The TIMOTHY DALTON Appreciation thread - Discuss His Life, His Career, His Bond Films

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  • Samuel001Samuel001 Moderator
    Posts: 13,355
    From 2003 - 2004. That is indeed his most recent stage work.
  • Posts: 11,425
    Hardly suggests a big commitment to the stage. Or acting in general, really.

    But I guess he can retire if he wants - it just seems he's fizzled out, when his early career promised so much. Bond gave him a second chance, but he squandered it.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,789
    Getafix wrote:
    But I guess he can retire if he wants - it just seems he's fizzled out
    Wait, did you see him on CHUCK?? He was AWESOME!!
  • Posts: 4,408
    Getafix wrote:
    Hardly suggests a big commitment to the stage. Or acting in general, really.

    But I guess he can retire if he wants - it just seems he's fizzled out, when his early career promised so much. Bond gave him a second chance, but he squandered it.

    Dalton sadly never really got the acclaim he deserved. He has done plenty of good interesting parts but he didn't achieve 'move star' status after Bond (something if you're fortunate the part offers). I wish he was in more stuff but his most notably role in recent years has been in 'Toy Story 3', 'Doctor Who' and 'Hot Fuzz', and each of these were a good few years ago.

    My hope is that 2014 marks a return to the fold with 'Penny Dreadful'. Thank god for John Logan I say, it's clear he's a huge Bond nerd as the whole of his cast is full of past Bond actors which makes the project seem even more exciting. In the latest BTS video Dalton's name is listed second behind Hartnett so I presume he has a meaty role

  • edited March 2014 Posts: 11,425
    I forgot about Penny Dreadful. When does it air?

    Yes, nice touch that Dalton was cast. I noticed it was full of Bond cast members, past and present.

    Can we take it that Logan is a Dalton Bond fan? I wonder what Mendes thinks of him.

    If Dalton is 68, there's still time for him to grow into that old thesp role, that I'd like to see him occupying. Move over Sir Ian Mckellen... Dalton is back.
  • Posts: 19,339
    chrisisall wrote:
    Getafix wrote:
    But I guess he can retire if he wants - it just seems he's fizzled out
    Wait, did you see him on CHUCK?? He was AWESOME!!

    What episode of CHUCK was he in ? Someone bought me series 1-2 but i havent watched them yet .

  • Posts: 11,189
    Looks like a decent series. Will have to watch it when it airs in the UK.
  • Posts: 11,425
    It would have been nice to hear DC give a nod to the Daltononator. I suppose he wants to avoid getting into some spat, a la Brosnan with Lazenby.
  • Posts: 11,189
    I think Dan has acknowledged Dalton
  • pachazopachazo Make Your Choice
    Posts: 7,314
    Getafix wrote:
    'Part of me, having done two which had good and bad things about them, wanted to do a third to see if I could do one that brought everything together.
    I agree with Dalton's assessment here and am curious to see how a third film of his would have "brought everything together".

  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    BAIN123 wrote:
    I think Dan has acknowledged Dalton

    He has, and he said the first half hour or so of CR was the best James Bond sequence there ever was.
  • edited March 2014 Posts: 11,425
    BAIN123 wrote:
    I think Dan has acknowledged Dalton

    He has, and he said the first half hour or so of CR was the best James Bond sequence there ever was.

    Isn't that Tim acknowledging Dan?
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    Haha, yes. Not sure how I got that backwards. Thanks.
  • Posts: 11,425
    Trying to remember what happens in the first 30 mins of CR. Isn't it just one long chase and lots of shooting? Sort of exhausting, and certainly visually impressive, but very far from the best James Bond sequence IMO.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    It is the PTS, MTS and then the chase, fight on the crane and confrontation in the embassy. Tim loved it. Me too, but agree there have been better sequences, OHMSS springs to mind.
  • Posts: 11,425
    Wikipedia claims that Dalt's dad was a captain in the SOE during WW2. Does anyone know anything about this? Might help explain why Tim is so good in the role - it's in the blood.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,789
    barryt007 wrote:

    What episode of CHUCK was he in ? Someone bought me series 1-2 but i havent watched them yet .

