Major Matt Mason? Really?

Mattel has scored a big financial success with the new Barbie movie, a Warner Bros. film based on Mattel’s doll that debuted in 1959.

The Above the Line website had a story this week about how Mattel is moving forward with a slate of as many as 14 movies. The slate includes the likes of Polly Pocket, Hot Wheels, and Magic 8 Ball.

But one caught my eye, mostly because it was part of my childhood and partly because it’s not well known today.

That would be Major Matt Mason, an astronaut toy from the 1960s, introduced in the midst of the U.S.-Soviet Union space race.

Barbie (and related dolls) were about 12 inches tall. Major Matt Major was half (or less) tall. He was made of rubber with a skeleton of wire that enabled moving arms and legs into different positions. Except the interior wire often broke leaving Major Matt Mason limp. The major also had other astronauts, including sidekick Sgt. Storm.

Along with the astronaut figures, there were other vehicles and a space station.

The problem, for Mattel, was interest in Major Matt Mason waned after the 1969 U.S. moon landing.

As it turns out, a Major Matt Mason project has been kicking around for years, according to a 2019 story by The Playlist. According to that article, Tom Hanks was attached to star, from a screenplay by Akiva Goldsman.

Now that Barbie is a hit, I suppose anything is possible.

Title of Sherwood’s 2nd 00-novel announced

A Spy Like Me is the title of Kim Sherwood’s second 00-novel, the author announced today in a post on Twitter.

The book will be released on April 25, 2024, according to a listing on Amazon UK.

“An elite team of MI6 agents go undercover to unravel a smuggling network funding violent terror,” according to the Twitter post. “Six days. Three agents. One chance to find James Bond.”

In Sherwood’s first novel, Double or Nothing, Bond is missing and other 00 agents were featured. A cover for A Spy Like Me is to be revealed later.

Here is Sherwood’s post:

FOR YOUR EYES ONLY 👀

I’m thrilled to lift the curtain on the next Double O novel…

A SPY LIKE ME

An elite team of MI6 agents go undercover to unravel a smuggling network funding violent terror.

Six days. Three agents. One chance to find James Bond.https://t.co/XOAzbW4xdk pic.twitter.com/z6fAPex4Dz

— Kim Sherwood (@kimtsherwood) July 25, 2023

Bond and the new cinema conventional wisdom

Still from Barbie (2023)

The old conventional wisdom (going into this year) was movie studios had to rely on established intellectual property (also known as IP). Sequels. Comic book-based movies. Etc.

The new conventional wisdom (since the July 21-23 weekend): Sequels are dead! Audiences want new things!

The U.S. theater box office was dominated by two non-sequels, Barbie ($162 million) and Oppenheimer ($82.5 million). The former was a satire based on a toy doll around for more than six decades. The latter was a serious, three-hour film biography directed by Christopher Nolan.

Box office stories tend to be written in a manic-depressive way. Either they’re huge hits or flops. Still, new installments of long-running franchises (Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One) didn’t get that kind of box office start.

So where does this leave the James Bond film franchise, at least in the U.S.?

Bond is the definition of long-running. 1962’s Dr. No was followed by 24 sequels from 1963 through 2021. You’ve had reboots. 2006’s Casino Royale was starting over with Daniel Craig. But Craig’s last three movies utilized the Aston Martin DB-5 first seen in 1964’s Goldfinger.

Other long-running movie series have faced challenges. The Marvel Cinematic University seemed invincible from 2008 through 2019. Since then? Not so much.

Bond remains huge in the U.K. In the U.S., the trend is not so sanguine. Skyfall (2012) globally was $1.1 billion, helped by $304 million in the U.S.

That slipped to $881 million globally ($200 million in the U.S.) for 2015’s SPECTRE and $774 million ($161 million for the U.S.) for 2021’s No Time To Die. In 2021, No Time to Die was No. 007 at the U.S. box office.

As stated before, box office stories are very much written in a manic-depressive way. This week’s hit can take on a new reputation if the second week at the box office drops too much.

Bond, definitely, is a cinematic survivor. At the same time, the movie business is volatile right now. We’ll see how it goes.

