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Any spin-off is worthwhile as long as it’s done in a way that can stand on its own without relying too much on the Bond connection.
Absolutely this. All this talk of spin offs and we've only seen one Bond film in the last 9 years.
But the thing is, any spinoff based on Bond would exist solely because of the Bond connection. It's not like the Marvelverse, the DCverse or the Cthulhu mytho.
I doubt most of you wouldn’t be curious enough to check it out if they had good word of mouth.
What does Felix Leiter or Wai Lin do that James Bond doesn't? What do they have that is lacking in Bond and that is worth developing and exploring? What kind of stories they are more suitable to star in than Bond?
I mean, Bond is barely a character. Bond movies are mostly about an aesthetic, I'd say. There's not all that much going on with James Bond, and even less with Felix or M. You could certainly make a 20 episode series about Felix or whoever, but you'd have to basically build that character from the ground up, and you'd just be labeling him as the guy who makes brief appearances in a rather more shallow film series with a very different aesthetic. What would be the point?
Would I watch though? Of course. Well, I'd at least start it.
Find out when they make them.
The thing is we've already had a Leiter spin off with the James Bond: Felix Leiter six part Dynamite comic from 2017. I know that wasn't a film or TV spin-off but it's a start. Though I've not read it, judging by the reviews it didn't exactly set the world alight which would be something that would concern me in terms of the level of interest any proposed screen Leiter spin-off would attain, never mind any of the other peripheral Bond universe characters.
I think such attempts at diversifying and expanding the Bond universe should be left to the literary sphere alone as less stands to be lost than risking the potential flop of a spin-off TV series or film. In truth even in the literary Bond sphere I'd prefer them to just focus on Bond exclusively as he's the reason we're all here and the reason we're fans. Why mess with a formula after all of these years that clearly works fine? On top of all of that there's the usual old chestnut of Eon barely being able to produce a new Bond film so it doesn't exaxtly need the distraction of producing a Bond spin-off that they're not even sure anyone wants or needs. Eon under Barbara Broccoli is already diversifying enough into other non-Bond films and side projects as it is. It'd be much better for them to stick to what they know and that which is tried and tested now over almost six decades. I can't see them wavering from that position on the Bond spin-off front to be honest when there are other less financially risky avenues such as expanding the Bond universe via comics or continuation novels.
That's a bit of a cop out isn't it? "Well, it's possible." What do they have that would make a spinoff sustainable? You're telling us they are, in effect, breakthrough characters. How?
They must have to have something about them that hitherto we've not seen over the last 60 years in the Bond films. If people say that James Bond himself hasn't much by way of character (something I disagree with actually, especially when it comes to the Fleming novels and short stories and some of the Continuations) then what hope is there for other characters who are very much peripheral to the action and plot? That's the perception from the audience that has to be overcome and I don't see that as being possible, short of a compete refit of the characters. If you have to rewrite the characters to give them more gravitas then what's the point of the thing? It all goes to show that Fleming only intended them to be more peripheral characters and we shouldn't be messing with that. James Bond should always be the focus and the main attraction. Anything else than that just gets in the way of the Bond story and legend that is approaching its 70th anniversary in another two years.
It's not really negativity though, is it? It's more cold, hard, uncynical realism. If I thought Bond spin-offs were a good idea I'd get behind them. I don't and that's not being negative about Bond. I just don't think that spin-offs are a good idea. Sure, other franchises can have them but it doesn't seem to be Eon's bag. They have no history of it, despite rumours of a planned Jinx spin-off after DAD which thankfully never came to pass. Such spin-offs would surely only lead to the dissolution and delay of new Bond films and that's something I'm sure no Bond fan worth his salt wants to see. You raise the point about the diversity involved in the Bond continuation novels, Young Bond and the Moneypenny Diaries. Do you notice that apart from the last one of those mentioned they all have James Bond as the central character. They're also all literary Bond projects and not film or TV ones so that tallies with my point above about it being the best arena to develop such spin-off projects if there is a need for them at all. It doesn't actually help your argument, whatever it is, unless you're actually subconsciously agreeing with me!
