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"Keep Your Friends Close" - my follow up to "Scarred"
Thanks for the feedback on my first Bond screenplay. I really enjoyed writing it and then getting your opinons (good and bad). It's rather addictive and I am now starting to flesh out the follow up. Its a direct follow on so the outline won't mean much if you did not read "Scarred" (sorry) but grateful for any initial comments on the idea. Bond investigating a kidnapping is something a little different althought perhaps we are too close to "Taken" territory?
Basic Outline – “Keep Your Friends Close”
PTS – A middle class, semi-detached house. Hans (now 17 and since adopted) arrives home from school and is welcomed by his mother. They chat over tea and all is fine. He goes upstairs ready to go out. He receives a text “it’s time”. He packs a ruck sack, goes downstairs and hugs his mum. “I’m sorry” he whispers as he grabs a knife from the worktop and stabs her in the back.
Paris - Anne is enjoying a night out with friends in a restaurant. Outside, a dark figure on a motorbike waits outside, observing her though the window. The meal ends and, outside the restaurant, Anne says goodbye to her friends. She is happy and carefree. A different person from the one we have got to know. She starts to walk along the pavement. The motorbike starts up. It’s electric so virtually silent. The bike rider passes Anne, taking out a pistol, shoots her in the back. She collapses and fumbles for her bag. The rider turns around, stands over Anne and, showing not pity, murders her.
Titles:
Bond is competing in a Fireball class dinghy race of the south coast. He wins a close race but, as he returns to the clubhouse, Tanner takes him to one side to break the news of Anne’s death.
Following the funeral, Bond is convinced Anne’s death is linked to Hans somehow and investigates the murder scene but, with Anne’s secret service background, there are plenty of suspects. Bond is told to return to base to be briefed on his next assignment.
On returning, he finds that Moneypenny has not come in to work and, later that day, M says that there has been no contact. Bond goes to her flat and finds clear signs of a struggle. The resources of the dept focus on finding her.
Two days later, M receives a package. A severed small toe together with a CD marked “This little piggy…”, the CD contains an audio recording of Moneypenny screaming in terror and pain.
The dept. has no leads but Bond is still convinced that Hans is behind this. He guesses that Hans is being funded/supported by SPECTRE and this is confirmed after M receives a ransom note asking for the formula that Hans’ father had developed.
Based on the fact that Hans knows the formula never actually existed, Bond guesses that Hans is playing SPECTRE against MI6 in support of his own agenda to gain revenge personal revenge on Anne and Bond.
Bond travels to SPECTRE regional HQ in Austria where is initially imprisoned but he meets the head of European operations where they agree they have nothing to lose in clarifying Han’s real motivations. Spectre hand over the bank details that Hans is using and Q locates the cash machine in Italy that Hans has been using. Bond stakes out the machine and eventually tracks Hans back to an industrial unit. He frees Moneypenny and eventually captures Hans after a chase around the suburbs of Rome.
The final scene takes place within an industrial container. Hans is tied to a chair and Bond is holding his pistol with silencer attached. Hans taunts Bond that he could never shoot a 17 year old in cold blood. It’s beyond his licence. A SPECTRE henchman enters the container.
“You’re right, I can’t kill you” He returns his pistol to his holster. “But he can”.
Bond calmly walks out of the container into the sunlight and we hear a single shot.
Basic Outline – “Keep Your Friends Close”
PTS – A middle class, semi-detached house. Hans (now 17 and since adopted) arrives home from school and is welcomed by his mother. They chat over tea and all is fine. He goes upstairs ready to go out. He receives a text “it’s time”. He packs a ruck sack, goes downstairs and hugs his mum. “I’m sorry” he whispers as he grabs a knife from the worktop and stabs her in the back.
