Bond 25: Tabloid spoiler, new clapperboard shot

Eon’s Bond 25 logo

Like it says in the headline, spoiler. So scram if you’re spoiler adverse.

After a short respite, the tabloids are back, this time with the Mirror saying it knows part of the Bond 25 plot.

James Bond will return with a tear-jerking storyline – as his new wife is murdered and he struggles to cope with depression and grief.

New writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge – hired to refresh the script after her huge hit with Killing Eve – is said to be exploring the spy’s mental health for the franchise’s 25th instalment.

“There have been a lot of changes with the script but one angle they want to pursue is showing Bond’s more emotional side,” an insider revealed.

First things first. The Mirror has had a rocky record with accuracy. In 2017, for example, it claimed Bond 25 was based on the 007 continuation novel Never Dream of Dying by Raymond Benson. The author said on Twitter he was never contacted by the Mirror and “can only assume that article is fabrication. Would be wonderful if it were true.”

Even if the basic premise is correct, I suspect you can’t give Waller-Bridge the sole responsibility.

Eon has been at least flirting with the idea going back to the later script drafts of SPECTRE. A draft dated Dec. 1, 2014 — one week before filming began — ended with Bond saying, “We have all the time in the world.”

That, of course, was the line Bond (George Lazenby) says after marrying Tracy (Diana Rigg) in 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, where the Tracy ends up dead.

It was taken from the end of Ian Fleming’s 1963 novel. The line was snipped from the final version of SPECTRE. However, the notion of turning Ley Seydoux into Tracy 2.0 has been there for a while.

Also, in the 1964 novel You Only Live Twice, Bond goes to pieces. Bond also went to pieces in 2012’s Skyfall but that was seven years ago. So even though it was just two Bond movies ago, it wouldn’t be a shock for Eon to follow that path once more.

One more thing: In May, Seydoux told Variety she hadn’t started work on Bond 25 and was working on another movie. Presumably, that means she’s not part of the sequences filmed in Jamaica during May.

We’ll see.

Meanwhile, Eon’s official social media accounts put out a clapperboard shot. It was for a sequence in London that takes a while into the movie based on the scene number (152).

#Bond25 on location in London. pic.twitter.com/P0C7UoVQjf

— James Bond (@007) June 30, 2019

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

UPDATE (5:45 p.m.): Eon’s official Twitter account posted this photo, which some fans comment is the best Bond 25 promotional still they’ve seen.

007 star Daniel Craig, director Cary Fukunaga and the #Bond25 crew were out in the sunshine today shooting across a number of London locations, including Whitehall, where Daniel filmed a scene with a classic @astonmartin V8, first seen in a Bond film in THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS. pic.twitter.com/rhs13nNeyW

— James Bond (@007) June 30, 2019

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Bond 25 questions: The mid-year edition

We’re almost halfway through 2019. That’s as good a reason as any for the blog to ask some new questions about Bond 25.

What do you make of the (apparently) discarded title A Reason to Die?

The MI6 James Bond website sniffed out that A Reason to Die was the tentative title for Bond 25. But Eon Productions after conferring with its studio partners decided not to proceed with it the night before an April 25 live stream event from Jamaica.

What the blog wonders is why did it take so long to make that decision? Or, put another way, was the live stream event scheduled before said studio partners (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Universal among them) weighed in?

Back in 2015, Eon’s Michael G. Wilson said the production company devises the marketing while the studios executes those plans.

So, was A Reason to Die an Eon initiative? Were MGM (handling U.S. distribution for Bond 25) and Universal (handling international distribution) not in the loop until the last minute? Or was the situation more complicated?

Where did A Reason to Die come from anyway?

Edward Biddulph of the James Bond Memes website wrote on Twitter the title may stem from the On Her Majesty’s Secret Service novel.

Specifically, in Chapter 5, The Capu, Marc-Ange Draco tells Bond, referring to his daughter Tracy: “Will you help me save this girl? It is my only chance, that you will give her hope. That you will give her a reason to live. Will you?”

Is that a big deal?