    The BEST four episodes of series 4.
  • MajorDSmytheMajorDSmythe "I tolerate this century, but I don't enjoy it."Moderator
    Posts: 13,978
    Two character posters have been released, but neither are of Dalton's character:

    http://bloody-disgusting.com/news/3285863/tv-penny-dreadful-character-posters/
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,789
    You can see Dalton in the top photo though.
  • MajorDSmytheMajorDSmythe "I tolerate this century, but I don't enjoy it."Moderator
    Posts: 13,978
    Indeed you can, but the character posters (the two shown), are different to what those two characters look like in the header image.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,789
  • Posts: 1,146
    He trounces Roger Moore, that's for sure. I like his Bond films.
  • edited April 2014 Posts: 7,653
    http://hmssweblog.wordpress.com/2014/03/29/licence-to-kills-25th-007-flops-in-the-u-s/

    Licence to Kill’s 25th: 007 flops in the U.S.

    Posted on March 29, 2014 by Bill Koenig


    Licence to Kill, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, is mostly known for a series of “lasts” but also for a first.

    It was the last of five 007 films directed by John Glen, the most prolific director in the series; the last of 13 Bond films where Richard Maibaum participated in the writing; it was the last with Albert R. Broccoli getting a producer’s credit (he would only “present” 1995′s GoldenEye); it was the last 007 movie with a title sequence designed by Maurice Binder; and the it was last 007 film where Pan Am was the unofficial airline of the James Bond series (it went out of business before GoldenEye).

    It was also the first that was an unqualified flop in the U.S. market.

    Bond wasn’t on Poverty Row when Licence to Kill began production in 1988. But neither did 007 travel entirely first class.

    Under financial pressure from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (which acquired half the franchise after buying United Artists earlier in the decade), Eon Productions moved the home base of the production to Mexico from Pinewood Studios.

    Joining Timothy Dalton in his second (and last) outing as Bond was a cast mostly known for appearing on U.S. television, including Anthony Zerbe, Don Stroud, David Hedison (his second appearance as Felix Leiter), Pricilla Barnes, Rafer Johnson, Frank McRae as well as Las Vegas performer Wayne Newton.

    Meanwhile, character actor Robert Davi snared the role of the film’s villain, with Carey Lowell and Carey Lowell and Talisa Soto as competing Bond women.

    Michael G. Wilson, Broccoli’s stepson and co-producer, took the role as lead writer because a 1988 Writers Guild strike made Richard Maibaum unavailable. Maibaum’s participation didn’t extend beyond the plotting stage. The teaser trailer billed Wilson as the sole writer but Maibaum received co-writer billing in the final credits.

    Wilson opted for a darker take, up to a point. He included Leiter having a leg chewed off by a shark from the Live And Let Die novel. He also upped the number of swear words compared with previous 007 entries. But Wilson hedged his bets with jokes, such as Newton’s fake preacher and a scene where Q shows off gadgets to Bond.

    Licence would be the first Bond film where “this time it’s personal.” Bond goes rogue to avenge Leiter. Since then, it has almost always been personal for 007. Because of budget restrictions, filming was kept to Florida and Mexico.

    The end product didn’t go over well in the U.S. Other studios had given the 16th 007 film a wide berth for its opening weekend. The only “new” movie that weekend was a re-release of Walt Disney Co.’s Peter Pan.

    Nevertheless, Licence finished an anemic No. 4 during the July 14-16 weekend, coming in behind Lethal Weapon 2 (in its second weekend), Batman (in its fourth weekend) and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (also fourth weekend).

    Glen and Maibaum were done with Bond, the latter being part of the 007 series since its inception.

    Initial pre-production of the next 007 film proceeded without the two series veterans. Wilson wrote a treatment in 1990 for Bond 17 with Alfonse Ruggiero but that story was never made.

    That’s because Broccoli would enter into a legal fight with MGM that meant Bond wouldn’t return to movie screens for another six years. By the time production resumed, Eon started over, using a story by Michael France as a beginning point for what would become GoldenEye. Maibaum, meanwhile, died in early 1991.

