Our modest proposals for Bond 25 Part II

Image for the official James Bond feed on Twitter

Despite all the unknowns (leading man, distributor, script, etc.) about Bond 25, Eon Productions is getting plenty of advice about the cinema future of James Bond.

Variety, for example, suggested Kathryn Bigelow or Quentin Tarantino would be good candidates to succeed Sam Mendes as director.

We’ve already done this act once, so here’s our sequel:

Select an up-and-coming director to helm Bond 25: Over at Marvel Studios, executives have a knack for signing up-and-coming directors such as James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy) and Joe and Anthony Russo (the past two Captain America movies) with good results.

Taking such an approach may: 1) Provide a fresh set of eyes on 007 movie making and 2) Help with the budget because you’re signing people before they reach peak earnings power.

Bond 25 after the Sam Mendes-directed SPECTRE and, yet again, homages to past films could use the former. Or, put another way: The DB5, again after it was blown up in Skyfall? Really? Daniel Craig has driven it more than Sean Connery ever did.

Sign your own version of Kevin Feige:  Kevin Feige runs the Marvel movie operation and he’s credited as producer of each Marvel-made film. By all accounts, he’s enthusiastic about his job and has never publicly complained about the stresses of making big movies.

Both Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, the co-bosses of Eon Production, have interests in non-007 projects.

A Feige-like deputy could keep an eye on things while Broccoli and Wilson are involved with plays, non-007 films and the like. Such a person could perhaps have kept a closer eye on SPECTRE’s script development while Broccoli and Wilson were involved with The Silent Storm.

The key thing would be to hire a sufficiently talented individual who the Eon co-bosses could trust. Not necessarily an easy task, but one worth considering.

Develop a succession plan if you haven’t already: Michael G. Wilson, at 74, has already spent a majority of his life in Bondage, longer than anybody else associated with the franchise. Over the past 20 years, he has commented more than once about the strains of the job.

Only Wilson knows if he’s up for doing it yet again for Bond 25. But whether it’s Bond 25, 26, 27, etc., nobody lives forever.

Sam Mendes said at a public appearance  that Barbara Broccoli alone will select the next actor to play James Bond. If he’s correct, perhaps there already has been some kind of transition. We’ll see.

Meanwhile Wilson’s son, Gregg, was assistant producer on Quantum of Solace and associate producer on Skyfall and SPECTRE.

 

007 collector, author John Griswold dies

Cover to Ian Fleming’s James Bond: Annotations and Chronologies for Ian Fleming’s Bond Stories by John Griswold

John Griswold, who amassed a large collection of James Bond items and wrote a book about the literary 007, died on Sunday.

Griswold, 65, wrote Ian Fleming’s James Bond: Annotations and Chronologies for Ian Fleming’s Bond Stories , published in 2006, which analyzed Fleming’s 007 works.

Griswold also put together a Bond collection that included, among other things, a Mort Drucker illustration of Fleming; Drucker artwork for a Mad magazine parody of the first eight 007 films; Robert McGinnis artwork for Bond movie posters; and a first-edition copy of the Casino Royale novel.

The collector suffered from Alzheimer’s and his collection was put up for auction in 2010.  The blog was informed about Griswold’s passing by collector Gary J. Firuta, who assisted with the 2010 Griswold auction.

Griswold’s 2006 book can be purchased on Amazon.com.