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EON Blew it
We all love the Bond franchise but there have been times over the past half century when EON really effed up. Here are a few examples:
1. The decision to make DAF a silly campy film rather than a revenge film more like the book YOLT following the events in OHMSS
2. squeezing one more out of Moore, AVTAK he should have gone after OP and left on a positive note.
3. Allowing Dalton to slip away and not star in GE
4. DAD
5. The energy crises plot of TMWTGG, they should have stuck with the Scaramanga v. Bond storyline, keep it simple stupid!
6. The convoluted subplots of QoS. they should have stuck with Quantum and made Mr. White the principal bad guy and done some closure with the loose ends from CR
7. The decision to resort to "stunt casting" of popular leading ladies with TND onwards. DAD got a lot of milage out of casting Halle Berry but WTF the movie would have still make a crap load of money without her bad as the film was.
1. The decision to make DAF a silly campy film rather than a revenge film more like the book YOLT following the events in OHMSS
2. squeezing one more out of Moore, AVTAK he should have gone after OP and left on a positive note.
3. Allowing Dalton to slip away and not star in GE
4. DAD
5. The energy crises plot of TMWTGG, they should have stuck with the Scaramanga v. Bond storyline, keep it simple stupid!
6. The convoluted subplots of QoS. they should have stuck with Quantum and made Mr. White the principal bad guy and done some closure with the loose ends from CR
7. The decision to resort to "stunt casting" of popular leading ladies with TND onwards. DAD got a lot of milage out of casting Halle Berry but WTF the movie would have still make a crap load of money without her bad as the film was.
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Comments
I'd have given Dalton AVTAK and two more films in the 90s. I think GE is great the way it is and I wouldn't want to take Brosnans best film away from him.
This will be controversial but I think they messed up by making CR a reboot/origin story. It's just pointless.
The problem is they couldn't have kept it going the traditional way after Die Another Day. They had reached the extreme of what it was, a needed a new angle on the character. Using the same plot formula for 20 films is risky, and you do need to change more than the actor eventually. It would have satisfied most of us fans to keep going, sure, but not the average population, which is where money is made. They had to make a decision with other franchises taking over.
The only time I think they messed up were when they tried to pressure humor onto Dalton. It just usually didn't work, especially the ninjas in LTK. Why the hell are they in there.
DAF changed because OHMSS wasn't the success it should have been.
Moore was still popular, so they kept him for AVTAK.
I'm pretty sure Dalton decided not to come back.
Die Another Day I'll admit was a producer problem.
QoS could of worked as it was having a writer on hand and a better director.
I don't think the reboot was a big reason for CRs succes, and I think they could've done the film virtually unchanged without the rookie angle. Make the Madagascar stuff the PTS and remove any mention of him being promoted.
Q missed LALD, so he could've missed this one. Moneypenny could've had some time out too, then they can come back for QOS.
I just think the origin story was pointless because they've just reintroduced everything anyway, why bother getting rid of it?
Agree with all your points except:
3. The public didnt want another Dalton film and whatever you think about Brozza he delivered a big hit which I'm not sure TD would have done. LTK, then a 6 year gap then another lacklustre result at the box office and the series might have been in serious trouble. Although Dalton is a great Fleming Bond the public want film Bond and never really liked him.
6. Lets always remember in CR Mr White is just a lackey. Please can people stop elevating him above his station like hes Blofeld. Hes barely even middle management in Quantum. Hes the bloke they send into the jungle to set up deals with warlords or take out untrustworthy employees. Although he might seem intelligent hes much more brawn than brains within Quantum (that said hes got a pretty decent house for just being hired help - who says crime doesnt pay?)
Jusef should have been the main bad guy and much more made of him rather than just a tagged on scene at the end.