It’s hardly the most significant Ian Fleming reference available. Fleming short titles (Risico, The Hildebrand Rarity, The Property of a Lady and 007 in New York) haven’t been used. However, plot elements from Risico were used for 1981’s For Your Eyes Only. Ditto for The Hildebrand Rarity in 1989’s Licence to Kill (plus a passing reference to the name Hildebrand in 2015’s SPECTRE). Also, plot elements from  The Property of a Lady showed up in 1983’s Octopussy.

What’s more, there are chapter titles from the Fleming novels that might be worth considering. Still, veteran 007 screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade are known for mining small details from Fleming. They were the first screenwriters on Bond 25. It’s possible A Reason to Die fits their original script.

So what happens next?

When Prince Charles visited the Bond 25 set at Pinewood Studios earlier this month, Daniel Craig told him that filming on the production was about one-third complete.

There’s no teaser trailer yet, although a promotional video was released this week. A teaser trailer may be out sooner than later and we may get a title — A Reason to Die or something else — at that time. As usual, we’ll see.

A Reason to Die was B25’s tentative title, MI6 site says

Eon’s Bond 25 logo

A Reason to Die was the tentative title for Bond 25, the MI6 James Bond website said.

The title “was attached to Bond 25 right up until” April 24, the night before a livestream event from Jamaica revealing cast and crew members, the website said.

Eon Productions conferred with its studio partners and A Reason to Die was “considered weak and ‘not Bond enough’ and pulled from the event,” the website reported. “A title treatment had been created.”

Bond 25, due out in April 2020, will be distributed by United Artists Releasing (a joint venture between Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Annapurna Pictures) in the U.S. and Universal internationally.

MI6 James Bond sent out this tweet on Wednesday night. It includes a red “X” and the April 24 date written in pencil.

#Bond25 pic.twitter.com/Ljl2WWRfo7

— James Bond (@jamesbondlive) June 26, 2019

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Reports based on the tweet alone then surfaced earlier today, including The Express and Esquire UK. The latter said it was skeptical MI6 James Bond was correct.

At the April event in Jamaica, Eon’s Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson only referenced Bond 25. Wilson said he couldn’t remember the last time a Bond film had a title when filming began. A May 5 Haphazard Stuff video contrasted that statement with Eon media events held when filming began on earlier Bond films.

Eon posts behind the scenes video of Bond 25

Eon Productions today released a short video showing behind the scenes work on Bond 25 in Jamaica.

The video was posted via social media and was posted on YouTube. It lasts a minute was edited similar to a music video. With Skyfall and SPECTRE, Eon produced “video blogs” that lasted a few minutes each and covered different topics.

UPDATE: This is probably a coincidence (or not), but the video includes a shot of a clapperboard. Of course, during Skyfall and SPECTRE, Eon posted many clapperboard shots and it gave you a rough idea where the scene involved took place in the film. The shot in this video is fleeting but you can see the scene number.

Tarantino’s LA theater to show five 1960s 007 films

Sean Connery in a 007 publicity still

Actor-director Quentin Tarantino’s New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles will show five 1960s James Bond films in July.

The movies are scheduled for 2 p.m. local time on Wednesday afternoons as part of the theater’s “Afternoon Classics” series.

The theater is showing IB Tech prints of each film. The term refers to a process for making color movie prints that allows for use of more stable dyes.

The schedule is as follows:

July 3: From Russia With Love.

July 10: Goldfinger

July 17: Thunderball

July 24: You Only Live Twice

July 31: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

UPDATE: Plaza Atlanta, which describes itself as Atlanta’s oldest movie theater, plans to show 25 James Bond films in July — the 24 (to date) produced by Eon Productions plus 1983’s Never Say Never Again.

A Facebook post by the theater has the schedule. They will be shown in order, with Dr. No leading off on July 1.

Bond 25: The week the optics changed

Eon’s Bond 25 logo

The Royal family this week, intentionally or not, gave 007 an assist with the optics of Bond 25’s production.

Prince Charles on Thursday showed up at Pinewood Studios and chatted with the likes of Daniel Craig, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris and director Cary Fukunaga on Bond 25 sets.

As is often the case, there were many media members in attendance, with video and stills being taken.

It wasn’t the prince’s first turn at doing this sort of thing, In the 1980s, he and his then-wife, Princess Diana, toured Pinewood during production of The Living Daylights.

