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At that time, Bond was supposed to be event, not character study.
You cannot have gone into GE with ZERO expectations, my friend. :))
My pleasure ;)
I loved him growing up and was literally obsessed with GE for many many years. It's still one of my favourites.
Now, having seen some of his pre-Bond films (Taffin, Death Train, Live Wire) I do find myself wondering if I'd have had the same love for him had I been a bit older and known a bit more then about him. I do know a 50 something work colleague though who (back in the 80s and 90s) championed for him - and she is English. He's still her fav Bond even now.
Personally I don't think Brosnan's performance in GE is "dreadful". His performance in Taffin? Now THAT is dreadful. In GE he's at least more restrained and sprightly if a bit uncomfortable.
My point was about Brosnan in the UK where he was less known than Dalton. Everyone was excited about Bond coming back but I don't think anyone really knew anything about Brosnan.
I had high expectations of the film but not knowing anything about Brosnan I didn't really have any view on him. He was a total unknown to me .
Would he have thrived (either financially or critically)? Eventually, yes, because he is Bond and there is always a market for Bond.
However, would he have thrived financially during the troubled EON/MGM 90's as effectively without PB? I'm not sure. Probably not. Due mainly to his pre-ordained & chosen status as has been mentioned before and because he probably was the right Bond for a 'risk free' run.
PB was necessary to keep the boat afloat during that difficult transition time. However, what made his run financially successful also doomed it from a critical standpoint. Once the series was re-established financially, and they began to refocus critically again, a new actor had to be cast.
@bondjames should look up The Daily Mail's review of TWINE.
I do remember the reviews @BAIN123. I remember positive reviews for both TWINE & DAD.
They were wrong imho. Many were wrong. TWINE & DAD were not great (putting it mildly).
As I said before, this is a very US-centric view. Brosnan did not have much of a profile in the UK. Fortunately casting is no longer dictated by the US box office, otherwise Craig would never have got the job.
Actually though, what you can't take away from Brosnan is his commercial success. He made lots of money for EON.
I mostly agree. But I also think Brosnan got helped/didn't get helped.....by a producers duo who were still in the process of fine-tuning the franchise. I think the Barbara & Michael from the 1990's were different from the 2000's/2010's, in that they had to fill the great shoes of their (step)father "Cubby". Because of that they unconsciously created a set of Bond films that were very formularic and devoid of any real creative risks. It was as if "Cubby" was still alive at times.
The result was a working environment that was most suitable for Pierce Brosnan. He accepted that completely. Real creative ideas from his side? I find them hard to find. Brosnan's interviews and press conferences from the 1990's clearly show that. It was as if Brosnan's body language constantly was: "Yeah baby, I love being Bond. I just do what they tell me to do!" And that's it.
After DAD this changed completely. Barbara and Michael set out their own plan. "Cubby" will always be a source of inspiration for them, but from that time onwards it felt more like "Dear Cubby, we're going to do it our way now".
Maybe I sound silly, maybe not. But that's how I feel about it :-). The Brosnan-films combined the best of all previous Bond films and Bond actors, without getting too risky.....creatively. They have that "Cubby"-style, production-wise. Nothing wrong with that.
Well I can say he was popular in France with Remington Steele. And I mean, more popular that Dalton after two Bonds. That's why I think he was a bit doomed, here a lot of people expected that Bond would be Remington Steele:The Movie somehow. With a kind of self-deprecating humour he was very good at, but in the end the Bond team simply didn't want that. Yes Bond was called a dinosaur by M, but Brosnan's Bond did not took the comment with self-deprecating humour at all...
You don't sound silly at all. I had pretty much the same reading of the situation. With the Brosnan Era for the first time since the inception of the series EON was a ship without its Captain. And Michael Wilson and Barbara Brocolli were the first officers who had to step up and not only man the helm but do so after 6 1/2 years of inactivity. That'd be intimidating for anyone. So as a response they stuck to what was familiar and what they knew from their days working with Cubby. By the mid 2000s they had the confidence to do what they wanted following 4 financially successful films and a decade of leading EON. But back in 1994 it wouldn't have suprised me if they were too afraid to stray away from the Bond formula.
It is very interesting to see though. And for me it's good to see how Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli now fully "own" the franchise from a creative point of view.
Quite right. 1962-1989 was Cubby's EON. 2006-Present is Wilson and Barbara Broccoli's EON. The timespan in-between was a strange hybrid. And out of curiosity who do you think was more responsible for the Dalton phase?Cubby or Wilson? Because there are times that LTK doesn't at all resemble Cubby's Bond but if you squint you'll see some precursors to the current era.
The fact that Brozza's Bond felt different throughout all his movies is probably a result from EON/MGM not knowing in which direction they had to take the franchise. After their direction with Dalton (which they started with actually in TLD and was expanded upon in LTK), the audience didn't seem to appreciate the harder and grittier take.
Now GE was originally written with Dalton in mind. I think that Brosnan actually brought something to the part that hinted back towards Connery. Back at the time Brosnan was hailed as the best one since Connery.
That is probably the problem with Brozza: he tried to copy Connery to some degree, whereas most other actors simply had their own take on the part. Now EON is always paying close attention to the reaction of the GP. So when the audience was cheering at the gadgetry, extreme stunts and fantastical elements of GE, EON pushed this for TND. Hence we got a movie packed with these elements. Subsequently since a clear vision was missing, which became increasingly difficult with the loss of Cubby, Pierce was handed scripts which weren't consistent in direction and tone.
Pierce however begged for more sentimental, deeper storylines. We got this in the form of Paris in TND (he literally asked bring in someone from Bond's past) and and the plot with Elektra in TWINE. This brings me to another big difference between Pierce's run and for instance DC's: the supporting cast wasn't always great with Brozza's (except GE).
Finally, but that's probably a matter of opinion, I thought that Brozza's performance actually peaked in TND, with DAD an absolute downer. The latter is probably a consequence of the less serious approach towards the movie. It was more like a birthday party (40th) than a serious production. Given this statement, all Brozza's movies (actually all Bond movies) should have been written with Dalton in mind, or even better: Fleming's Bond.
To give a non-Bond example: the first installment of Pirates of the Caribbean was written with a relatively neutral Jack Sparrow character. Johnny Depp gave his interpretation of a pirate in the movie and that's the crazy "rockstar-pirate" we got. The next movie in the series was written with the Jack Sparrow part the way Johnny had played it and it ab-so-lute-ly didn't work out! The script had to be rewritten entirely to give Jack his creative freedom back.
I think in some way this would have helped Brozza: scripts written with a gritty, edgy Bond in mind so he could have added the charm and suaveness himself.
http://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/movies/ge_production.php3?t=mi6&s=ge
Crtl+f "first draft"
All fair points. Brosnan was a safe (if boring) bet than payed off. Brosnan was a good Bond but his scripts weren't.