Nolan provides a Rorschach test about 007

Link to audio version:

Christopher Nolan

Director Christopher Nolan, while promoting his new Oppenheimer film, was asked about the possibility of directing a James Bond movie in the future. His comments represent a kind of Rorschach test, spurring different reactions,

Nolan was interviewed this week by a digital outlet, Happy, Sad, Confused. At one point, interviewer Josh Horowitz changed the subject to Bond 26.

As he has previously, Nolan expressed his enthusiasm for Bond films. “I love those movies, the influence of those movies on my filmography is embarrassingly apparent, you know, so there’s no attempt to shy away from that,” Nolan said. “I love the (Bond) films, and it would be an amazing privilege to do one.”

People who saw those quotes reacted that Nolan is, indeed, a contender to direct Bond 26. His homages to Bond include bits in The Dark Knight (2008) and Inception (2010). The Bond series returned the favor with homages to Nolan in Skyfall (2012). And Eon Productions hired some Nolan crew members in SPECTRE (2015).

Yet, some — specifically the Screen Rant entertainment news site — refer to other quotes from Nolan in the same interview.

“You wouldn’t want to take on a film not fully committed to what you could bring to the table creatively, so as a writer, casting, or everything, that’s the full package. But no, I stand with the previous answer, which is you’d have to be really needed, you’d have to be really wanted in terms of bringing the totality of what you bring to the character. Otherwise, I’m very happy to be first in line to see whatever they do.” (emphasis added)

Screen Rant, in its story, opined, “However, as the director mentioned, limitations on what control he would have in the project may have already lowered his chances…As such, Nolan would be required to fit in with the decisions of higher powers at the earliest stages of production, limiting what he could do when crafting his own 007 story.”

Not mentioned in the Screen Rant story is how Nolan would bring a production company and his producer wife Emma Thomas in with him. Potentially, a Nolan hire may mean Eon relinquishing some control. That didn’t work out with Bond 25/No Time to Die where Danny Boyle was attached as director for a time.

For now, those interested in a Nolan-directed Bond have something to talk about.

The Horwitz interview with Nolan is embedded below. The Bond part of the interview starts after the 22:00 mark.

M:I 7 and the difficulty of saving cinema

Tom Cruise, star and producer of M:I 7

Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One had a mixed reception at the box office this weekend.

The seventh M:I movie generated an estimated $80 million since its official July 12 opening (there were showings as early as July 10), according to Exhibitor Relations Co. And its estimated total for the Friday-Sunday weekend was $56.2 million.

That put M:I 7 at No. 1 in the U.S. But the $80 million figure was lower than estimates going into the week. And the Friday-Sunday figure compared with $55.5 million for 2015’s Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation and $61.2 million for 2018’s Mission: Impossible Fallout.

The comparisons are difficult because of the way the new entry was released. Still, suffice it to say the new movie’s box office wasn’t much different than its predecessors despite higher ticket prices. Also, Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning cost about $290 million to make and it may be difficult for the film to turn a profit during its theatrical release.

All of this is a roundabout way of saying cinema hasn’t been saved, certainly not yet.

Since at least the fall of 2021, fans of some movie series say their favorite films will “save cinema” after COVID-19. Still, cinema seems fairly precarious.

Recent expensive movies (The Flash, Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny) have come up short at the box office. Streaming, which was supposed to be a gold mine, hasn’t worked out that way for studios. And the Hollywood writer and actor unions are on strike, grinding productions to a halt.

To be sure, Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One has gotten many, many positive reviews. On the other hand, it will lose access to IMAX and other premium-priced movie screens as the Oppenheimer movie directed by Christopher Nolan comes out later this week.

Saving cinema will be a long, hard slog. No single film is going to do it.

Bond 26 questions: Industry uncertainty edition

Former image for the official James Bond feed on Twitter

For now, Bond 26 is an abstraction: No script, no director, no star. Nobody really knows much about it. Yet, it’s being developed (?) amid much entertainment industry uncertainty.

Naturally, the blog has questions.

