I have been in doubt for quite a long time to actually publish my own story treatment for a future Bond film on here. I have been asking around some great forummember-friends for advice though. Both story-wise, as well as industry-wise. And now I have a good understanding of how the movie industry works. "Pitching" is apparently the keyword, and in my situation that's sheer impossible.
However, I do not wish to keep this story treatment only for myself and a few select friends. Bond fans should share each others creative writing skills. Industry pro's could actually learn from real dedicated fans. Frankly, I do believe movie industries are throwing away lots of talent (especially on this forum!) for the sake of Dollar prospects and networking fetishes. So enough about that. Down below, in collaboration with the great
Pat Carbajal (
thanks for visualizing my ideas so perfectly!), and being inspired by Anthony Horowitz and Ian Fleming, I present you:
DANIEL CRAIG
as
IAN FLEMING'S
https://www.docdroid.net/q503afj/story-treatment-james-bond-007-in-murder-on-wheels-final-2docx.pdf.html
In his 5th Bond adventure, following up the events of "
SPECTRE"
:-).
CAST:
Team MI6
- Daniel Craig ●
JAMES BOND - 007
- Alicia Vikander ●
GALATEA BRAND
- Lupita Nyong'o ●
CARLA SPANG
- Colin Firth ●
SIR DAVID MOSS
- Ralph Fiennes ●
"M"
- Ben Whishaw ●
"Q"
- Kayvan Novak ●
PRINCE KASEEM BASHIR
- Jeffrey Wright ●
FELIX LEITER
- Naomie Harris ●
MISS MONEYPENNY
- Léa Seydoux ●
MADELEINE SWANN
- Elizabeth Debicki ●
MONIQUE
Team S.P.E.C.T.R.E.
- Michael Fassbender ●
JACK SPANG
- Christoph Waltz ●
ERNST STAVRO BLOFELD, SPECTRE NR. 1
- Tilda Swinton ●
IRMA BUNT, SPECTRE NR. 3
- Dave Bautista ●
MR. HINX
- Amr Waked ●
GENERAL YASHRAF GHORBANI
- Brigitte Millar ●
DR. VOGEL, SPECTRE NR. 8
- Marc Zinga ●
MOREAU
Comments
Thanks ;-). It's very much do-able I think ;-). On top of that.....I wanted to make sure that the final 3/4th of the story would become a plain solid MI6-mission for 007. You have to.....solve the narrative problems from "SPECTRE"s finale in a logical yet satisfying way. And that's entirely possible :-). I hope you read my motivations as well @SeanCraig :-).
Well for one, it's a perfect modern old-school Bond film! It's a movie where Bond just does his job, but it ties up all the loose ends of SPECTRE satisfyingly. It's centered around three major contemporary issues, but blends them all seamlessly. I know we fans were clamoring for a racing Bond movie, and you definitely delivered! Using Texas of all places was an unpredictable but amazing move. The way you center the meat of the plot in one location harkens back to the golden age. My only problem was the choice of Fassbender as Spang, but that's because I didn't read the cast list first and pictured Kevin Spacey. Overall, I could see this grossing close to a billion if we were ever lucky enough for it to be produced!
Thanks @BondJasonBond006 ;-). I appreciate your advice after reading my draft a few months ago. We may be harsh sometimes to each other, but we do share a passion for good Bond stories. Aren't we all?
Besides politics I think we are brothers :D you sweet cutie :)
Also it would make a great comic! I am currently reading Hammerhead and I was thinking you would have a real talent for writing stories.
My one constructive comment is that I could imagine the first half of the film as being quite slow paced with a lot of setting up. But overall I really enjoyed reading :-)
That's perhaps because I wanted to get rid of the narrative complications from the "SPECTRE" finale as fast as possible (Blofeld still alive, but being captured, Bond & Madeleine are in a love relationship, boyfriend and girlfriend). But again....better to get rid of it, than dwelling on it during the entire film. And I just hope the Bond producers do it a bit like this...
I also deliberately did not bring back Tanner. I think it's nice to replace him with Felix Leiter. Same with Lucia Sciarra. Mentioning her yes, but I didn't want her back as there wasn't any narrative reason to do so.
The bullet ants? Well, have a look at this ;-):
So I thought: I want Dr. Vogel to be the sacrificial lamb :-). I wanted her to suffer so hard that it would cringe the toes of cinema audiences :-). And then, bluntly, I wanted Mr Hinx to kill her off, in the back of her head. Goodbye Dr. Vogel.
I had a great time reading your treatment. There's a lot to like that others have already touched on--the racing concept, the locations, the cast, the bullet ants, the quick wrap-up of the "Spectre" loose ends, etc. I wanted to comment on a few things that did not work for me, and I hope you take them into consideration if you do another draft of "Murder on Wheels."
