Recap of Skyfall, SPECTRE director announcements

The past sometimes is prologue. Sometimes, not. But here are details when the director was officially announced for the past two 007 films, Skyfall and SPECTRE.

Skyfall: Sam Mendes officially was announced as the director of the 23rd 007 film produced by Eon Productions on Jan. 11, 2011.

There had been news reports that Mendes was working on the film before that. But the official announcement was made via e-mail on Jan. 11. The same release had the U.S. release date of Nov. 9, 2012. Skyfall began production in November 2011.

SPECTRE: Mendes, after Skyfall was released, said he wasn’t interested in coming back. Nevertheless, on July 11, 2013, Eon Productions, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Sony Pictures, said Mendes would direct the then-untitled Bond 24.

At the time off the announcement, there was no script. Writer John Logan wouldn’t submit that until spring 2014. SPECTRE production didn’t begin until December 2014 after Near Purvis and Robert Wade submitted a rewrite of Logan’s work.

What does this mean? Roughly speaking, Bond 25 is a bit behind SPECTRE’s pace but can still match the pace of Skyfall.

There are still a lot of balls being juggled. Distribution (and therefore financing) still hasn’t been locked down. There’s no director of record. Still, at this point, Bond 25 can still easily make a U.S. release date of November 2019. That’s the date Eon and MGM announced on July 24, 2017.

Justice League: Epilogue

Justice League movie logo

Well, the Justice League’s soap opera has come to an end and it’s not looking pretty from a financial standpoint.

After three weekends in the U.S. the Warner Bros. superhero movie has an estimated box office of $197.3 million.

For the average film, that’s great. But when the budget is an estimated $250 million to $300 million, not so much.

By contrast, Warners’ 2016 Batman v Superman generated $166 million on its opening weekend.

Justice League’s opening weekend  was $93.8 million. Again, great for most movies. But it failed to match the opening weekend of other films based on DC Comics characters such as Man of Steel, Suicide Squad and Wonder Woman.

Justice League is the big DC team of heroes, comprised of its leading characters. Compare it to Marvel’s The Avengers in 2012, which had an opening weekend of $207.4 million. Its sequel, Avengers Age of Ultron, had a U.S. opening weekend of $191.3 million.

The two Avengers movies had ultimate global box of more than $1 billion ($1.5 billion for the first, $1.4 billion for the second).

Justice League may end up at less than half of that. Forbes.com estimates it will generate less than the $668 million global box office of 2013’s Man of Steel.

The lesson? Nothing’s a sure thing. Justice League didn’t lack for effort. It was the effort of two directors, Zack Snyder and Joss Whedon. (Whedon isn’t credited but does share in the screenplay credit).

The latter directed those two billion-dollar Avengers films. So he ended up re-shooting much of the movie. But, at least at the box office, Whedon’s sensibilities and style didn’t transfer to Justice League.