Happy New Year From the HMSS Weblog!

To all our readers, we hope you have a great 2013.

And if you’re going out tonight for a New Year’s Eve gathering (like the James Bond Gala in Washington, D.C.), Napoleon Solo reminds everyone to party responsibly.

Skyfall: the billion-dollar Bond

The billion-dollar Bond

Skyfall, the 23rd James Bond film, is projected to reach $1 billion in worldwide ticket sales today, according to the BOX OFFICE MOJO WEB SITE.

Skyfall will sell an estimated $4.6 million in the U.S. and Canada this weekend, bringing its total in the region to $289.6 million. The 007 film has sold an estimated $710.6 million in other markets, according to the Web site which tracks movie ticket sales. The full estimated worldwide ticket sale figure as of today is $1,000,200,000, Box Office Mojo said. The actual U.S. weekend figure will be reported tomorrow. It’s possible if the actual weekend sales are revised lower that Skyfall would momentarily fall short of $1 billion.

Hitting the $1 billion mark puts Skyfall in the conversation for all-time 007 box-office champion even when adjusting for inflation. Thunderball has been No. 1 on the inflation-adjusted list, with amounts varying based on who is doing the calculations. Earlier this year, AFP-Relaxnews put Thunderball’s inflation-adjusted figure at $1.04 billion. Skyfall has yet to open in China, which will add to the movie’s take.

In the U.S., Skyfall is finishing 2012 as the No. 4 film, behind Marvel’s The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises and The Hunger Games. Skyfall also looks likely to beat The Dark Knight Rises, at $1.08 billion, in worldwide ticket sales. Marvel’s The Avengers is No. 1 worldwide for 2012 at $1.5 billion.

UPDATE: A story in THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER has some quotes from MGM and Sony executives about Skyfall reaching the $1 billion milestone.

Skyfall’s Oscar campaign and its quirks

Skyfall’s Oscar campaign puts forth Daniel Craig “for your consideration” to Oscar voters.

Sony Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer definitely are pressing to secure Oscar nominations for Skyfall, the 23rd James Bond movie. The studios are buying ads on entertainment news sites such as Deadline Hollywood, with rotating banner ads listing possible Oscar-worthy performers and crew “for your consideration.”

Perhaps the most detailed list in the Skyfall Oscar campaign is a list of suggested nominees on THE FILM’S OFFICIAL WEB SITE. It urges that Skyfall be considered for:

Best Picture (Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli; producers receive the Best Picture Oscar)

Best Director (Sam Mendes)

Best Adapted Screenplay (emphasis added, which we’ll discuss in a moment, Neal Purvis & Robert Wade and John Logan)

Best Actor (Daniel Craig); Best Supporting Actor (Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw and Albert Finney); Best Supporting Actress (Judi Dench, Berenice Marlohe and Naomie Harris)

Various crew categories including cinematography (Roger Deakins), editing (Stuart Baird), original score (Thomas Newman) and song (Adele and Paul Epworth).

A few questions:

Adapted screenplay? Adapted from what? The on-screen credit reads, “Written by Neal Purvis & Robert Wade and John Logan.” Generally, you use “written by” for an original screenplay, i.e. one not based on an existing novel, play, short story, etc.

It’s pretty well known that the writing crew took parts of Ian Fleming’s You Only Live Twice and The Man With the Golden Gun novels as a starting point, in particular Twice’s Chapter 21, an obituary of Bond written by M. But the movie’s credits don’t acknowledge this. It’s “Daniel Craig as Ian Fleming’s James Bond 007” in the main titles, but there’s no mention of other Fleming source material, unlike 2006’s Casino Royale, which mentioned Fleming twice, including the Casino Royale novel.

In the “old days,” the titles said “Ian Fleming’s From Russia With Love,” or Goldfinger, Thunderball, etc. which implied it was based on a Fleming story. That was true even when chunks were thrown out, such as 1967’s You Only Live Twice or 1979’s Moonraker. This would be followed by a “Screenplay by” credit, which often implies adapting other source material.