Why bother making Bond films? We all know he's going to win by the end of the film. The point of starting from scratch and reintroducing certain characters is so that a fresh take on the series can be established, particularly from a tonal perspective. Wether one agrees or disagrees with the reboot is kind of irrelevant as, one, it's proven to be the most successful thing EoN have done in decades and two, the reintroduction of all the characters have had a significant overhaul, which is precisely what EoN were going for.
I think we forget the six year legal battle is what killed Dalton's tenure. Yes, LTK underperformed in the USA but did great everywhere else. He would have stayed on as Bond for '91 and '93 had there been no legal case.
Moore's second Bond took half the box office of LALD which caused speculation that his days were numbered. But EON smartly came back bolder and the rest is history.
They were going to change the approach for Dalton's third film and he even said he wanted it to be more traditional.
He himself just said recently he was asked to stay on for GE, but did not want another 3 film contract making his tenure end in 1999.
Dalton would not have hung on until '94 unless there was a good prospect of them wanting him as Bond. He was close to Cubby and had Cubby wanted him to quit, he would have done it after LTK.
The Dalton backlash came after Brosnan arrived. Just like Brosnan was popular until fans changed their tune to Craig's style.
I think GE would have done great anyway after 6 years of no Bond.
Fair points. Perhaps if EON had pulled out the stops a la TSWLM then Dalton would have been accepted by the public and delivered similar box office to Brozza. We will never know.
And I suppose LTK was up against probably the strongest competition ever so never stood a chance and we should remember this. GE had a Oct/Nov slot all to itself so had Dalton GE had this slot theres no reason to expect it wouldnt have done good business. LTKs numbers worldwide were fine so without the stiff competition it would have done fine domestically as well so probably there wasnt really a need for change of actor if Dalton had wanted to go on.
Thanks for the reasonableness @TheWizard Indeed, EON and MGM learned that it was foolish to put a Bond out at the same time that the biggest movie ever at the time Batman opened. And for good measure, they underestimated the legendary pull of Indiana Jones. Duh!
The studio management at the time of LTK were according to Cubby's book mostly accountants who knew little of marketing. Imagine the fools who refused the Bob Peak artwork which was to me the best poster since Apocalypse Now also drawn by him.
I think Brosnan owes a thank you to Dalton who by relinquishing the role gave him the chance to do Bond. Because had Dalton signed on for three more in '94 then Brosnan would have lost out.
And like you noticed too, no Bond since LTK has had a summer release like many Bonds had before. The industry changed and so did the competition.
Imagine if SF was released the same time as The Hobbit and Twilight. Goodbye to the billion dollar box office for sure!:)
2. I hate to say it.....but.......Mr Lazenby
3. Jaws in love
4.doubletaking pigeons
5. Sherriff Pepper in Bangkok
6. Eric Serra
7. Mr Apteds wives scriptwriting abilities
8. directing Jonathan Pryce to ham it up.
9. The patron loon of New Zealand.........Mr Tamahori
10. Mad Donna
QOS isn't as bad as some make it out to be, but as a follow up to CR, EON blew it big time.
Also he mentioned something I disagree with ... that bond does not need to be played by a good actor! Timmy Dalton and Danny Craig are both good actors and arguably played the best bonds in their respective films.
Amy Winehouse canned herself. She was more interested in smack then turning in a decent tune.
I both agree and disagree.
I disagree in that CR's story pretty much dictates that it be Bond's first mission. The impact of Vesper's betrayal and death would not work as well after all the betrayals and deaths in the previous twenty missions. A seasoned Bond would look dumb for falling for it while a rookie Bond does not. (Plus, Craig really sells the betrayal and hurt--this is why this story demanded a strong actor.)
I agree that in reintroducing all of the office characters they've kind of made the reboot pointless, except for the opportunity to do CR properly. I thought the series felt fresher without the obligatory Q and Moneypenny scenes in CR and QoS. It would have been near-impossible to do the reboot without an M, although FYEO does an underrated job of it--because the Minister of Defense had already been established so vividly in TSWLM.
