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I agree with you both on this Bond trilogy. Silly, but mostly grounded and believable villain plots. They helped prove that a silly Bond could work.
It’s terrifying to think that Guy Hamilton was going to direct a 500 page script for Superman. It probably would have been a low point MCU type of movie. He would have lacked Donner’s epic vision. He and the Salkinds would have grounded Superman before he could fly. He probably would have hurt Superman 2 even more if he had directed (which apparently did almost happen). I think we dodged a big Kryptonite bullet by Guy Hamilton not directing Superman. And TSWLM, as well. As I said before, Mankiewicz is a bit of a hypocrite by calling the original Superman scripts to campy. His Bond stories are also on the campy side. I do think his Batman script did have potential though with the right director. Apparently Donner wanted Mankiewicz to direct his version of Superman 3. Supergirl and Brainiac would have been major characters. Another big what if of Superman.
Also, does anyone know if TM commented on Bond after he left? Not just on his own movies. I know he endorsed Timothy Dalton as Bond. He also said that Richard Donner was too American to direct one.
I do remember him in the DVD's saying how it was different to write for Sean and Roger. That Sean would be brutal and cold and Roger needed to be light and romantic. I find the comment odd because whoever had the biggest hand in TMWTGG had Roger doing some very un-Roger type things.
When I did a google search on him it was amazing how many of the articles and headlines mentioned James Bond and not Superman. Yet I would say that the Superman movie was much more impactful on movies and cinema than Bond.
Interesting discussion!
Yes, that's quite true. We have to be fair in our comments and sometimes we don't see past the official credits on the film when we deliver our criticism or indeed our praise. No Bond film was made in a vacuum as you say and Bond films were very much written by committee and not solely by own hand. So pinning down who wrote what without cross referencing all of the various draft scripts and minutes of meetings would be close to impossible. I suppose the tone of the film comes down from the producer as they're putting up the money for the finished product so they have the final say ultimately.
Nicely stated @Dragonpol , and that is the long and short of it: producers who are assembling the financing and the crews and the actors have an overall vision. They then hire the best people available to make the vision a reality via the writers they hire, the directors, set designers, costume, stunt coordinators…. It really takes a village, or an army, to get a film made from the blank page all the way across to the final locked picture we see on the big screen.
I think that he was a bit sensitive to talk about Superman, for a fair reason. While the Cubby and Harry partnership was getting more and more stressed during his movies, they weren't the greediest of producers. They generally supported TM, and Guy Hamilton sounds like he wasn't the most humble of directors. The Salkinds, on the other hand, were repeatedly criticized by people even outside the Superman series. After Donner was fired, he (and Stuart Baird, the main editor) didn't come back out of respect for Donner. Donner was the one who got TM hired, after TM didn't want to do it, at first, from a rewriting standpoint. Another reason that TM didn't come back, was losing a possible directing job: Superman 3, with Brainiac, Bizzaro and Supergirl. So I understand why there aren't many articles about his time with Superman.