“Screenplay by” can also be used for an original story that has been rewritten substantially such as “Screenplay by Neal Purvis & Robert Wade and Bruce Feirstein, Story by Neal Purvis & Robert Wade,” as in 1999’s The World Is Not Enough. Purvis and Wade did the original screenplay, with Feirstein doing the final rewrite. (Dana Stevens also did drafts in-between but didn’t get a credit.)

Something similar happened with Skyfall: Purvis and Wade wrote the early drafts, then Logan was brought in to rewrite. But Skyfall’s writing credit is relatively streamlined compared with TWINE’s.

UPDATE: We went to the Web site of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and the SPECIAL RULES FOR THE WRITING AWARDS but that wasn’t much help. It reads:

1.An award shall be given for the best achievement in each of two categories:

Adapted Screenplay

Original Screenplay

2.A Reminder List of all pictures eligible in each category shall be made available along with nominations ballots to all members of the Writers Branch, who shall vote in the order of their preference for not more than five productions in each category.
3.The five productions in each category receiving the highest number of votes shall become the nominations for final voting for the Writing awards.
4.Final voting for the Writing awards shall be restricted to active and life Academy members.

One possibility: even though Skyfall has an original story, the character of James Bond is adapted from another medium, so therefore Skyfall’s script is considered “adapted” by the academy.

UPDATE II: The writer’s branch of the academy is also known for being prickly about what’s eligible for an original screenplay award, sometimes ruling what seem like original scripts are adapted. CLICK HERE to view a story in The Wrap Web site about a 2010 example.

Berenice Marlohe or Berenice Lim Marlohe? The Oscar push again highlights the oddity of how the actress was billed one way in ads and another in the movie’s titles.

One editor or two? As we’ve noted before, Stuart Baird was listed as sole editor in Skyfall ads, but in the main titles it listed Baird and Kate Baird as editors, with Kate Baird’s name in smaller letters. Also (which we only caught on a subsequent viewing), Kate Baird is also listed as first assistant editor in the end titles.

45th anniversary of the end of U.N.C.L.E. (and ’60s spymania)

The symbolism of a 1965 TV Guide ad for The Man From U.N.C.L.E. came true little more than two years later. (Picture from the For Your Eyes Only Web site)

Jan. 15 marks the 45th anniversary of the end of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. It was also the beginning of the end for 1960s spymania.

Ratings for U.N.C.L.E. faltered badly in the fall of 1967, where it aired on Monday nights. It was up against Gunsmoke on CBS — a show that itself had been canceled briefly during the spring of ’67 but got a reprieve thanks to CBS chief William Paley. Instead of oblivion, Gunsmoke was moved from Saturday to Monday.

Earlier, Norman Felton, U.N.C.L.E.’s executive producer, decided some retooling was in order for the show’s fourth season. He brought in Anthony Spinner, who often wrote for Quinn Martin-produced shows, as producer.

Spinner had also written a first-season U.N.C.L.E. episode and summoned a couple of first-season writers, Jack Turley and Robert E. Thompson, to do some scripts. Also in the fold was Dean Hargrove, who supplied two first-season scripts but had his biggest impact in the second, when U.N.C.L.E. had its best ratings. Hargrove was off doing other things during the third season, although he did one of the best scripts for The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. during 1966-67.

Hargrove, however, quickly learned the Spinner-produced U.N.C.L.E. was different. In a 2007 interview on the U.N.C.L.E. DVD set, Hargrove said Spinner was of “the Quinn Martin school of melodrama.” Spinner wanted a more serious take on the show compared with the previous season, which included a dancing ape. Hargrove, adept at weaving (relatively subtle) humor into his stories, chafed under Spinner. The producer instructed his writers that U.N.C.L.E. should be closer to James Bond than Get Smart.

