Eon’s new normal

Barbara Broccoli

For Eon Productions, which produces James Bond films, the old normal was trying to make a 007 film every other year, maybe every third year.

The new normal: A Bond film maybe every third year (Bond 24, the next movie is scheduled for the fall of 2015), with various other projects in-between.

Examples of the new normal as it applies to non-Bond projects: a new U.K. stage production based on the Alfred Hitchock movie Strangers On a Train and, possibly, a movie based on a Glenn Greenwald book about Edward Snowden.

The latter depends if Sony Corp.’s Sony Pictures wins the bidding for the rights to the Greenwald book according to AN OCT. 11 STORY IN THE NEW YORK TIMES. Other studios are also seeking the rights to the book, according to the Times story. (Broccoli didn’t respond to the newspaper’s requests to comment.)

This follows the stage production of Once, where WHERE EON CO-BOSSES BARBARA BROCCOLI AND MICHAEL G. WILSON were among the producers. The duo have also been interested in a remake of a 1957 horror movie called Curse of the Demon or Night of the Demon depending on where it was released.

When Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman co-founded Eon Productions in 1961, they planned to do non-007 projects. The duo did produce the Bob Hope comedy Call Me Bwana. After that, however, they went their separate ways on non-Bond material. Saltzman produced the Harry Palmer series and other films without Broccoli. Broccoli produced Chitty Chitty Bang Bang without Saltzman.

By the 1970s, Broccoli was concentrating on the Bond series primarily. Saltzman pursued other projects but financial problems forced him to sell off his interest in 1975.

Under the new normal, Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson appear to be following the Saltzman model — exploring stage and film projects beyond the 007 series — more than the Albert R. Broccoli model. Or perhaps they’re going back to the model that Albert Broccoli and Harry Saltzman intended to follow.

In any event, Barbara Broccoli, in a NOVEMBER 2012 INTERVIEW WITH THE LOS ANGELES TIMES signaled not to expect Bond movies to come out as often as they once did.

“Sometimes there are internal pressures from a studio who want you to make it in a certain time frame or for their own benefit…We have to keep the deadlines within our own time limits.”

Fall 1963: Norman Felton casts his Solo

Robert Vaughn as Napoleon Solo

Producer Norman Felton had to make a decision: Who would be cast as Napoleon Solo, the character he co-created with Ian Fleming?

The task may not have been difficult as finding a Solo for a 21st century movie version of the show (finally cast with Henry Cavill). But it wasn’t a slam dunk, either.

According to Jon Heitland’s The Man From U.N.C.L.E. book, Felton for a time considered a friend, Harry Guardino, for the part.

Also in the running was actor Robert Brown, who five years later would briefly be cast as Hawaii Five-O’s Steve McGarrett until the part was re-cast with Jack Lord. Also, according to the Heitland book, Felton decided to offer the role to Robert Culp, but the actor wasn’t available.

Felton ended up going with an actor already in his employ: Robert Vaughn, 30, who was the second lead in The Lieutenant, a drama about U.S. Marine Corps officers. Felton was the show’s executive producer, with Gene Roddenberry as the creator-producer.

“I was looking for someone who would give the character a certain visual sense of sophistication,” Felton told Heitland in an interview for the 1986 book.

Vaughn, in 2007, recalled the deal being done quickly:

Other work on the project proceeded. Sam Rolfe turned in his second-draft script and Don Medford was hired to direct on Oct. 9, 1963, according to Craig Henderson’s U.N.C.L.E.-007 Timeline.

By November, the rest of the cast was in place. David McCallum would play the small part (in the pilot script) of Illya Kuryakin, a Russian U.N.C.L.E. agent, and Will Kuluva as Mr. Allison, the U.N.C.L.E. chief.

Production was scheduled to begin on Nov. 20. It would be shut down for four days because of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy two days later.

In the coming months, two men named Broccoli and Saltzman would present another challenge.

Earlier posts:

July 1963: U.N.C.L.E. presses on without Fleming

June 1963: Ian Fleming signs away his U.N.C.L.E. rights