MGM watch: Amazon tightens its grip on Leo the Lion

Recently, Amazon, which acquired Metro-Goldwyn Mayer for $8.45 billion, has been taking control over the home studio of the James Bond film franchise.

Examples:

–Deadline: Hollywood acquired internal emails showing that Jennifer Salke, chief of Amazon Studios, is now formally in charge of MGM.

Salke now is in charge of Amazon Studios and MGM. Christopher Brearton, who had been chief operating officer of MGM, now has a new executive job.

Before the Amazon deal, MGM’s film division was headed by Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy. Eon liked the duo and said they wished they’d stay. But they departed earlier and landed at Warner Bros.

–Mark Burnett, who had created Survivor The Apprentice and other “reality” shows and who had headed MGM’s TV division, is gone, noted The Hollywood Reporter.

Back in 2018, THR reported that Burnett was instrumental in having then MGM CEO Gary Barber fired. What goes around, comes around, one supposes.

To be sure, anytime there’s an acquisition, executive changes occur.

The main question — from the perspective of James Bond fans — is whether any of this affects the 007 franchise. Eon and its parent company Danjaq control the creative rights to the franchise. But Danjaq/Eon relies on its studio partner to finance the films.

When even escapist stories have dark edges

Poster for In Like Flint

In the 1960s, there were many escapist takes on the spy genre. But even the escapist versions had their dark sides.

Case in point: In Like Flint (1967), the second Derek Flint movie starring James Coburn. The movie’s story includes elements that are downright disturbing when you stop to think about it.

Rich people out to take over the world: In the case of In Like Flint, the rich people are women. As the film opens, the women have been at it for some time. They have been working to brainwash other women through their chain of Fabulous Face beauty outlets. Hair washing and brainwashing at the same time, hero Flint observes.

A big chunk of the U.S. military is on the plot: Colonel Carter (Steve Ihnat) is on the plot — or so the rich women think. In reality, Carter is going to double-cross the rich women. He intends to take over the world himself.

More disturbingly, Carter appears to have quite a number of military personnel working with him. And Carter has access to U.S. space projects which figure into the plan. Flint ends up having to combat quite a number of Carter’s men.

The U.S. President can easily be replaced with a double: A big part of the plan involves kidnapping U.S. President Trent (Andrew Duggan) with an actor who has undergone plastic surgery. The President’s abduction occurs with only a minimum of security present while Trent is golfing with ZOWIE head Kramden (Lee J. Cobb). After the switch takes place, very few people are aware of it.

To be sure, the movie is very light-hearted overall. Flint comments about an actor as president. At the time this was made, Ronald Reagan had been elected as governor of California and there was already talk of him running for president. There are also in-joke references to the 1966 Batman series (made at 20th Century Fox, where this movie was also produced) and Fantastic Voyage (also made at Fox and produced by Saul David, producer of the Flint films).

Craig still involved with 007 promotions

Daniel Craig may not “want to go back” to James Bond films (as he told the Los Angeles Times recently). But that hasn’t mean he’s shed his involvement with 007 promotions.

For example, the 54-year-old actor is involved with a Bond-themed event for Omega watches. It was announced on Eon’s official Twitter account.

Daniel Craig at the launch event for OMEGA’s #60yearsofBond Seamaster Diver Watches. pic.twitter.com/3Lwbs58hMw

— James Bond (@007) November 24, 2022

Craig has participated in this sort of thing for years. In 2013, there were reports he was paid $1 million to appear at the New York Auto Show on behalf of Land Rover. He left after a few minutes.

But that was while he was the Bond of record. Despite his departure from the role, he’s still in demand for corporate events. That may not change until a new Bond is cast, whenever that is.

About that Daniel Craig LAT interview

Daniel Craig’s 007

Daniel Craig, after a five-film run as James Bond, reflected on his 007 run (Casino Royale through No Time to Die) in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.

Whatever your feelings about those five movies, the LAT interview showed the 54-year-old actor has mixed feelings. An excerpt:

“It’s my fault because I kind of didn’t shut up about the fact that I had all these injuries. I’m pissed off at myself that I ever even spoke about them,” Craig said. “I put way more work into the creative side of those movies than I did into the physical side of those movies. The physical side of the movies was just the job. I had to do it. I trained, learned the fights, that’s kind of my brain not working. The rest of it, the look, the feel, the kind of the temperature of the movies, getting Sam Mendes in to direct ‘Skyfall,’ that’s where the hard work was. Going to the gym is hard work, but it’s not really brain hard work.”