The more serious take also extended to the show’s music, as documented in liner notes by journalist Jon Burlingame for U.N.C.L.E. soundstracks released between 2004 and 2007 and the FOR YOUR EYES ONLY U.N.C.L.E. TIMELINE.

Matt Dillon (James Arness), right, and sidekick Festus (Ken Curtis) got new life at U.N.C.L.E.’s expense.

Gerald Fried, the show’s most frequent composer, had a score rejected. Also jettisoned was a new Fried arrangement of Jerry Goldsmith’s theme music. A more serious-sounding one was arranged by Robert Armbruster, the music director of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Most of the fourth season’s scores would be composed by Richard Shores. Fried did one fourth-season score, which sounded similar to the more serious style of Shores.

Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin, however, weren’t a match for a resurgent Matt Dillon on CBS. NBC canceled U.N.C.L.E. A final two-part story, The Seven Wonders of the World Affair, aired Jan. 8 and 15, 1968..

U.N.C.L.E. wouldn’t be the first spy casualty. NBC canceled I Spy, with its last new episode appearing April 15, 1968. Within 18 months of U.N.C.L.E.’s demise, The Wild, Wild West was canceled by CBS (its final new episode aired aired April 4, 1969 although CBS did show fourth-season reruns in the summer of 1970) and the last episode of The Avengers was produced, appearing in the U.S. on April 21, 1969. NBC also canceled Get Smart after the 1968-69 season but CBS picked up the spy comedy for 1969-70. Mission: Impossible managed to stay on CBS until 1973 but abandoned spy storylines its last two seasons as the IMF opposed “the Syndicate.”

Nor were spy movies exempt. Dean Martin’s last Matt Helm movie, The Wrecking Crew, debuted in U.S. theaters in late 1968. Despite a promise in the end titles that Helm would be back in The Ravagers, the film series was done. Even the James Bond series, the engine of the ’60s spy craze, was having a crisis in early 1968. Star Sean Connery was gone and producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman pondered their next move. James Bond would return but things weren’t quite the same.

Gerry Anderson, master of Supermarionation, dies

Gerry Anderson (1929-2012)

Gerry Anderson, the master of the Supermarionation universe of puppets and elaborate miniature flying (or submerged) vehicles, died Dec. 26 at the age of 83. His Supermarionation programs as well as some of his live-action television shows crossed paths from time to time with James Bond.

Anderson’s children programs were produced in the U.K. and found their way to the U.S., often syndicated to local television stations. The specific situations varied but the likes of Supercar, Fireball XL-5, Stingray and Thunderbirds, among others, featured heroic characters with unusual names such as Mike Mercury, Steve Zodiac and Troy Tempest do battle with menaces of all kinds, whether they be on the surface of the Earth, under the oceans of Earth or in outer space.

One of Anderson’s frequent collaborators was Derek Meddings, who provided the miniatures that were an important part of the Anderson shows, which frequently found their way into toy stores. When Meddings did the elaborate miniatures for 1977’s The Spy Who Loved Me and 1979’s Moonraker, Meddings was an old hand at providing an elaborate product on a budget.

Anderson used actors with ties to the 007 film series to voice characters, including Lois Maxwell on Stringray (as Atlanta Shore, who pined for hero Troy Tempest, not unlike her Moneypenny role in the Bond films) and Shane Rimmer as one of the intrepid Tracy family that ran and operation International Rescue on Thunderbirds.

What’s more, Anderson’s live action syndication UFO series starred Ed Bishop, who, like Rimmer, had small roles in You Only Live Twice and Diamonds Are Forever. UFO, while a science fiction show, had a touch of 1960s TV spy programs. It featured an organization called SHADO, whose mission was to combat invading hostile aliens. SHADO’s secret headquarters was underneath a movie studio. The SHADO logo evoked the logo of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

Anderson also had a personal experience with the Bond films. This is how Anderson told the story in a 2009 interview with the DEN OF GEEK Web site:

Could I ask you about your ‘lost’ version of Moonraker, which you lost through no fault of your own when Saltzman split with Broccoli? What was your vision for that film compared to what hit the screen in 1979?

