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Given MGW's recent comment that EON will give P & W a ring when things are starting to happen with Bond 26, I guess they will be involved in the next film. How good or bad that is might depend on whether P & W will write a script that others then take over and improve, as was the case with CR and QOS, or if someone else will do the early drafts and then P & W will do the re-writes like they did with SF and SP. I prefer CR and QOS to SF and SP, so I hope it's the former.
Nothing messy about it in my book. One of the best second halves lately.
Agreed.
I think TWINE had a very solid basis for a Bond adventure, but it was also written by Bruce Feinstein so there was no hope there. I’m glad he’s been banished to video game land.
At the same time, what director wouldn't bring a wishlist to a Bond film? I think we are in the era of the auteur Bond directors...
But I don't mean ticking off a checklist of things to ensure that the formula's in place - I'm thinking of things like Mendes's comment that he wanted to put a snow chase into SP 'because Daniel hasn't had one.' Shoehorning a snow chase into the script because Mendes personally wanted to see it, rather than because it arose naturally from the plot.
Isn't that rather par for the course once the primo original material had been used ? People thought of interesting stunts, and then the producers would put them in once there was an opportune moment for it in a coming film. I think that's fine. I don't think it is rare, either. Were I a producer, I'd have noticed and said, "We are DUE for some snow action !" I also note the films are DUE for some hot, wet, island action !
My thoughts on Purvis and Wade come from another movie in a series...the third one in a 3-film series...You see, P&W keep trying to get out, and they keep pulling them back in !
Leave nobody but the producers (although a change even there might really be an enormous opportunity for the franchise...but extremely unlikely). With this approach, we don't even have to discuss the merits or non-merits of Purvis and Wade and whether Sam Mendes and Cary Fukunaga did a good job. Just start from zero.
I have to believe that the next film will offer new actors in the familiar roles, but behind the scenes, the producers will heavily lean into people that have got them to this point-- P&W being two of the steady hands.
The producers and partners know the strengths and weaknesses of this team, so why would they risk introducing a new Bond actor with new writers who have never written a James Bond film?
Either P&W will be tasked and employed to start writing the outlines and early drafts (to be polished later by script doctors), or,they will be brought in later in the development of an original script. I think it's more likely that they kickstart the writing process, but either way, I have to believe they will have a significant role in the development of Bond 7's first film.
I've always thought the sillier elements of DAD stem from it being what is essentially a loose remake of DAF, which may or may not have been mandated later by producers. The laser satellite involving diamonds, the villain using plastic surgery in his scheme. I dunno, it's fun thinking about an alternative version of the film where perhaps the producers were more willing to lean into the former aspects of the film rather than the latter.
Makes sense. Like I said DAD is a strange film in the sense that it feels like there are these two opposing sides to it - the espionage ideas of double agents and Bond being captured, and the sillier more outlandish elements of invisible cars, Korean Generals being turned into British diamond moguls etc.
I do think Tamahori was the wrong choice of director, and there's little indication from his prior filmography that he was a suitable candidate to helm a Bond film. A different director could have potentially merged the Bondian motifs more effectively with the distinctively grounded elements of the story. That said I suspect it's not entirely his fault and the producers probably do deserve some of the blame for pushing or at least going along with a lot of this. They at least learnt from their mistakes (as, to be fair, I think they are good at doing). Still though, I wonder if early drafts of DAD will ever be made available/we'll ever get an indication of where P&W would have gone.
Despite all that, DAD has aged well, IMO. I now look back on it rather fondly. If LALD was the blaxploitation Bond, FRWL the Hitchcock Bond and LTK the Miami Vice Bond, then DAD is the videogame Bond, a live-action adaptation of something that could have been NightFire. The film is best viewed in a time capsule as a remember-when? for those of us who were actively tweenageing around 2002 in front of their computer or consoles.
I have not only come to terms with DAD's outrageous silliness, I embrace it. Any less of it, and the film would have been stuck between serious spy work and pastiche, without being either. Now, at least, DAD goes loco big time. It knows what it is, and so do we.
And even then, that isn't my biggest issue with the film. The dialogue and everything from Iceland on looking like the production values were gutted get me much more.
Heck, even the concept of the ice palace is pretty neat. I can even live with the idea of adaptive camouflage on the Aston Martin (not the invisibility cloak we got just to clarify). I'm sure it could have been a great film with these elements in another universe.
Probably could have. It’s interesting to think that other big name directors they were talking to. PB even talked to Martin Scorsese about it!
Yeah, I'm also not so forgiving regarding DAD's silliness. It's just a total disappointment that after the first half (roughly starting with the "Vanish" and Iceland) it falls apart. Cuba is great, and I even include Halle Berry's character appearing from the waves like Ursula Andress forty years earlier in that), but after that it's a complete let-down. The ice palace is one of the worst, unbelievable sets ever in a Bond movie, the car chases make no sense (why would anybody in his right mind actively bring rear-wheel drive coupes to Iceland, where everybody else is driving heavy off-road equipment?). And don't get me started on the CGI.
DAD hasn't aged well because there was hardly anything "well" in the first place. A dog turd hasn't aged well just because after twenty years you can step on it without making your shoes stink. (In case anyone wonders, yes, I'm exaggerating a bit to make a point. I may even watch DAD again once I'm really tired of my other movies...but not really actively thinking about it.)
Really? Wow... honestly can't imagine how that would have turned out.
The only alternative director names for DAD that I've read about were Brett Ratner, Stuart Baird, Ang Lee and Stephen Hopkins... all of whom I can imagine giving us exactly the same film we got to some extent. So yeah, I don't know who could have done better as a director...
I think for whatever reason (perhaps because it was the 40th Bond Anniversary at the time) the producers wanted DAD to be a more escapist Bond film, packed with over the top stunts, humour, a villain with a good old fashioned world domination scheme etc. So perhaps the addition of the DAF-esque elements, the need for the ropey CGI during certain sequences and all that were always going to be included, no matter which director. To be honest, this approach would explain why directors like Brett Ratner were considered.
Maybe if DAD had taken a different route during the writing stage we'd have gotten something different, and with that different directors would have been considered. Maybe Campbell would have been approached, or maybe someone like Neil Jordan, or perhaps even Tony Scott. Who knows...
I very much prefer DAD to TND and TWINE.
But it would be interesting to see what it would have been like as originally conceived by Purvis & Wade with the stronger emphasis on Bond searching for the MI6 mole.