Not all of them are at fanfic level though. Kingsley Amis, for one example, would have been incapable of ever writing anything even approaching "fanfic". Some of them are pretty good too. Well worth a read. We can't really begrudge Fleming's widow Ann and young son Caspar the money from the continuation project as it was a source of income for them and helped see them through at the time. As well as the more base desire for more cash for the Fleming Estate, Amis's Colonel Sun (1968) was Glidrose's response to the unauthorised "Bond" novels that were popping up at the time behind the Iron Curtain. It was all part of a strategy to extend the literary copyright in the James Bond character. An official continuation Bond novel was seen as the best way to suppress the attention the unofficial novels were receiving, along with using legal means to make the publishers cease and desist breaching Fleming's copyright in the Bond character.
Of course money was at the bottom of it all but the desire to extend the copyright was as much a part of Glidrose's plan which included a series of official continuation Bond novels by different authors under the umbrella pseudonym of Robert Markham. Of course that never came to pass at the time beyond the release of Colonel Sun but it set in motion the idea of a series of Bond continuation novels. The idea was later returned to with the John Gardner Bond novels that started to appear from 1981 onwards and has been carried on by various authors since to varying degrees of critical and commercial success. As you say continuation novels and the like are much easier to produce more regularly and are much less high risk in terms of investment than would be a spin-off TV series or film. That is why, in my view, any spin-offs will remain within the realm of the literary Bond and IFP. Eon understandably have bigger fish to fry.
On a side note, I'm all for a King Arthur's cinematic universe. I've been wanting one since I watched Excalibur as a child.
I would even settle for a good Arthurian film, though a trilogy would be better. The only truly good Arthurian films are Excalibur, Perceval, and Lancelot of the Lake.
Just joking. ;-)
Ah well, it's not actually bad, just mediocre, and seeing Connery as King Arthur was worth the price of admission. What other actor could so authoritatively play mythic figures--King Arthur, Robin Hood, James Bond, Agamemnon, Hotspur, and the Green Night?
Sean Connery or not, First Knight was terrible. Sean Connery was the right actor for King Arthur, but to write the character as a geriatric bachelor was stupid. As for Richard Gere, the less said the better.
The hook would be in casting (which is why I would have been open to Wai Lin, because Michelle Yoeh IS awesome enough to carry her own actin franchise). There’s several spin-offs out there that actually do a substantial job of standing on their own without relying too much on where they originated. For example, when Frasier got his own spin-off series after Cheers, the first thing the creators did was move him as far away from Boston as possible, get rid of the wife and kid, and present an entirely new cast dynamic that effectively made Frasier a different character from the one seen in Cheers. Treat Leiter no differently, put him in a setting that is completely unique from what we expect out of a Bond film. The only real connection is that an actor that played Leiter in one of the Bond films, but he’d have to be an actor who has the ability to carry an audience. I think the closest any of the past Leiters we had that could have had a potential spin-off series was Jack Lord.
I do think if one should set up a Leiter spin-off, the smartest thing to do would be to assume it’s the only film he’ll ever get. Don’t leave too many threads, just focus on making a solid standalone story.
Don't get me started. Oh and if I can buy Sean Connery as King Arthur, I certainly can't buy Clive Owen in the same role. Kind of like my opinion on him as a potential Bond, actually.
I was confused by Keira's role at the time. Was she Guinnevere? I couldn't make sense out of her. Stellan was enjoyable, though. Zimmer's score was pretty good. But this so-called more historically accurate take on the Arthurian legend left a sour taste in my mouth.
Maybe it's for another thread, but it's downright fraudulent to call it "historically accurate". Arthur as a Roman soldier? Gueneveer as a warrior? And why have Lancelot there? He was a late addition to the Arthurian Legend!
Anyway, back on topic, sort of: I'm all for a movieverse of the Arthurian Legend, with a trilogy on King Arthur, independent series with Lancelot, Percival and Gawain, among others. And with a prequel series based on the Historia Regum Brittaniae. But I see no interest in Bond spinoffs. If people want a spinoff, they should read TSWLM. It's pretty much what it is: the story of a Bond girl, through her eyes, in her own voice.
Back on topic, I hate the idea of a multiverse for Bond. Absolutely hate it.
There’s only one character, just one, in the films that I would like to have seen a bit more of, and that was the Apollo airways stewardess in MR. “Any higher, Mr Bond, and my ears will pop.”
They should have made a hundred films about her ... ah well
This dates back way before the Elizabethan era.