Such visits are arranged well in advance. It’s not like Prince Charles would just show up at Pinewood.

Still, for one day at least, the images and stories generated from the visit washed away a lot of previously Bond 25 publicity concerning star injuries, script rewrites, the departure of Danny Boyle as director, an explosion that damaged the famous 007 Stage and tales of other problems.

The timing may have been coincidental. But for Eon Productions, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Universal (the latter handling international distribution of Bond 25), the prince’s visit could not have come soon enough.

For those who wanted more, a video by 5 News provided some Bond 25 tidbits as the prince asked questions of the Bond 25 cast and crew.

To be sure, Bond 25 has a lot of filming to go. About a third has been completed. Also, making large, big-budget movies rarely is an easy endeavor.

Still, the topic of Bond 25 conversation has been changed, at least for a while.

Peter Allan Fields, U.N.C.L.E. writer, dies

Movie poster for The Spy in the Green Hat, movie version of The Concrete Overcoat Affair, scripted by Peter Allan Fields

Peter Allan Fields, one of the key writers of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. whose career also extended to The Six Million Dollar Man and Star Trek, has died, according to the Gizmodo website.

He was 84, according to his Wikipedia entry.

Fields had worked at the William Morris Agency. He switched careers to television writing.

Midway during The Man From U.N.C.L.E.’s first season, he was assigned to write an U.N.C.L.E. script.

In the documentary that was part of a 2007 DVD release of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., star Robert Vaughn said Fields simply didn’t know how long it was supposed to take to write a script for a one-hour TV show. As a result, Vaughn said, Fields turned out a “shootable” script in four days, writing one act a day.

His first U.N.C.L.E. credit was The Fiddlesticks Affair. It was the second episode after NBC switched the show to Mondays during its first season (1964-65).

The story evoked Mission: Impossible (which wouldn’t debut until the fall of 1966) where agents Solo (Vaughn) and Kuryakin (David McCallum) plot to blow up a key treasury of the villainous organization Thrush. The episode even was scored by Lalo Schifrin, who’d later do the classic M:I theme.

From that point through the show’s third season, Fields was a major U.N.C.L.E. contributor. Fields also became a friend of Vaughn’s.

Fields’ final writing credit for U.NC.L.E. was the two-part The Concrete Overcoat Affair, which was re-edited into the movie The Spy in the Green Hat for international audiences.

Fields turned out scripts for various shows, including The FBI, McCloud, and The Six Million Dollar Man. He was also one of the story editors for A Man Called Sloan, a 1979 series from QM Productions that contained elements from U.N.C.L.E. and James Bond movies.

The Gizmodo obituary emphasized Fields’ contributions to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Fields; death was referenced by Ira Steven Behr, a producer for that series.

Sad to report writer/producer Peter Allan Fields passed away today.
He was a friend of mine.
All you Star Trek fans can say a prayer.
All you fans of 60’s and 70’s television can say one too.

— Ira Steven Behr (@IraStevenBehr) June 19, 2019

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

UPDATE (July 10, 2019): The Writers Guild gave a belated tribute on Twitter to Peter Allan Fields.

RIP WGAW member / writer Peter Allan Fields (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., McCloud, The Six Million Dollar Man) 5/12/35 – 6/19/19 https://t.co/N2VGGLrTNQ

— Writers Guild of America West (@WGAWest) July 10, 2019

 

Prince Charles picks up some Bond 25 secrets

Eon’s Bond 25 logo

At most mild spoilers, but go away if you’re spoiler adverse.

Bond 25 got a lot of publicity when Prince Charles visited Pinewood Studios today. In return, the Prince of Wales was briefed on some Bond 25 secrets.

5 News posted more than 20 minutes of video from the prince’s visit. The audio wasn’t the best but you pick up some of what he was told about.

Alterations to the Aston Martin DB5: Daniel Craig showed the prince a DB5 that was on display. Well, it turned out there was more than met the eye.

“Underneath here…is a BMW engine on a modern chassis, modern suspension,” Craig tells the prince. “We’ve had five of these made. This is carbon fiber.”

A tiny bit of plot: Ralph Fiennes, who plays M for the third time, talked to the prince about a scene filmed earlier in the day at the M office set.

