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What if Casino Royale had been the first film?
What if Fleming hadn't sold the rights to Climax! TV and had instead sold it along with the rest of the books & material to Broccoli and Saltzman? What it would it have been like? How would they have changed the plot? Who would they have casted as the different roles? Would this have affected the casting of Connery? Would they have felt more obliged to follow the book order and the books' plots? Would Bondamania have taken off and would we be here discussing this?
I must admit I'm not really sure about many of the questions myself. I think it's of paramount importance that they release Goldfinger as soon as possible. That movie launched Bondamania and without it we likely wouldn't be here. That's my main worry, although I'd have loved to see his take on the character.
I've also not read any of the novels, so I'm not entirely sure what parts of the plot they changed for the Craig version. I know they added in most if not all of the first hour, and I know they added the action scene at the end, which would leave the film at less than an hour and a half, which is quite short. Dr. No was something like 1 hour 45 minutes or 1 hour 50 minutes, so they would have probably added some form of introduction like in the 2006 movie.
Any thoughts or comments or concerns on my little ramble?
I must admit I'm not really sure about many of the questions myself. I think it's of paramount importance that they release Goldfinger as soon as possible. That movie launched Bondamania and without it we likely wouldn't be here. That's my main worry, although I'd have loved to see his take on the character.
I've also not read any of the novels, so I'm not entirely sure what parts of the plot they changed for the Craig version. I know they added in most if not all of the first hour, and I know they added the action scene at the end, which would leave the film at less than an hour and a half, which is quite short. Dr. No was something like 1 hour 45 minutes or 1 hour 50 minutes, so they would have probably added some form of introduction like in the 2006 movie.
Any thoughts or comments or concerns on my little ramble?
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Comments
Weren't a good chunk of the Fleming books attempts at movies or TV shows? Thunderball was a screenplay, For Your Eyes Only was a collection of would-be TV episodes, Dr. No was a TV pilot. Moonraker started as a movie idea but I don't think it was ever a screenplay as such.
They would have begun with something more cinema-friendly regardless.
Exactly. In many ways EON only recently acquiring the rights for CR around the start of the new millennium was the best luck they could have hoped for. Thanks to the burning of the Hays code films of our day can feature the kind of heavy content found in Fleming's novel that would have likely been scrapped in the 60s. The ability to include scenes like the torture bit allow a more accurate adaption of Fleming's work to be made.
Very true. But still, the idea of Connery or Dalton in Casino Royale is just great. Lazenby would be in way over his head; Moore would be out of his element, and I actually think Brosnan could do fairly well, but he wouldn't touch the first three in a film like that.
It would have been something, yes. The good news is that Dan gave us a hell of a performance in 06.
I still struggle to even finish the Barry Nelson version....
I think the torture scene would have ended up like Bond being beaten up in DN: nothing too graphic, no beating up of the testicles, maybe Bond would have had his back whipped.
As of how they would have modified the whole of the novel to adapt it to the screen... I am not sure it would have been possible, come to think of it.
Good thinking about the torture. But they did modify it for the 2006 adaptation, adding what amounts to an hour long pretitle sequence and the big action ending.
Actually, about the first hour, I've always felt that it was like two movies stitched together. Still love it, of course, but it really does almost completely break with the debriefing in the Bahamas and the train scene. Whole new set of characters, different goal, everything.
1)The introduction of Bond might have been similar: in London, playing with Sylvia Trench, then bedding her later. Or simply introducing himself to Le Chiffre at the casino table, in the same way.
2)Bond is sent to Royale-les_Eaux to beat Le Chiffre in chemin de fer.
3)Le Chiffre would have been an agent of SPECTRE and not working for the Soviets. His origins would have also been different.
4)The brothels closed down that caused his misfortune would have been changed with something else.
5)The attempts on Bond's life in the novel would have been more numerous and some longer, leading to action scenes similar to the ones of DN.
6)There would have been a showdown at the end, maybe a fist fight of some sort, after Bond gets beaten up the way I described above (much more toned down).
I can't help but thinking it would have been quite similar to DN in terms of plot linearity and changes to the original story. That said, CR would have been much more difficult to adapt in 1962 than DN.
Cant quite see Sean giving as good a performance as Dan Craig though.
Absolutely agree. Dan has given the best performances yet, in my opinion, and has made Bond more than ever a character study worthy of being amongst the most compelling in the history of cinema.
I echo that. Dan has not only made the role his own but with his performances can challange all the others to the crown of being the definitive movie Bond. His performances are most certainly compelling and of the highest quality.
And think if we scored Hitchcock to direct! Now I'm just teasing myself...
Dr No dies from being coverd in Guano and Honey Rider being nude...
CR>FRWL>GF>TB
Yeah it would be, it would've been a better origin movie for Connery than Dr.No
Very interesting thought. We'll definately never know.
I shall have to make some posters of it in the future. :-?
Craig's era probably would have started with both Risico and Property Of A Lady, And then, Skyfall.
Craig's a great actor, and I liked CR and QoS, but i hated the reboot. It seems that Bond had to make it all over again in this whole "new franchise timeline". Feels like he'll be defeating once again all of the villain masterminds of the films, and that's horrid. I expect that Bond 24 makes Bond return to the classic Bond, without any connections with this reboot.
Or even maybe, the whole CR film would be shortened to make CR and QoS together. We'd get something like 2h30min as length.
Still interesting as a what if scenario.
They might hire the same people though as they did for Dr. No but it would just be weird.
Well, we don't know because it never happened. Had CR been the first movie of the series in 1962, we would have been used to it as the first Bond.