Craig endured numerous injuries. He also had unprecedented input (compared to previous actors employed by Eon Productions) into the plot and other aspects of the movies.

The actor, a year after No Time to Die came out, claims it was his idea for his version of Bond to be killed.

“Two things, one for myself and one for the franchise,” Craig said. “One, for the franchise, was that resets start again, which [the franchise] did with me. And I was like, ‘Well, you need to reset again.’ So let’s kill my character off and go find another Bond and go find another story. Start at [age] 23, start at 25, start at 30.

To be sure, there’s a lot of after-the-fact story telling before and after a movie comes out. “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend,” which is a line from 1962’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Vallance. That’s still the case in the 21st century.

Quotes from Craig’s interviews have split Bond movie fans. Craig fans say that shows why he’s a great actor. Craig critics cite this why he’s selfish.

Whatever. It remains to be seen whether Eon gets on with the business of a post-Craig era.

Licence to Kill treatment: A bumpy flight

Timothy Dalton’s gunbarrel

Continuing a serialization of a Licence to Kill treatment by Richard Maibaum and Michael G. Wilson in 1988. Treatment provided by Gary J. Firuta.

By page 41 of the treatment, Pam “has obviously fallen for Bond in a big way.”

At this point, Pam and Q are in the hotel suite in Isthmus City.

“Q gives her a stiff upper lip English pep talk,” according to the treatment. “No one has ever gotten the best of Bond and no one ever will. She tells him to shut up and let her think.”

Just then, Bond calls. “He is standing at the pay phone in the casino dressed in Dr. Mendez’ overcoat, dark glasses and hat. Lupe is at the bar as a look out.”

Bond tells Pam she “should get down to the airport and find out where Sanchez is taking the oriental group they saw at the casino the other night. She should also make sure their plane is ready for a quick get away.”

Over the next few pages, the demise of Milton Krest at the hands of Sanchez is described. It’s similar to what would be in the final film. The main difference is one of Sanchez’ lackeys realizes this was set up by Bond.

Later, there are other bits, including Q making a phony passport for Lupe.

The sequence is more complicated than the final product. There’s this bit about Q: The quartermaster “never knew how much fun in the field.” Pam puts the intercom to “listen.”

Bond wants to finish the job the dead Hong Kong agents took on to take out Sanchez. He, Pam and Lupe are on a plane t try to intercept Sanchez.

“Lupe now in a silk robe, joins Bond. ‘James, what will be do? Franz will follow us. Kill us.”

“Not if I get him first,” Bond replies.

Pam listens on the intercom as Bond and Lupe get closer. Pam switches the intercom to “talk.” “Please fasten your seat belts. We’re about to go through some turbulence.”

TO BE CONTINUED

One of Marvel’s oldest characters makes his movie debut

Wally Wood’s cover for Daredevil No. 7 in 1965 with DD taking on Namor, a much more powerful foe

Wakanda Forever had a big opening this past weekend. The Marvel film was a sequel to 2018’s Black Panther. But with the death of actor Chadwick Boseman, major changes were made.

Still, Marvel used Wakanda Forever as a way to introduce Namor (Roman spelled backward), the Sub-Mariner to its cinematic universe.

Namor’s first appearance was in Marvel Comics No. 1 in 1939, published by Timely, a predecessor company of Marvel Comics. Namor was an antihero. He dwelled underwater and casually killed some divers from the surface world in the first story by writer-artist Bill Everett. He was part of an underwater race.

Over the next several years, Namor became an ally against the Germans in World War II. Eventually, Namor went away.

Until the 1960s, that is. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, early in the run of the Fantastic Four, brought Namor back. The character was wandering the New York City bowery, unable to remember who he was. But with his memory restored, Namor resumed his conflict with the surface world. Namor soon appeared in various Marvel titles. By the mid-1960s, he got his own story line in Tales to Astonish (a title he shared with the Hulk).

In Wakanda Forever, some changes have been made to Namor. It remains to be seen whether he’ll continue to be part of the MCU. Meanwhile, The New York Times provided a primer about Namor.

Sam Mendes makes his Bond film case

Sam Mendes

Sam Mendes has made points about his two-film tenure in the James Bond film series. Some are new, some provide new twists.

The director, in a Nov. 8 story by The Hollywood Reporter, made new versions of previous comments about his time on Skyfall and SPECTRE, the only Bond films made during the 2010s.

The Skyfall delay was good! Bond 23, which would become Skyfall, originally was to be written by Peter Morgan and the writing team of Neal Purvis and Robert Wade.