“So what have you been doing today?” Charles asked.

“We’ve been giving him a hard time,” Fiennes responded.

“Oh really? Again?”

“Again, yeah. And he’s been giving me a hard time.”

“But I thought he was meant to be in retirement or something,” Charles replies.

Daniel Craig interjects at this point. “That’s right. But something drags me back in.”

“What the dreaded Felix Leiter?” the prince asks.

“Felix and the plot,” Craig answers.

Bond 25’s progress: Prince Charles asks if filming is about half complete. Craig answers that it’s about a third done.

Ralph Fiennes’ schedule: The actor tells the prince he works sporadically on Bond 25, mixing it with other acting commitments and an upcoming holiday. “I come in and out..My scenes are scheduled in bits.”

“He’s very busy, you see,” Craig tells Charles. “We’re very lucky to have him.”

After this, Prince Charles was taken to view some of the day’s footage of Craig in M’s office. It’s shown on video screens. He listens, holding up a headset to his right ear.

The video is below.

Aston Martin confirms B25 lineup; Prince Charles visits

Publicity still for Aston Martin Valhalla

Aston Martin announced on Twitter that three of its cars, including the new Valhalla supercar, will be in Bond 25.

“ Aston Martin DB5, Aston Martin V8 and Aston Martin Valhalla will star in Bond 25, the latest instalment in the @007 franchise,” the company said in a post on Twitter.

The post confirmed a story earlier this week at This Is Money, part of the Daily Mail, that the cars would be in the film. Andy Palmer, the CEO of Aston Martin, had retweeted a Twitter post from Ray Massey who had written the This Is Money story. 

The DB5 isn’t much of a surprise. James Bond and Madeline Swann drove off in the DB5 at the end of SPECTRE. The 1980s vintage V8 had been spotted during filming in Norway.

However, in March, the Sun tabloid reported that the Aston Martin Raptide E electric car would be in the movie. That story was picked up widely by other outlets.

Instead, the film is getting the Valhalla. It was described in an Aston Martin press release this week as being “propelled by a combination of high-efficiency, high-output turbocharged V6 petrol engine and battery-electric hybrid system.”

For the announcement, Aston Martin had a photo of Prince Charles and 007 actor Daniel Craig. The latter is no longer wearing a cast after suffering an injury earlier during Bond 25 filming.

NEWS: Aston Martin DB5, Aston Martin V8 and Aston Martin Valhalla will star in Bond 25, the latest instalment in the @007 franchise. pic.twitter.com/V6WA7P5kUD

— Aston Martin (@astonmartin) June 20, 2019

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

UPDATE (1:40 p.m. New York time): The Daily Mail had a ringside seat and produced a story about Prince Charles’s visit to Pinewood Studios to meet the Bond 25 cast and director Cary Fukunaga.

UPDATE II (1:55 p.m. New York time): The Royal Family Channel posts a video of the visit of Prince Charles to Pinewood

Collection of $3M in Ian Fleming books up for Sale

Ian Fleming

A collection of 81 books and related materials that had been owned by Ian Fleming, valued at more than $3 million, is up for sale.

The books are being offered by Peter Harrington, a U.K. rare book seller, according to the Shots Crime & Thriller Ezine website.

Most of the books are James Bond novels, many signed by Fleming and presented to various famous people.

Among them: A first-edition Live And Let Die signed for Winston Churchill; a Moonraker first edition signed for Philip Marlowe creator Raymond Chandler; a first edition From Russia With Love, signed for his wife Anne; a first edition Goldfinger signed for Chandler; and a first edition The Spy Who Loved Me signed for Robert F. Kennedy.

Also part of the collection is an American edition of Casino Royale that once belonged to CBS when the U.S. television network bought the TV rights to adapt for its Climax series in 1954. There is also a copy of the script for the 1967 comedy made by Columbia Pictures.

However, there are non-Bond books as well.

They include: A first edition Thrilling Cities signed to Australian journalist Richard “Dikko” Hughes; a first edition copy of Playback, Chandler’s final Marlowe novel, signed for Ian Fleming; and a first edition copy of Birds of the West Indies, signed by author James Bond and signed for Fleming.

You can view the complete list by CLICKING HERE.