Recap of ironic SPECTRE statements

As SPECTRE is ready to wrap up principal photography, here’s a look back at some statements laden with irony and hidden meaning that weren’t evident at the time.

“John Logan and Sam Mendes have come up with an extraordinary follow up to SKYFALL and we, along with our partners at MGM, can’t wait to share this new chapter with audiences all over the world.” Sony executives Michael Lynton and Amy Pascal in a JULY 2013 PRESS RELEASE.

At the time, there was no script. A treatment arrived in the fall of 2013. Logan didn’t deliver a first draft until March 2014. Because of the hacking of Sony Pictures, it’s now known that studio executives were less than thrilled with what Logan (who always said he was working closely with Mendes) delivered. Logan would later be replaced by veteran 007 scribes Neal Purvis and Robert Wade.

A side note: bad publicity from the hacks caused Sony to fire Pascal (something she has publicly acknowledged).

“At the end of the day, it came down to the story…It was a story I wanted to tell.” This was Sam Mendes speaking on Dec. 4, 2014 to ENTERTAINMENT NOW.

At the time Mendes said that, rewrites to fix the last third of the story were being done right up to the Dec. 4 media event that the director hosted. Again, that’s only known because of the hacking at Sony Pictures.

“More pressure.” Mendes again on Dec. 4, on how SPECTRE would have a bigger budget than Skyfall and how it would affect him. With the Sony hacks, it’s known the budget had gone past $300 million, making the 24th James Bond film one of the most expensive of all time.

Russian U.N.C.L.E. movie trailer and its extras

The Russian trailer for The Man From U.N.C.L.E. has emerged online and it has some material not in the U.S. trailers.

The trailer, naturally, plays up Armie Hammer’s Illya Kuryakin character a bit more than what has been seen in the United States.

Specifically, there’s a scene (beginning around the 1:15 mark) where Henry Cavill’s Napoleon Solo is using a small wire cutter on a fence. Kuryakin then takes out some kind of laser gadget to do the same thing much easier. Also, we see a shot of Kuryakin’s KGB superior that wasn’t in the U.S. trailers.

Anyway, if you’re interested, you can take a look below. It’s also available on a Russian video site that you can access by CLICKING HERE. Thanks to reader James Harris for posting that video on The Spy Command page on Facebook. Also, thanks to @HenryCavillONL on Twitter for pointing out the YouTube version embedded here.