio change) I'm sure all bets will be off and the new dynamic will take hold, whatever that may be.
Another reason why BB + MGW really should retire immediately and let some younger people continue the franchise.
I disagree. Most family businesses fall apart at the third generation.
They've just taken the series to it's biggest critical and commercial success in almost half a century so I would say that is highly unlikely that they would voluntarily retire. They are also following in the footsteps of their step/father who produced into his eighties. Barbara Broccoli will still be producing Bond in the 2040s if she takes after him in that regard.
Films take longer to make these days which is just a fact of life. I believe a younger producer would be unlikely to change that.
This is a very good point. The next generation could be a worry. I'm not really aware of their involvement (apart from video games, maybe)
A good recipe for disaster. Wilson's boys are the likely successors for now and they both have mediocre non Bond film backgrounds. Babs may not always make the best calls on stuff, but she has been the primary flame keeper and has hardly wrecked the franchise. Based on what they themselves have said about the killer schedule, the films now taking on a massive scale, and that EON is also producing other films and plays, it seems very unlikely they will go back to every 2 years. The next studio is not going to make that call, EON will.
If in the future, Bond films will only pop up every three to four years, then no Bond actor will be able to do more than 3 to 4 movies.
Furthermore with such huge gaps it will become increasingly difficult to keep an actor for say 10 to 12 years.
@Strangways
I disagree that movies nowadays take longer to make.
Just look at all the franchises than plan ahead for up to 5 movies!
They can produce them with 2 year or even 1 year gaps only!!
EON simply isn't capable of planning ahead.
Films like Lord of the Rings / the Hobbit / Harry Potter / Twilight can make a limited number of films back-to-back because (a) they are finite projects - there's a limited run of films planned from the beginning - and, more importantly, (b) they are closely based on book series so there's less development time. But franchises like Man of Steel, Pirates of the Caribbean, Dark Knight, Star Trek, Sherlock Holmes run to 3+ years between films. Bourne and Transformers started off with 2 years between movies and moved to 3 years. 1 - 2 years is possible but 3 - 4 years is by no means unusual.
I also don't think the longer gap will necessarily have the effect you expect. Craig's era has had the longest average gap between films and, assuming he does his fifth contracted film in 2018, he will be the longest-serving Bond actor. The longer gap could attract actors as it allows them to take more work in between Bond films (4 - 5 films max for a Bond actor is probably a good idea. I, for one, wouldn't be too sad if we had missed out on DAF, NSNA, OP and AVTAK.)
Very good points, and I can see where your coming from, I just feel at if the spy genre as a whole sort of shifted with Bourne Identity's release, I feel like QOS takes the dishonor of coming off as a Bourne like-film and retaining it's status as a Bond film. That one is my least favorite of the series. And I also agree with your statements about Brosnan. I think there was intentions to do another, but it fell into problems and they decided to reboot and do Casino Royale since they had the rights. The result I think was a good move for EON. I love Brosnan, he tied with Connery for my personal favorite Bond, but part of me wishes he had one more film, and another part of me thinks that he was simply growing too old as well, after all, look at Moore and how long he hung around for.
The franchise was a stinking sick man at the time, CR film rights had already been acquired and they were uncertain of what exactly to do. It couldn t go on as it had, that was for sure.
You would expect the family by now to be gearing up a third generation.
May be EON needs to be turned into a trust with a board of trustees - ex Bond directors and Bond experts to act as custodians of the series
They could do a whole story where Bond is turned to the other side as it were - a double agent.
She has young children.
Agreed. The question was taken a bit out of context. It was a follow-up to a question about gay marriage being legalized in Ireland.
I feel like Babs gets unfairly slammed here--because Craig is blond? because she's a woman? My sense is that she is the one who brought Bond back to his roots in a big way for the first time since 1969. MGW had some decent scripts but almost all of those were with Maibaum, who was clearly a master and very, very important to the series. (And I believe we also have MGW to thank for the Solex agitator.)