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An interesting observation. I'm sure fans will agree/disagree with his comments! Goldeneye is probably my fave Brosnan Bond performance.
I'm not sure if I agree with him. I think he was very much a composite Bond in GE. It's just that Campbell brought the best out of him by capturing the essence of the character despite this.
In the following two entries (TND and TWINE) I saw more Brosnan than Bond to be honest .
DAD is where I felt he married the two most seamlessly and confidently.
GE is easily my favourite Bond film of his however, and a top 3 from the last 35 years. I'm glad he did this one rather than Dalton. It's what the series needed at that time imho.
I'm fairly sure there's one thread about Brosnan and CR. Not the same title but same kind of question : would it work with him? My answer is a resounding no.
https://www.mi6community.com/discussion/8662/how-close-where-we-to-seeing-brosnan-in-casino-royale#latest
That's the one.
Would have made for a great anniversary film in 1992.
There is this underlying issue though that the old guard were on the way out. They were already planning to ditch John Glen in 91 and when did Maibaum die - again I think they were using a different writer any way. So the whole look and feel would have been different.
Regardless of who was in the lead role it was the end of an era and Bond has had serious quality issues ever since.
Still waiting for that to happen
https://www.deseretnews.com/article/177678/DALTON-IS-NOT-IN-BOND-AGE.html
His comments on what was supposed to be his third Bond film (presumably the script by Will Osborne & Will Davies):
"The script isn't finished, but what I've seen is outrageous. It's a formative script that obviously needs some work, but when it's finished it'll combine the best of `Daylights' and `Licence,' with some good tough humor."
He also talks a lot about CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS: THE DISCOVERY (Dalton was originally cast as Columbus with George P. Cosmatos directing).
'"We were the victim of a not particularly good advertising campaign on `Licence,"' Dalton says. "Then, too, we opened whilst `Batman,' `Honey, I Shrunk the Kids' and `Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade' were still going strong. We were like the sixth or seventh big movie. It was a very bad time to open, but worldwide `Licence' did better than `The Living Daylights' (Dalton's first Bond outing), which was the biggest grossing Bond movie for 10 or 12 years."'
I would have to disagree, being a Dalton fan and I don't want to get into a Brossa bashing, but I just think so many scenes, as written, would have been so much better had Dalton been Bond. Especially those with Dench and Bean (though the latter would have to get rid of that irritating accent he adopts!)
Scorupco too, would have had better chemistry with Tim than she does with Pierce (though that beach scene would have to be rewritten, awful dialogue there)
Dalton in GE = better film
Than Craig in CR ??
No ******* way !!
But hell, why not?!
There's no question that Dalton has now gained a marked increase in popularity since Craig shook up the franchise. The same could be said of the forgotten Bond, Lazenby. The major difference being that Lazenby's OHMSS was a far bigger hit back in 1970 than either of Dalton's movies were on their own initial release dates. Going on BO stats alone, I'd have to say that Dalton (as much as I liked him as Bond) would've had an uphill struggle pulling in the US crowd with his third movie. To put it mildly, Dalton still had a lot of work to do to win over North America. In order to do this UA/MGM would've had to have pulled out a colossal marketing campaign the likes the world had never seen before. The big question, if you were the production chief of the studio, would be why throwaway needless money on a campaign that might not reverse that tide? It made logistical and financial sense to replace Dalton with an actor that American audiences wanted to go see instead. From what I've gleaned reading various comments by American adults that were actually there in the early Nineties with boots on the ground, is that the vast majority hadn't quite warmed to Dalton the way Cubby had originally planned. I'm not an American so I cannot give you the reasons why. That's better left to our American cousins who were paying cinemagoers at that time to answer. I don't think I'd be wrong in saying that Dalton had been well-received here in the UK, so it wasn't a problem at our end.
But who am I to argue with Calley, the man who'd green-light such hit movies as A Clockwork Orange, The Towering Inferno, The Exorcist, Dog Day Afternoon, Dirty Harry, All the President's Men, Blazing Saddles, Superman and Chariots of Fire? The very reason why Calley was drafted in from WB was give a major boost to UA/MGM's flagging profits.
Personally, I'd have rather seen another Dalton Bond movie back in the Nineties. But I cannot lie, there would still have been a part of me with that nagging "what if" question mark at the back of mind on whether the BO numbers would have been far better had Brosnan made GE in-place of Dalton. The same question can be levelled at TLD. Would that movie have been a monster BO success had Brosnan been 007 and not a movie that took over 10 years to break-even or go into profit? Again, I'd say yes. I do believe TLD would've been a much bigger hit had Brosnan been in TLD. Now if you're asking me whether I think TLD would've been a better movie, I'd say no. I know it comes down to personal taste, but I always found Brosnan too smug and too self-conscious in the role, and as a result, his performances always felt phoney to me. I've heard some people here say that Dalton is sometimes too over-theatrical, though it's odd that it's Brosnan who is the one that comes over the most hammy. Take another look at TWINE, which was meant to show us his acting chops, and it's everything Dalton has been accused of and more. Just how Brosnan manged to avoid the 19th Golden Raspberry Awards was testament to his popularity in the States.