Among the various causes of uncertainty, what has the most impact on Bond 26?

Short-term is the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike. It’s hard to do a script when the WGA is on strike. On top of that, SAG-AFTRA, the U.S. actors union, has gone on strike, the first time in decades writers and actors walked off at the same time.

What do you mean by short-term?

Let me count the ways: Artificial intelligence has made filmmakers nervous, fearing studios may try to do scripts with AI and use technology to replace many actors for extras, small parts, etc.

More to consider: Streaming services were supposed to be the next big thing. But streaming has been a financial black hole, at least for Walt Disney Co.’s Disney+. And there is uncertainty about the long-term sustainability of the traditional movie theater model.

What does this mean for Bond 26?

As mentioned before, you can’t do a script as long as the WGA is on strike. Eon Productions has said the 007 franchise will be movie-based. The movie business has a lot of uncertainty far beyond Bond 26.

Any other thoughts?

Bond 26 already wasn’t coming out soon. It’s possible it may take even longer.

M:I 7: Tom Cruise makes a ’60s Bond film

Minimal spoilers but pass over if you’re super adverse to spoilers.

Stylistically, Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One is like an updated 1960s James Bond movie, especially the more epic ones such as You Only Live Twice.

It has a similar structure: The seventh M:I film, directed and co-written by Christopher McQuarrie, is built around outrageous stunts punctuated by humor and some genuinely dramatic scenes. And, as usual, it borrows tropes from the original 1966-73 M:I television series.

Some M:I action sequences evoke Bond but go bigger.

A car chase in Rome tops a similar sequence in SPECTRE. And, of course, there is the much-hyped motorcycle jumping off a mountain, a la GoldenEye, except here star and producer Tom Cruise does the jump himself. Cruise performing his own stunts has emerged over the years as the big trademark of the M:I film series.

The plot has a “ripped from the headlines” feel, dealing with artificial intelligence here, similar to how Bond films evoked the space race in the 1960s as well as the end of the Cold War and media barons in the 1990s, and other issues in the 21st century.

Dead Reckoning isn’t perfect. Its 163-minute running time feels like it could have been tightened. But that’s an issue with a lot of movies these days.

There is a lot of fan debate on chatter about Bond vs. M:I. The Bond series these days likes to take extended breaks between entries. This film and 2018’s Mission: Impossible Fallout came out during such pauses for the Bond series. For now, Mission: Impossible is taking up the slack left by Bond. GRADE: A-Minus.

Is $300 Million the line that can’t be crossed?

No Time to Die poster

Has the movie industry reached the limit for the production costs of films? Specifically, is $300 million it?

The most recent James Bond film, 2021’s No Time To Die, reached that level, according to Variety. in a 2020 report. This year’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny also had that level of spending after reshoots. Superhero movies such as The Flash, reportedly didn’t get that high but the box office didn’t support such spending.

It may be time for the movie industry to re-examine spending, especially for aging franchises. Bond has been around since 1962 (film-wise), Indiana Jones since 1981. Even The Flash was around since 2014 on television. Was 2023 the time for a Flash movie? (The original version of The Flash was created in 1940 and the version of The Flash in TV and movies was created in comics in 1956.)

This week, we’re getting the seventh Mission: Impossible movie from Tom Cruise. It has a big budget and has gotten a lot of positive reviews. A recurring theme of reviews is that Cruise trying to save movies. That’s an indication of how uncertain the situation is.

UPDATE: Here is a reminder related to No Time to Die. During the period when Danny Boyle was going to direct, the art department constructed a rocket — A ROCKET replica– that cost a lot of money. The art department also built a Russian gulag set in Canada. Neither appeared in the movie. That was TOTALLY WASTED SPENDING. Eon was responsible for the waste.

Critics weigh in on Mission: Impossible 7

Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One poster

Critic reviews have arrived ahead of this week opening’s of Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One. Reviews compiled by the Rotten Tomatoes website were nearly unanimously positive as of July 10.

The Tom Cruise movie is the biggest spy-related production of the year. The production endured delays related to COVID-19. The marketing of the film emphasizes major stunts.

