Every movie has its quirks on the way to the silver screen. No Time to Die certainly had its share. Here are a few.
The writing
July 2017: Eon Productions announces Neal Purvis and Robert Wade are writing Bond 25. At this point, Daniel Craig’s return as Bond hadn’t been announced yet.
December 2017: Eon boss Barbara Broccoli says on a Hollywood Reporter podcast that Purvis and Wade were “busy working away, trying to come up with something fantastic.”
May 2018: John Hodge is announced as the sole writer of Bond 25, to be directed by Danny Boyle.
August 2018: Boyle departs Bond 25 over “creative differences.” Hodge leaves also. Purvis and Wade end up returning.
Boyle vs. Fukunaga
Spring 2020: Production designer Mark Tildesley worked under both Boyle and his replacement, Cary Fukunaga. Tildesley says during Boyle’s time on the project, the art department had built a 350-foot rocket and a Russian gulag set in Canada.
February 2019: The MI6 James Bond website says for most of the Hodge/Boyle script, Bond was imprisoned by the villain.
September 2021: Fukunaga tells The Hollywood Reporter that the Boyle-Hodge project was “more tongue-in-cheek and whimsical.”
Query: If all of this is correct, did Boyle want a “whimsical” story set in a Russian gulag? A sort of modern-day Hogan’s Heroes?
Filed under: James Bond Films | Tagged: Barbara Broccoli, Bond 25, Cary Joji Fukunaga, Danny Boyle, John Hodge, Neal Purvis, No Time to Die, Robert Wade |
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