He said you don't need to be a good actor to play Bond? That's strange, because he said LTK was the best film he made. Far superior in my opinion to FYEO. A personality like Roger was does not cut it in this day and age.
I read his book and he also said LTK had a tiny promotional campaign as well. And what about it's poorly judged release schedule amid Batman and Indiana. That was idiocy on the part of the studio.
In fact LTK did well in the UK despite the higher rating. It certainly got people talking to this day about it's violence.
Did he say anything else that was interesting?
As we all know, Bond films have since been released in the fall.
EON learned from this hard lesson.
Unfortunately the USA isn't the best place to underperform if you are going to do so.
I genuinely get the feeling that the perception of how popular an actor is as Bond comes partly from how they are received in the US. Sadly Dalton just wasn't popular with the Yanks and, given how big the place is, thats a massive audience.
True MWTGG underperformed there too but at least Moore had shown he was well liked across the pond via The Saint/Persuaders. I just don't get the sense the Americans ever really took to Tim. Maybe its because they wanted Brosnan, maybe not. We don't know for sure.
But I'm not sure a third Dalton film would have changed that.
Indeed. That is why I was surprised why John Glen said it was because of the violence giving it a higher classification.
The higher classification ultimately means less people go and see it.
The Persuaders was never a hit in the US, everywhere else in the world except there.
But The Saint was wasn't it? I remember reading in Moore's autobiography that Frank Sanatra once said to Rog that he was a fan.
It was bad marketing. I remember American magazines and press giving Dalton good write ups. I really think the marketing was screwed and the studio was a ship going into financial sh*t creek. No one on the inside cared enough.
A third Dalton would have turned around. Brosnan's GE had a mega marketing push and the ad campaign was expensive. They sure hyped it very well and got the curiosity set in. LTK was the sh*ttest promotion in the franchise's history. I was a Dalton fan and did not hear much about the film until weeks after release. That says it all.
I remember many at the time saying Dalton was a return to the toughness of Connery and glad the Moore goofiness was a thing of the past. Piers Morgan I believe called Dalton the best Bond ever at the time.
If Moore was so famous in the USA, then the massive drop in box office there for TMWTGG also would point to not being liked. But his third film proved it untrue.
TMTGG came out at a time when there was serious tension within EON as in Cubby and Harry coming to the end of the road.
They actually started pre-production on his third in '90 and then suddenly a legal case meant everything had to cease. Cubby's book says that they had no choice but to fight over the rights of who owned Bond and a lot of issues were at stake.
As for audiences, no offence but most people follow what the mainstream media tells them to like. That is the way it is and always has been. If the mainstream media continued saying Craig was bad, then many would follow it. People are weak and not always the brightest creatures.
The Saint was huge in Europe more than the USA. The Persuaders was the big USA hit.
I've heard Americans on here and on other forums saying they were in the minority for liking Dalton at the time.
If you read the previous posts I put on this thread it will help me not cover old ground.
For your information are you aware that LTK scored the highest marks of any Bond in history with American test audiences. And it partially made the studio complacent thinking it would do well with little push.
I keep saying that the third film would have changed that. Also Craig benefitted from a 4 year gap from Brosnan. Had Craig taken over in 2003 for a 2004 release then he would have been the most hated Bond. There would have been protests as Pierce was supremely liked in the role.
Why? Because it was the American audiences who loved Brosnan hailing him as the best or as good as Connery. Wow, they changed their minds.
Dalton had a mountain to climb after 12 years of Moore's style and people needed more time to get used to him. Cubby knew that and plans were put in place. Cubby knew that LTK was for the time too hard and heavy.
You can't just remove the reboot aspect. It IS the film. And it is part of what makes it the best in the franchise.
Yeah, I remember people saying it was a good thing the films were not spoofy. I do not remember a Dalton backlash as Bond any more than I see a backlash against Craig. I mean when they were playing Bond at the time. That is not to say that neither had their detractors, because people will always have their favourites.