Paris - Anne is enjoying a night out with friends in a restaurant. Outside, a dark figure on a motorbike waits outside, observing her though the window. The meal ends and, outside the restaurant, Anne says goodbye to her friends. She is happy and carefree. A different person from the one we have got to know. She starts to walk along the pavement. The motorbike starts up. It’s electric so virtually silent. The bike rider passes Anne, taking out a pistol, shoots her in the back. She collapses and fumbles for her bag. The rider turns around, stands over Anne and, showing not pity, murders her.
Titles:
Bond is competing in a Fireball class dinghy race of the south coast. He wins a close race but, as he returns to the clubhouse, Tanner takes him to one side to break the news of Anne’s death.
Following the funeral, Bond is convinced Anne’s death is linked to Hans somehow and investigates the murder scene but, with Anne’s secret service background, there are plenty of suspects. Bond is told to return to base to be briefed on his next assignment.
On returning, he finds that Moneypenny has not come in to work and, later that day, M says that there has been no contact. Bond goes to her flat and finds clear signs of a struggle. The resources of the dept focus on finding her.
Two days later, M receives a package. A severed small toe together with a CD marked “This little piggy…”, the CD contains an audio recording of Moneypenny screaming in terror and pain.
The dept. has no leads but Bond is still convinced that Hans is behind this. He guesses that Hans is being funded/supported by SPECTRE and this is confirmed after M receives a ransom note asking for the formula that Hans’ father had developed.
Based on the fact that Hans knows the formula never actually existed, Bond guesses that Hans is playing SPECTRE against MI6 in support of his own agenda to gain revenge personal revenge on Anne and Bond.
Bond travels to SPECTRE regional HQ in Austria where is initially imprisoned but he meets the head of European operations where they agree they have nothing to lose in clarifying Han’s real motivations. Spectre hand over the bank details that Hans is using and Q locates the cash machine in Italy that Hans has been using. Bond stakes out the machine and eventually tracks Hans back to an industrial unit. He frees Moneypenny and eventually captures Hans after a chase around the suburbs of Rome.
The final scene takes place within an industrial container. Hans is tied to a chair and Bond is holding his pistol with silencer attached. Hans taunts Bond that he could never shoot a 17 year old in cold blood. It’s beyond his licence. A SPECTRE henchman enters the container.
“You’re right, I can’t kill you” He returns his pistol to his holster. “But he can”.
Bond calmly walks out of the container into the sunlight and we hear a single shot.
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Comments
I will say upfront that I’m not a fan of direct sequels in the world of Bond – I think QoS (and Spectre after it) proved that direct sequels don’t work. Why? Well, the movies are made on a 2-4 year cycle, and it’s a stretch to ask audiences to remember or care about the relevant minutiae from the last film a few years ago. Over the series’ 50 year history, Bond audiences haven’t been groomed to understand the films as interconnected – in fact the series is known for its devil-may-care approach to continuity.
I also think a major selling point of the Bond films is that they all check the boxes in a unique way – you get a new girl, villain, car, gadgets, locations, etc. each time around. So if you’re going to repeat this stuff between films, it had better be damn good. (And even then, something good can become dull if you repeat it enough. Diminishing returns and all that. See: Aston Martin DB5.)
So we’ve got the return of Hans. That’s fine, he’s quite interesting... But I have to wonder: if he’s such an interesting villain, why not make more of him in the previous film Scarred, where he was simply teased? Why not give that movie the gift of Hans in his entirety rather than spreading the character thin over two movies?
When I’ve worked on Bond movie ideas in the past, I’ve sometimes been tempted to spread a good idea out over several films. But I always come back to this: if the idea’s so good, then why not treat the audience to the entire idea in one story? You can never be sure that an audience will stay with you between films, or even that the direct sequel will be produced (witness movies being released these days that waste time “setting up” sequels that, for whatever reason, never get made).
All of this to say that Hans is a good idea, underused in the previous film, and you might consider fleshing out Scarred with this new material rather than developing a direct sequel - an idea which I think is inherently flawed when you're talking Bond.