How not to write a Bond 25 story

Poster for SPECTRE

Like a cancer metastasizing throughout the body, The Mirror’s July 8 story saying Daniel Craig is definitely returning as James Bond is spreading through the media.

Various outlets, including the Los Angeles Times,  Fox News and Esquire have summarized the Mirror story.

However, The Mirror’s original and the stories based on it have mostly overlooked some key facts. Very important facts. Here are some of them.

There’s nobody to pay Daniel Craig — yet. The Mirror & Co. depict Eon Productions boss Barbara Broccoli as having a firm lock on his services.

Problem: Eon doesn’t pay the bills of a Bond movie. The studio or studios involved do.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer is Bond’s home studio. But it can’t release its own movies. It needs a studio partner to co-finance and distribute MGM films. And, for the moment, there is no Bond 25 distributor.

Maybe MGM reaches an agreement later this year. Maybe a commitment from Craig (even a verbal commitment) helps that process. But until it happens, nobody is available to actually pay Daniel Craig if he, indeed, is coming back.

There’s no director yet. You can’t have a movie without a director calling the shots. Maybe Bond 25 will get a director later this year. But until it does, not much is going to happen.

There’s no script yet. Neal Purvis and Robert Wade were hired to come up with a story, according to the Daily Mail’s Baz Bamigboye, who has had a number of 007 scripts proven correct this decade.

The duo have had more than four months (and perhaps longer) to work up a story. But until a director comes on board, things can only go so far. Directors love to tweak story elements, etc. And that process can’t begin until you have a director, etc.

What’s this John Logan reference? The Mirror says John Logan, who worked on Skyfall and SPECTRE, is working on Bond 25. There’s no evidence that’s the case.

If it really is true, that would be a big turnaround. Thanks to the Sony hacks of 2014 (Sony Pictures released the last four 007 films), it’s known that Eon was unhappy with Logan’s first draft for SPECTRE, something that eventually led to the return of Purvis and Wade.

If (and that’s a HUGE if) Logan really is involved with Bond 25 that’s a major change. But, of course, you’d have to be familiar with the history to make note of that.

Has anything changed the past three months? In April, Page Six, the gossip operation of the New York Post also said Barbara Broccoli pretty much had Daniel Craig committed.

Has something actually changed since that report? The Page Six story got nowhere near the attention the Mirror has. Regardless, it’s a notable piece of background.

U.N.C.L.E. Jazz CD becoming available

The original U.N.C.L.E.s, Robert Vaughn and David McCallum

A jazz CD featuring a live performance of music from The Man From U.N.C.L.E. is becomes available this week.

The Jazz From U.N.C.L.E. is the brainchild of Robert Short, an Oscar-winning film industry professional and first-generation U.N.C.L.E. fan, and Jon Burlingame, a journalist and movie and TV music expert.

The CD consists of 14 tracks of music performed at 2014’s The Golden Anniversary Affair, a Los Angeles-area gathering that celebrated the 50th anniversary of the series.

The music was performed by the Summit Six Sex Sextet  and “played from the original sheet music used during the scoring sessions,” according to the project’s website.

Short runs a Facebook page, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Inner Circle. The CD is being offered at a special price to page members through today, July 10. After that, it becomes generally available for a price of $15 plus $3 shipping and handling. The CD is limited to 1,000 units. For more information about ordering, CLICK HERE. Full disclosure: the Spy Commander was asked to proof some of the pages of The Jazz From U.N.C.L.E.’s website.

Here’s a sampling of the music.