I never got to actually having a vision! What happened was that Harry Saltzman phoned me and said ‘Can you pop in? I’d like to see you’. I went in and he said ‘Gerry, I want you to produce the next Bond picture, Moonraker – here’s the book’. I nearly took off and went into orbit [laughs]! I just thought it was a marvellous, marvellous break.

I read the book, which frankly wasn’t very exciting, and terribly out-of-date, as one would expect. I was initially trying to cement the deal, and at that time I would have put my thoughts together. What happened was that Tony Barwick – the late Tony Barwick, one of my favourite writers – and myself had written a synopsis. Harry had seen the synopsis and that was the reason he called me – he was fired by it.

But a few weeks went by and then…just the worst bit of luck in my life, I think! It was announced that Harry Saltzman was parting company with Cubby Broccoli. And so the thing went down the tubes.

According to ANDERSON’s BIOGRAPHY on Wikipedia.org, the Supermarionation producer started a Moonraker lawsuit but settled for 3,000 British pounds.

To read more about Anderson, you can view his obituaries ON THE BBC’S WEB SITE and at THE DAILY MIRROR’S WEB SITE. Also, you can view THE ASSOCIATED PRESS’S OBIT VIA THE HUFFINGTON POST.

UPDATE (Dec. 28). The Spy Vibe blog has a Gerry Anderson article that includes details about an episode of Thunderbirds very much inspired by 007. To read it, CLICK HERE.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from HMSS!

Our annual holiday greeting:

Skyfall approaches $975 million in worldwide ticket sales

Skyfall, the 23rd James Bond movie is almost at the $975 million mark in worldwide ticket sales after an estimated $4.7 million in U.S.-Canada weekend ticket sales.

Skyfall, which came out in the U.S. during the Nov. 9-11 weekend, finished No. 8 in U.S.-Canada ticket sales this weekend, according to the Box Office Mojo Web site. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was No. 1 at $36.7 million. Skyfall’s U.S. ticket sales now total an estimated $279.9 million with worldwide sales at $974.3 million.

Interestingly, Skyfall, during its second weekend, scored higher U.S. ticket sales comapred with The Hobbit did. Skyfall had $41.1 million for the Nov. 16-18 weekend. Skyfall’s U.S. opening weekend also had higher ticket sales than The Hobbit’s first U.S. weekend.

Skyfall weeks ago became the No. 1 007 film in both U.S.-Canada and worldwide ticket sales. The movie may end up with higher U.S. ticket sales that The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 (No. 10 for the weekend and $281.6 million total).

Adjusted for inflation, Skyfall has passed Goldfinger for No. 2 ($936 million, according to AFP-Relaxnews). Skyfall is close to passing Thunderball at an inflation-adjsuted $1.04 billion. Skyfall will open in China early next year.

New 007 magazine out; Fleming manuscript auctioned

Two items of note that crossed our desk about the same time:

Ian Fleming

Graham Rye’s 007 Magazine HAS A NEW ISSUE OUT, DEVOTED TO SKYFALL.

Among the offerings: A feature article on actress Berenice Marlohe, who plays the doomed Severine in the 23rd James Bond film; a separate story about how Marlohe was cast in the movie; and a story about Heineken’s tie-in ad campaign.

The price is 9.99 British pounds, 11.99 euros or $15.99. You can CLICK HERE for more information.

John Cox’s The Book Bond blog reports that A MANUSCRIPT OF IAN FLEMING’S DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER NOVEL has sold for 97,250 British pounds or $158,000. An excerpt:

The manuscript had been owned by Fleming’s typist, Ulrica Knowles, and had remained in her family until 2008. According to the auction, among the many revisions in the manuscript is the fact that the book’s hoodlum “Dolly” Kidd is called “Boofy” Gore throughout (the name was changed following the objection of Fleming’s former schoolfriend from whom the name was taken).