Bond’s home studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, entered bankruptcy in 2010, resulting in delays. An excerpt from the THR story:

Mendes and his collaborators used the downtime as an opportunity to creatively resuscitate the film’s storyline.

Morgan exited the project while Mendes brought in writer John Logan to rework the scripting by Purvis and Wade. Mendes has said that process helped the film and he repeats that in the new THR story.

Skyfall was the first time acknowledging that Bond aged: Skyfall “acknowledged the passage of time, arguably for the first time ever, in the series. It acknowledged that they are mortal, that they are going to age and probably die,” Mendes told THR.

Arguably, no it wasn’t. When Sean Connery did interviews for Diamonds Are Forever in 1971, he said he was playing Bond as older. In For Your Eyes Only, Roger Moore’s Bond goes to the gravesite of his late wife Tracy. That movie came out in 1981 but Tracy’s headstone says she died in 1969 (the year On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was released). Lois Maxwell’s Moneypenny in 1983’s Octopussy acknowledged being older.

For more details, CLICK HERE.

SPECTRE was something else: The director didn’t get additional time for 2015’s SPECTRE.

With SPECTRE, “that time was not afforded to me,” Mendes told THR. “[With Spectre], I felt there was some pressure. Certainly Barbara (Broccoli) and Michael (G. Wilson) exerted some pressure on me and Daniel to make the next one, so that makes a big difference. People saying: ‘We want you to do it,’ and passionately wooing me to do it, was a big thing.”

Of course, Mendes could have said no. In 2015, Mendes told the BBC he almost turned SPECTRE down. “I said no to the last one and then ended up doing it, and was pilloried by all my friends,” Mendes told the BBC. “But I do think this is probably it.”

While not referenced by THR, SPECTRE also saw entire scripts made public because of hacks into Sony’s computer system. (Sony released four of the five Daniel Craig 007 films.) In addition to scripts, details about tax breaks from Mexico for SPECTRE became public. With SPECTRE, the writing team of Purvis and Wade was brought in to rewrite John Logan.

1965: NYT Observer column declares 007 a bungler

Oops.

Thanks to @3octaves on Twitter who referenced this column.

In early 1965, James Bond was big business. Goldfinger had been a huge hit the previous year. The next film installment, Thunderball, was in production. A double feature of the first two Bond films would be released to take advantage of Bondmania.

At The New York Times, the paper’s satiric Observer column offered a different take on April 15, 1965.

Columnist Russell Baker (1925-2019) said Bond was being analyzed by intellectuals “in terms of Freud, of Jung, of the Brothers Grimm and in one case, believe it or not, of Barry Goldwater.”

“This is a waste of good brainpower,” Baker continued. “The simple-minded truth about Bond is on the surface for everyone to see. Bond, quite simply, is a bungler.”

Wait, what?

In Goldfinger, Baker wrote, “Bond bumbles from disaster to disaster and avoids the death he so richly deserves only because his opponent, Auric Goldfinger, is even more grossly incompetent.”

Baker proceeds to examine the plot of the movie in detail, deploying a similar tone. As the column concludes, Baker summarizes Bond’s appeal. “We watch him with delight because, excepting his fatal charm with the cuties, he is one of us. He is no more qualified to handle Goldfinger than we are.”

Obviously, James Bond fans would disagree. And Baker’s column wasn’t intended to be taken seriously.

Still, reading the column is like revisiting a certain era. Baker, for example, refers to women as “cuties.” Baker won two Pulitzer Prizes (one for commentary, one for biography) and other major awards.

RE-POST: What 007 and Batman have in common

Adapted from a 2012 post

When following debates among James Bond fans — whether on Internet bulletin boards, Facebook or in person — people sometimes say “try reading Fleming” (or a variation thereof) as if it were a trump card that shows they’re right and the other person is wrong.

Read Fleming. That shows Bond is supposed to be a “blunt instrument.” Therefore, Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace are really true to Fleming.

“Read Fleming!” = “I’m right, you’re wrong!”

Read Fleming. That shows Bond is a romantic hero, not a neurotic antihero, therefore, (INSERT BOND ACTOR HERE) was true to Fleming. Meanwhile, (INSERT BOND ACTOR HERE) meant the 007 film series had reached a nadir.

