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Lazenby's might be this.
As the caption says - this was in 1983, meaning you had three different actors as Bond in the same year.
I think Brosnan did say GE was his favourite on the Esquire watchalong, yes.
I recall in the EON doc that the other three “blurred” for him, except the parasailing, which made him give a roaring laugh over how ridiculous that was.
I have a feeling CR will be his favourite too.
I remember him saying that it was a blur, he'd basically worked straight through 97 to 00 on multiple films incuding Bond. They said something regarding this around Die Another Day citing that the three year gap between films was due to everyone feeling a little tired.
I imagine working on action films as a lead actor can involve a lot of stuff where you're not hugely involved with the plot too.
I think he got TND and TWINE mixed up more than a couple of times. To echo others, I think the main things that stick out for Brosnan in his tenure were GoldenEye, and parasailing.
TWINE for me is strictly a 'blue' film. The PTS, the X Ray glasses, L'Or Noir Salon Privee, Renard's outfit at the end.
I think that's reading a bit much into it. I think they just disappointed themselves with how DAD turned out and decided to take it somewhere else, the box office and reviews rather proved them right on that.
The BO was good and it was only a loud minority who cried, there was nothing in PB's performance as 007 and his BO intakes that warranted a different course with a new 007. Which makes you wonder why they decided to drop a popular actor in favor of a new one. I have never seen an answer that was without any finger-pointing, mostly done by Craig fans and the anti-Brosnan crew.
Looking back they made a good choice but that is always easy to say when you know where we are at right now. I still think Brosnan warranted a fifth outing.
It was a decent BO but they made way more money, and I believe a much greater percentage profit, with CR. So they decided to do it because they thought it would work, I don't think it requires much more explanation than that, does it?
That DAD had such a decent BO just shows what a ballsy move it was. They saw how the wind was blowing and changed course before they went the wrong way, that's strong.
Which they did not know before it happened, so it feels a bit of a retconning to fit it in the view that Craig was a good choice. I have never heard a decent explanation besides we wanted to go a different direction and do not see Brosnan doing so, which based upon the BO's was certainly a financial risk when they decided this.
Hadn't they just acquired the rights to CR novel. In which case they probably feel that Brosnan was the wrong choice for the role at that point. Yes, he could probably have done a version of it, but once they had it in their head for it to be Bond's first mission that was that.
Can't remember when they dropped Brosnan for certain, but it's likely that Batman Begins was an influence on their direction, which again meant dropping him.
But that was the plan though. You never know if a plan will definitely work before you carry it out, but you do so in the hope it will work. This one did.
What? I don't understand what you mean here. They chose Craig because they thought he was a good choice. I'm not sure what you're trying to say.
They didn't dump Brosnan because they wanted Craig as far as we know, they dumped him long before they picked Craig and auditioned other guys alongside him. Maybe they had already seen Craig and wanted to make sure of their choice, but as they tested much younger actors and CR is perhaps not actually quite right for Craig's age, I'm not convinced that's true.
It seems their thinking post-2002 was: let's get a new young Bond and do the Bond Begins thing.
Right? What's wrong with that explanation though? That's very much what appears to have happened.
9/11 and the rise of the Bourne franchise also played a role.
I'm sure when they saw Batman Begins doing well they didn't exactly regret where they were heading.
If anything, I bet finding Craig was the biggest fly in the ointment. Because CR is clearly written for a young Bond, probably one who's in his twenties. Craig was in his late thirties so didn't actually suit what they were after, but they obviously decided he was simply too good not to use, so they just put him in the film and ignored the problem.
:)
Yeah, true....but part of me still wanted Brosnan to do a 5th. Maybe EON's plan of going with a new direction & new Bond was an abrupt change of mind that possibly shocked Brosnan. I don't think the thought of rebooting Bond was there during DAD's premiere, the thought might have surfaced when they were thinking about a 5th Brosnan Bond film.
He's the only Bond not to have left by choice (officially, anyway: what happened with Dalton is a little more complicated it seems).
I think it’s more of a combination of factors than just one thing that made them decide not to bring back Brosnan.
1) Brosnan’s contract had been fulfilled (three films with a fourth option), so that put EON on a crossroads. They can continue with the successful actor they have or take a chance of starting over, feeling confident that the franchise was in good shape to move forward without a sure thing like Brosnan.
2) The Bourne franchise was becoming big, a spy series that truly hit the zeitgeist of where we were in that period and proved you can make a very big blockbuster out of a more mature gritty spy film.
And I think the most influential point of them all:
3) Michael G. Wilson had the Bond Begins concept simmering in his mind ever since Cubby turned it down in 1985. When they finally retained the rights to CR in 1999, they consciously decided NOT to make it Brosnan’s fourth film likely because Wilson saw that adaptation as the perfect moment to portray a novice Bond, which meant Brosnan couldn’t work for that. Consider the first two points with this and I think you see EON feeling the time was right to start anew.
I don’t think anyone was at fault for Brosnan’s run not continuing. I’m sure in EON’s minds they saw his run as having had a good run, and felt good about leaving it on a high note, at least in box office terms.
and in reality - there is no other explanation.. people can read into things all they want.. but DAD, despite it's current standing made a lot of money at the BO, and Brosnan was still a very bankable and popular Bond, interest in the series was still strong - it's not as if it was starting to wain.. MGW even said that they easily could've kept going down the same road, put out a 5th film with Brosnan and made a big return - they just felt like it was time to go a different route... and in doing so was a big risk financially
Eon's been doing that since 1973.
well, according to MGW, CR had been a passion project for Cubby since the very beginning - even considering rebooting with CR in in '87 with Dalton, but they couldnt secure the rights so they went ahead with TLD (from what i recall, i could be misremembering that).. i mean, they could've done CR with Brosnan had they wanted to, but they felt since the story centers around Bond's first assignment as a 00 agent, they felt the way to do it right was to start fresh with a new actor... but, there is absolutely no denying they often times are too rabbit eared when it comes to movie trends of the time.. DAD felt like it was modeled after the xXx or the Fast and Furious... CR took it's rebooting cues from Batman Begins... QOS was very much influenced by Bourne... SF, whether intentional or not, took some cues from TDK.
It clearly wasn't 'too much' though because it turned out fantastically well.