One other thing about John Calley that some fans here may not know: Calley later defected to Sony Pictures and then, as president, tried to get a competing Bond franchise going with Kevin McClory! It's so weird that he was instrumental in reviving the series and then, within a decade, had turned on EON and MGM/UA, sparking a massive legal battle.
I think it still is important, as the single largest box office generator, and the home of many of these studios (including MGM and Universal). If I'm not mistaken, costs are also measured in US $ and the profitability per theatre chain is higher. Moreover, the cultural impact of a successful film stateside drives ticket sales elsewhere, due to the media push.
Therefore, I can imagine the next actor will be selected with a view to how he would perform there. However, the growing importance of the Asian and Latin American markets cannot be downplayed either. I mentioned this on the Bond Actor thread, but I wouldn't be surprised if EON, MGM and Universal (assuming they will distribute B26) are likely to seriously consider an actor's viability in that market.
I actually think the opposite, especially regarding Bean and Scorupco. In both cases, I think Brosnan's youthful look was an asset. He didn't look older than Bean, if anything he looked younger, so the menace Trevelyan represented would have been lost somewhat with a more seasoned Bond. And while I have become very critical of Brosnan's tenure overall, I have to admit that his looks alone made him a more believable seducer than Dalton, especially with someone youthful and sexy like Scorupco. Dalton would have placed the relationship close to Roger Moore territory. For GE to work with Dalton, both villain and Bond girls would have needed to be older (which was the case for the villain in the early script if I'm not mistaken).
With regards to China, I'm not entirely convinced Hollywood should try and engineer its own movies aimed at that particular market. It reminds me of McDonalds in the 80s trying to chase the pizza market by producing its own brand of pizzas which ultimately failed. It's one thing to have a movie that's popular in China because it's a good movie in its own right, but it's another thing entirely to try and manufacture popularity. Lucasfilm tried to boost Star Wars' appeal in China by casting Donnie Yen and Wen Jiang in Rogue One but it didn't pay off. Just look at The Last Jedi, which bombed in Chinese theatres and was pulled early. Despite the studio thinking by casting Kelly Marie Tran would somehow please the Chinese markets. It didn't. So much so, that there's now even talk of the studio saving money in distribution costs by skipping China altogether with the next SW instalment. I wish they'd skip the UK also.
Thing is, it's still possible for genre pictures to be massive hits without Chinese ticket sales. I give you Deadpool for example. As of last year, the 3 biggest US movies in China were Avengers: Infinity War by quite some margin, followed by Jurassic World 2 then Ready Player One. The latter had Win Morisaki somewhere lowdown the cast and Jurassic had BD Wong in there somewhere. Now, I don't for one minute think that casting either of these two actors was a major contributing factor into both these 2 movies success stories. Principally, it was the special effects that drew the crowds. Crazy Rich Asians bombed in China and that starred Constance Wu, Michelle Yeoh, Lisa Lu and host of other Chinese actors because it endorsed Western stereotypes of Asians. Besides, anyone in China who really wanted to see it had already pirated it months ago.
Which brings me to my other point. Chinese theatres have been under-reporting ticket sales of Hollywood movies, resulting in short-changing the big US studios. So just how reliable are they?
Personally, I believe Bond should play to its strengths by providing a good action-orientated movie. If the action is well-executed, as it should be, then the Chinese will go see it. If it's a dull plodding affair, then it won't be a success. Skyfall was heavily censored by the Chinese Government, and as it came out there last, which I'm sure was already pirated by those who wanted to see it first, it's sale would've been dented. Correct me if I'm wrong, but SF was still a success in China despite those counterproductive factors.
Hey, I still wish that Dalton had got to zip along the Great Wall of China on a motorbike in the original LTK movie, before they decided to shoot it low-budget in Mexico. But to reply your other question: How can you exactly cater for both Asian and Latin markets when casting the next Bond actor when they are both so fundamentally different? I don't think you can.
However, as you note, action and spectacle seem to be large drivers of success over there, at least as evidenced by the largest box office winners. I'm not sure if that's cultural (they have a lot of high octane local action films) or it's due to the audience skewing younger.
I've always been curious about how EON/MGM will approach Asia going forward. The Craig films haven't really done all that well there in relative comparison to how they've performed in Europe. This is contrast to MI for instance, that does proportionately better in the Asian markets (and increasingly so) in comparison to Europe. In North America they are both roughly equal, with SF being a positive anomaly for Bond.
I agree that Bond should play to its strengths. I believe the viewing audience tends to skew a bit older, and I'd like to think is a bit more culturally refined. I hope that the films continue to satiate those viewers who appreciate the finer things in life, like good dialogue and subtle humour. I realize that some of this may be lost on a foreign audience after translation and therefore may be simplified on a go-forward basis to accommodate, but I hope not.
Regarding catering to Asian and Latin American markets at the same time - it's an interesting question because what is attractive in one market is likely to be different from what works in the other. Honestly, I don't have an answer. I suppose the only thing they can do is ensure that their actor is known to these audiences in both markets and has been in some successful films there. The other solution is to make sure that whatever is delivered is top of class (including the action). That seems to work with the other franchises, and so it likely will work with Bond also.
I believe the risks are a little greater with casting Bond #007 due to the wide swathe of the world that must be catered to. That's why it wouldn't surprise me if they go with a slightly better known name next time out.