What follows are some non-spoiler excerpts from some reviews.

ANN HORNADAY, THE WASHINGTON POST: “Like ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ last year, ‘Dead Reckoning’ might be just what we need right now: a two-hour-plus session of cinematic self-care, wherein the chases, fights, mayhem, exegetical speeches and jaw-dropping derring-do knit together to form a comforting weighted blanket of pure escapism and reassurance.”

RICHARD LAWSON, VANITY FAIR: The movie is “a massive attempt to once again thrill cinemagoers, who are now in much shorter supply than they were even five years ago. The gamble of Dead Reckoning, with numerous locations, a gargantuan budget, and literally death-defying stunts, is significant. We’ll have to see how it pays off at the box office. On creative terms, though, the risk mostly pays off.”

TOMRIS LAFFLY, THEWRAP: “Still, it is Cruise himself that unlocks this extraordinary and, in the end, surprisingly poignant franchise start to finish…Lest we forget, he is one hell of a dramatic actor with the sharpest of blue-eyed stares, carrying the weight of a rootless character through several savagely emotional moments, one of them, genuinely heartbreaking. What better mission could there be this summer other than witnessing our perpetual cinematic maverick deliver yet another full-scale cinematic experience? Should you choose to accept it, of course.”

KEVIN MAHER: THE TIMES: “It feels like a movie that’s been assembled by an inattentive monkey, or a luckless studio intern who was handed a bucket of half-completed rushes and told, ‘Go make a Covid-beating blockbuster out of that.'” (The review is behind a paywall. This is the excerpt offered up by Rotten Tomatoes.)

JUSTIN CHANG, LOS ANGELES TIMES: “The task of saving that world once again falls to Ethan Hunt, a.k.a. Tom Cruise — and if the world can’t be saved, well, maybe at least the movies can. Or can they? Even if not, just try and stop Cruise, now 61, from taking the weight of the entire industry on his shoulders.”

PETER BRADHAW, THE GUARDIAN: “Seven films! Daniel Craig got sick of 007 after just five. But at 61, Cruise looks better than ever and pretty much wedded to the (Impossible Missions Force). Other actors his age might be turning to offbeat character turns, but Tom was doing those for Paul Thomas Anderson and Michael Mann 20 years ago. The M:I series is his vocation, and Tom Cruise has single-handedly persuaded us that the action genre has a new respectability and purpose: the box-office savior of the live cinema experience. But I can’t help wondering: does he have an exit strategy for this franchise?”

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Amazon examining TV show costs, Bloomberg says

Poster for Amazon Prime’s $250 million Citadel series

Amazon management “is taking a hard look” at what it’s spending for streaming TV shows, Bloomberg reported.

The company’s streaming service has televised expensive shows, including its $250 million Citadel spy show and the even more expensive The Rings of Power. Amazon wants to reduce costs companywide and plans to cut jobs as part of that.

Citadel’s first season consisted of only six episodes but will also have local spinoff shows in markets such as India. Citadel concerned an independent spy agency that was crippled by a (supposedly worse) rival. It has been renewed for a second season.

Streaming services, led by Netflix and Disney +, have been throwing money into original movies and TV shows. Streaming was supposed to be the next big thing. But there have been hiccups. In the case of Citadel, it didn’t attract as big an audience as executives expected.

The Bloomberg report also detailed how there were competing versions of Citadel that emerged in post-production. That led to massive reshoots, boosting the production cost.

To be clear, Bloomberg’s story was about Amazon’s streaming efforts. However, Amazon also owns Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the home studio of the James Bond film series.

The most recent Bond film entry, 2021’s No Time to Die, cost more than $300 million, Variety reported in 2020. While the film had global box office of $774 million, that was below (despite higher ticket prices) of 2015’s SPECTRE and 2012’s Skyfall, the only 007 film to exceed $1 billion. No Time to Die’s spending occurred before Amazon bought MGM.

There’s no sign that Bond 26 will gear up soon, and a Writers Guild strike prevents script work for now. But if Amazon is looking to reduce costs, one has to wonder whether a pricey James Bond production might be affected.