In reality, over a half-century, the Bond films have passed through multiple eras. To some, Connery can never be surpassed and Moore was a joke. Except, the Connery films have more humor than Fleming employed (on the “banned” Criterion laser disc commentaries, Terence Young chortles about how Fleming asking why the films had more humor than his novels). The Moore films, for all their humor, do have serious moments (Bond admitting to Anya he killed her KGB lover in The Spy Who Loved Me or Bond being hurt but not wanting to admit it after getting out of the centrifuge in Moonraker). Other comments heard frequently: Brosnan tried to split the difference between Connery and Moore, Craig plays the role seriously, the way it should be, etc., etc.

Lots of different opinions, all concerning the same character, dealing with different eras and the contributions of multiple directors and screenwriters. Which reminded of us another character, who’s been around even longer than the film 007: Batman, who made his debut in Detective Comics No. 27 in 1939.

Early Batman stories: definitely dark. “There is a sickening snap as the cossack’s neck breaks under the mighty pressure of the Batman’s foot,” reads a caption in Detective Comics No. 30.

Then, things lightened up after Batman picked up Robin as a sidekick. Eventually, there was Science Fiction Batman in the 1950s (during a period when superhero comics almost disappeared), followed by “New Look” Batman in 1964 (which could also be called Return of the Detective), followed by Campy Batman in 1966 (because of popularity of the Batman television show), followed by Classic Batman is Back, circa 1969 or ’70, etc., etc. All different interpretations of the same character.

In the 1990s, there was a Batman cartoon that captured all this. A group of kids are talking. Two claim to have seen Batman. The first provides a description and we see a sequence resembling Dick Sprang-drawn comics of the 1940s, with Gary Owens providing the voice of Batman. The second describes something much different, and the sequence is drawn to resemble Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns comic of the 1980s, with Michael Ironside voicing Batman.

Eventually, the group of kids gets into trouble and we see the 1990s cartoon Batman, voiced by Kevin Conroy, in a sequence that evokes elements of both visions.

With the Bond film series, something similar has occurred. In various media, you’ll see fans on different sides of an argument claiming Fleming as supporting their view. Search hard enough, and you can find bits of Fleming or Fleming-inspired elements in almost any Bond film. The thing is, the different eras aren’t the result of long-term planning. They’re based on choices, the best guess among filmmakers of what is popular at a given time, what makes a good Bond story, etc.

In effect, both the film 007 and the comic book Batman have had to adapt or die. Fans today can’t imagine a world without either character. But each has had crisis moments. For Bond, the Broccoli-Saltzman separation of the mid-1970s and the 1989-95 hiatus in Bond films raised major questions about 007’s future. Batman, meanwhile, faced the prospect of cancellation by DC Comics (one reason for the 1964 revamp that ended the science fiction era) but managed to avoid it.

None of this, of course, will stop the arguments. Truth be told, things might become dull if the debates ceased. Still things might go over better if participants looked at them as an opportunity. An opposing viewpoint that’s well argued keeps you sharp and might cause you to consider ideas you overlooked.

Kevin Conroy, voice of Batman in cartoons, dies

Logo for Batman: The Animated Series

Kevin Conroy, who became the voice of Bruce Wayne and Batman starting in 1992 with Batman: The Animated Series, died this week at 66, according to multiple media reports.

Here is an excerpt from the website of CBS:

The actor voiced the caped crusader in “Batman: The Animated Series,” which aired 85 episodes from 1992 to 1996 and in several DC animated movies and video games. In total, he brought the character to life in more than 60 projects. 

In 2019, he performed a live-action version of the role for the first time, appearing on the CW’s television event “Crisis on Infinite Earths” as a future version of Bruce Wayne.

CBS added this detail:

Conroy was the first and only openly gay actor to play Batman. In June 2022, Conroy wrote a comic called “Finding Batman” for DC Pride, where he reflected on his experience voicing the character while coming to terms with his sexuality. In a Twitter video shared shortly after the comic was published, Conroy thanked fans for their “overwhelming” support. 

Batman: The Animated Series ranks as one of the best — if not the best — adaptations of Batman. Conroy’s voice work was one of the reasons.

The show also adapted certain Batman comic stories, providing the writers of those stories credit. Batman: The Animated Series featured high production values and attracted actors such as Edward Asner, Efrem Zimbalist Jr. (as Alfred), Mark Hamill (as The Joker), John Vernon, Paul Williams (as the Penguin), and others. Adam West, star of the 1966-68 live-action Batman television show, also was a voice actor on Batman: The Animated Series.

Paul Dini, part of the production team, put out this tweet:

pic.twitter.com/yq6EbYp47G

— Paul_Dini (@Paul_Dini) November 11, 2022