* I don't think Bond (especially Craig's Bond) would have immediately left the scene of Blofeld's assassination just to attend a meeting with M. Certainly this would have led to some sort of foot/rooftop chase with Bond going after Hinx. The simple fix for this is to simply have Bond not be present during the sentencing for some reason, or if you want to be a little more ambitious, insert the aforementioned chase sequence after the assassination.
* While very much a 2017 type thing to happen, Madeleine dumping Bond via text did not sit well with me. If you're going to have her break it off with him, I think it would be more meaningful to have her do so in person at his flat early in the film. That you left their relationship status uncertain made me expect that she was going to pop up again later in the treatment in a more meaningful role.
* The idea that the winner of the endurance race would be rewarded with a seat on the Flexum Motors Board of Directors as well as access to all of the corporation's "business and technical secrets" seems very unrealistic.
* I'm American, so I don't have as intimate of an understanding about this as others here, and I don't mean to start a political debate, but hasn't the British economy actually flourished since Brexit?
* Although in general you didn't include much dialogue, some of it came across as a little tone deaf. Galatea referring to Bond as a "retard" certainly would not fly today. And not that I necessarily agree with this, but Bunt and Bond teasing Hinx over his long fingernails would probably be criticized as a form of homophobia.
Keep in mind I greatly enjoyed your treatment, but these were just a few areas I felt could use some improvement.
I love the idea of some kind of footchase going after Hinx. But I do think it's better at this stage to let Bond stay in the dark about this. A bit like Grant shadowing Tanya in FRWL, Bond trying to find out who shot the banker's henchman in the PTS of TWINE, and Bond being surprised that Gibson has been shot in TMWTGG.
I do agree that it's better to let Bond stay out of this scene altogether then. On the other hand, I would love to see Bond's impression while he's kneeling down on Blofeld's (double's) dead body.
I wanted to 'get rid of' Madeleine in the best way possible. I really did not want her to re-appear later in the story treatment. So then I reread the novel "From Russia With Love", in which Fleming neatly disposed of Tiffany Case at the start of the novel.
What I would like to do is dramatize the scene in Bond's apartment between Bond and Madeleine. I would turn it into a fight that's a bit similar of the verbal fight between Bond and Madeleine in the snow in "SPECTRE". However, this time I would let it culminate into Madeleine crying in the doorway when an angry Bond heads to his car.
At this stage the audience would probably already know that the relationship is over between Bond and Madeleine. So a short and final reminder in which Madeleine is texting Bond.......could actually work. Although I wouldn't mind to leave it out either.
I have struggled hugely with the financial stakes of this GTE-endurance race. I tried to look a bit to the high stakes poker game in "Casino Royale". I mean, how realistic is it that a representative of the HM Treasury is actually injecting tax payer's money into something as ridiculous as a.....poker game no less. There's no way that this would happen in real life.
But, this is Ian Fleming's James Bond 007, and here in lies the slightly larger-than-life stakes of the Bond franchise. So it obviously feels 'unrealistic' to increase the stakes of a GTE car chase to such heights. But it does make the actual car race exciting and tense.
I would welcome an adjustment from your side though. How would you make the stakes of this car race more realistic? How would this GTE-endurance race feel like a real-life situation?
Solely looking at short-term macro-economical factors: Yes. So far Brexit has been more or less a success. But the long-term prospects are different though. And especially for car manufacturers Brexit isn't something to be happy about. Elon Musk is now considering to built his new factory in The Netherlands or France, and the UK is already no option for Tesla Motors. The same goes for other car manufacturers like General Motors/Vauxhall and BMW/Mini. For them it will become way more expensive to import material to the UK. Hence Brexit here's mostly shows negative consequences.
Haha, I know, that was perhaps a bit too much :-P. But my intention was to write a fun. brassy, naughty, slightly perky and cheesy girl. Very much the antagonist of stylish women like Severine, Vesper Lynd and Madeleine Swann. I really wanted to create the modern-day interpretation of Tiffany Case who wasn't an intelligence agent. Just a girl who knows her stuff about car racing....and perhaps even more than Bond himself.
I think you need to make a decision, then. Either include a chase scene or drop Bond from the scene altogether. If you want Bond to see Blofeld's dead body it could be over a news broadcast similar to the way he learned of the MI6 bombing in "Skyfall."
Hmm...I think if you have Bond leave Madeleine on a bad note then the text idea would work better. Still, it's kind of unsatisfying that the text would be the last we hear of her.
Unfortunately I'm not a storyteller, so I have no suggestions here. Perhaps others do?
Thanks for clearing that up.
I get what you're trying to accomplish, but I think you can do it without relying on potentially harmful or insensitive language. I would leave the "retard" line out and come up with something else, or, since this is just a treatment, say something to the effect of "Galatea trades some sharp barbs with 007."
Nice to see him over here with us again.
I never left. ;)