Omega advertising image released hours before Eon Productions announced Danny Boyle was exiting as Bond 25 director.
The James Bond film franchise is either experiencing an unusual run of bad luck or it’s adrift and taking in water.
Either way, there was an omen on Aug. 21. Omega released an image of tuxedo-clad 007 star Daniel Craig, mostly underwater but promoting an Omega watch. A few hours later, Eon Productions announced that director Danny Boyle had exited Bond 25 because of “creative differences.”
It was the latest in a series of whipsawing developments with the 25th James Bond film produced by Eon.
For a long time after the release of 2015’s SPECTRE, Eon was quiet amid speculation that Craig wouldn’t be back. Finally, in July 2017, it said it had retained veteran 007 screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade to write Bond 25.
This after the duo said writing Bond films were very hard in the 21st century. “I’m just not sure how you would go about writing a James Bond film now.” Purvis said in a January 2017 interview with The Telegraph.
In August 2017, Craig announced on CBS’s The Late Show that he was, indeed, coming back.
Yet, as 2017 ended, no real word on how things were going. Eon boss Barbara Broccoli said in a Hollywood Reporter podcast that Purvis and Wade were hard at work.
Until, a few months later, when Danny Boyle and his screenwriter, John Hodge, became the 007 flavor of the month. The duo pitched an idea. Hodge began writing. If his script was deemed acceptable by Eon, that would be Bond 25’s new direction.
On May 25, the Eon brain trust, doing its best Jean-Luc Picard imitation, proclaimed: “Make it so!” Boyle was now the official director and Hodge the new writer. Good-bye, Purvis and Wade.
Less than three months later? No so fast. The Boyle was lanced. No word on Hodge’s script, based on the supposedly spectacular idea Boyle and Hodge pitched.
What happens next? Your guess is as good as mine. Eon seemed to love working with “auteur” directors such as Marc Forster and Sam Mendes. Boyle’s hiring (however brief) seemed a natural.
The bigger question: Does Eon really know what it wants to do with Bond?
Both Broccoli and Craig clearly wanted a break from Bondage after SPECTRE. They both went about various projects, including a stage production of Othello where Craig appeared and Broccoli was a producer.
The break is over. Aside from keeping Craig in the Bond role, what does Broccoli have in mind? Eon has burned through three writers from 2017 through the present.
Will the next installment be helmed by another “auteur” director? If so, how long does it take to find a Boyle replacement?
At the very least, Bond 25’s announced fall 2019 release date looks shaky. Eon had a bad experience trying to make Quantum of Solace on an accelerated schedule. Does Eon have the stomach to try to find a new director fast? Or should it take a deep breath and start over?
Eon, of course, has business partners it must consider. Universal now does the international distribution. A joint venture of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Annapurna Pictures is distributing the movie in the United States.
More broadly, the movie business is in the midst of great change, under pressure from streaming services such as Netflix.
Bond is a franchise that has enjoyed enormous longevity. It still generates interest worldwide.
But continued longevity isn’t automatic. At the very least, the 007 film franchise faces renewed uncertainty.
Filed under: James Bond Films | Tagged: Annapurna Pictures, Barbara Broccoli, Bond 25, Daniel Craig, Danny Boyle, Eon Productions, John Hodge, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Michael G. Wilson, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Universal |
The Spy Command 
I Had a Bad Feeling about Eon Productions using director Danny Boyle at the Helm of Bond 25. for a while Since his announcement in the Media. However, I Still Believe a Woman Should Direct the Next Bond film. or Veteran Bond Director Martin Campbell. The Clock is ticking
I love your reference to the Omega advertisement. Although none of this are good news, of course.
No, it’s not good news. But Omega releasing that image the same day of the announcement is really bad karma.
Wasn’t Yann Demange working closely with Purvis & Wade on their script?
And wasn’t there a rumour a while back that the Broccoli family were thinking of selling Bond – a la Lucasfilm – because Barbara Broccoli wanted to focus on other things and wasn’t keen on having to replace Daniel Craig, whom she clearly has such respect for?
Perhaps they’re desperate to get the script/director combo exactly right because an acclaimed hit film would boost the value of Eon to any buyer (e.g. Warner Bros.)
Well, I had actually predicted much earlier that they will not make their dead-line. It was simply too ambitious, considering what schedule they had set up for writing the script, filming, and postproduction. No surprise here, to be honest. Sad, but true. I mean, if you only have a lead actor, that is not exactly helpful either. What do they want to show to us? Craig grinning into the camera for 90 minutes?
Yes, that would explain a lot.
Whatever they do, it would be wise not to cave to SJWs. Just make it a story about a man who loves Western Civilization. But honestly, Spectre was so perfect, if it all ended there, I’m good.