    Today, some fans like to blame MGM’s marketing campaign or other major summer 1989 movies such as Batman or Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. But Licence came out weeks after either of those blockbusters. In the end, the U.S. audience didn’t care for Licence. The movie’s total U.S. box office of $34.7 million didn’t match Batman’s U.S. opening weekend of $40.5 million. Licence’s U.S. box office was almost a third less than its 007 predecessor, The Living Daylights.

    Licence to Kill did better in other markets. Still, Licence’s $156.2 million in worldwide ticket sales represented an 18 percent decline from The Living Daylights.

    For Dalton, Glen, Maibaum and even Broccoli (he yielded the producer’s duties on GoldenEye because of ill health), it was the end of the road.
  • MajorDSmytheMajorDSmythe "I tolerate this century, but I don't enjoy it."Moderator
    edited April 2014 Posts: 13,978
    It's still my second favourite Bond film, in spite of whatever failing it may, or may not, have. Though it does have a better villain than The Living Daylights.
  • Posts: 12,526
    It's still my second favourite Bond film, in spite of whatever failing it may, or may not, have. Though it does have a better villain than The Living Daylights.

    I agree Major, OHMSS got a panning but look at how much people appreciate that movie now! I am sure the same will happen with LTK in years to come?
  • MajorDSmytheMajorDSmythe "I tolerate this century, but I don't enjoy it."Moderator
    Posts: 13,978
    RogueAgent wrote:
    I agree Major, OHMSS got a panning but look at how much people appreciate that movie now! I am sure the same will happen with LTK in years to come?

    I think it's already started with with both Dalton films. In my experience, there is a more positive reception to them now, than there has ever been. I'm not saying that they are on the same level of appreciation and the Connery or Moore films, but the tide has turned for the Dalton era.
  • Posts: 7,507
    @SaintMark:

    And what was your point, exactly?

    Yes, we know LTK flopped in America... and then what...?
  • Posts: 7,653
    jobo wrote:
    @SaintMark:

    And what was your point, exactly?

    Yes, we know LTK flopped in America... and then what...?

    Today, some fans like to blame MGM’s marketing campaign or other major summer 1989 movies such as Batman or Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. But Licence came out weeks after either of those blockbusters. In the end, the U.S. audience didn’t care for Licence. The movie’s total U.S. box office of $34.7 million didn’t match Batman’s U.S. opening weekend of $40.5 million. Licence’s U.S. box office was almost a third less than its 007 predecessor, The Living Daylights.

    While LTK was well liked in the rest of the world, at that time the US did not and their BO still counted for something in those days and would have been responsible for TD not getting a 3rd one had the juridical problems not halted the further production.

    The other movies were not responsible for the bad BO of LTK as illustrated by the total BO of LTK vs the opening weekend in the US.

    I think Daltons 007 was a gamble that did not work even if the effort and idea might be good. Dalton was still competing with Rogers long and massive shadow over the franchise and he was just not the man to do the job. It took a Brosnan and then Craig to allow the direction LTK chose.

    While Dalton is a capable actor it takes a lot to carry the cloak of 007 and diminishing BO and following Roger Moore to succeed. I am not even sure if Brosnan could have pulled off a LTK and be accepted even if he is closer to Moore than Dalton.

    For me Daltons effort was a vaillant one and while EON might be faithfull NO movie studio would have footed the bill with another Dalton. And had CR failed we would have had our 5th Brosnan.

    While some folks might consider Dalton brilliant it is the masses that want to be entertained that decide if any actor gets to keep his job, money talks at the end of the day.

  • NicNacNicNac Administrator, Moderator
    Posts: 7,582
    I agree with all of that @SaintMark. Bond was losing its appeal through the 80s, slowly but surely. It really did need a break, which was enforced due to legal issues rather than the producers seeing sense. But thank goodness it happened. These days the 3 or 4 year breaks are normal - but just as important.

    I don't think Dalton had the appeal to make it in the US market and LTK was the wrong film at the wrong time.

    I agree about Brosnan to a point. Had he come in for LTK it would have been successful in the USA simply because he was a popular actor there and curiosity would bring in the punters, but would the relentless 2 year rota have worn thin by 1991 or 1993, even with Brozzer in the role? Maybe.

    A long break, a rethink, a bit of tinkering, and away you go.
  • Posts: 11,189
    I saw an advert yesterday for Penny Dreadful on Sky Atlantic.

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