You can read the entire article by CLICKING HERE. Thanks to Bond collector Gary Firuta for bringing this to our attention.

Could Skyfall generate 007 `slash’?

Ben Whishaw and Daniel Craig in a Skyfall publicity still.

Skyfall, besides having the highest ticket sales in the history of the 007 series, may generate something else: James Bond “slash.”

Slash is DEFINED BY WIKIPEDIA.ORG as a “genre of fan fiction that focuses on the depiction of interpersonal attraction and/or sexual relationships between fictional characters of the same sex.” According to the online encyclopedia: “It is commonly believed that current slash fanfiction originated within the Star Trek: The Original Series fan fiction fandom, with “Kirk/Spock” stories – generally authored by female fans of the series – first appearing in the late 1970s.”

Slash can also show up as illustrations or music videos utilizing re-edited clips of a television series. Besides Star Trek, other old television series, including The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and The Wild, Wild West as well as non-spy shows such as Starsky and Hutch have inspired slash.

Until now, 007 hasn’t been known for slash. Bond has been a lone wolf. It’s not like Star Trek where you had two characters of equal stature as in the television series that inspired slash.

But that may be changing with Skyfall’s introduction of a young Q, played by Ben Whishaw, opposite Daniel Craig’s Bond. Some slash-themed illustrations are showing up on Internet art sites. depicting Bond and Q as more than just friends. You can CLICK HERE to see a sampling of slash and non-slash Bond-Q illustrations on the Deviant Art Web site. The slash illustrations aren’t explicit but could be considered to have a mature theme.

The movie itself included a scene with a scene which, for some, raised the question whether 007 had a bisexual past when Bond meets Silva (Javier Bardem), the film’s villain for the first time. CLICK HERE to view a Nov. 6 Hollywood Reporter story that references that angle, which includes comments from John Logan, one of Skyfall’s screenwriters.

Fans of shows that have slash stories and art have been known to debate the subject. Sometimes, the arguments can get pretty heated. It remains to be seen whether there will be a slash component to Bond fandom aside from the occasional Internet illustration.

To Istanbul With Love

“Are there any seats left for this Istanbul jaunt?”

Theme Party People, a group that sets up trips where James Bond movies (“among certain other things”) have been filmed has set up a trip FOR INSTANBUL AND OTHER LOCATIONS IN 2013. Here’s an excerpt from a Web site promotion:

Join us in celebrating the Ultimate Secret Agent Vacation, exploring 5 countries with exclusive guided tours of spy film locations from SKYFALL, THE BOURNE IDENTITY,CASINO ROYALE, THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH, FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, MOONRAKER, THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS, INDIANA JONES & THE LAST CRUSADE, THE PINK PANTHER, XXX, MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, GI JOE:RISE OF COBRA,THE THIRD MAN and more… a very private, small group adventure, if you love films, travel and the company of film fans, this is your trip…

Theme Party People presents OPERATION:EURO2013 “The Istanbul Venetian Affair”, a 10 day once-in-a lifetime journey experiencing the intrigue and glamor from the Bond, Bourne & Mission Impossible films and other spy classics with overnight stays in such fabled and romantically exotic cities as Istanbul, Vienna, Prague, Karlovy Vary, Munich and Venice. Theme Party People continues their reputation of ultra-luxury Tours, World Class hotels, cuisine and cocktails with personal and intimate guided tours by cinema and historical experts in each city.

According to the organizers, places are selling out fast. So, if you’re interested, E-MAIL TO THIS ADDRESS: themepartypeople@themepartypeople.com and you may be able to book a spot.

Istanbul was a location in 2012’s Skyfall, 1963’s From Russia With Love and 1999’s The World Is Not Enough. Venice was a location for From Russia With Love and 1979’s Moonraker. The Living Daylights had scenes filmed in Vienna.