IFP releases designs for 70th edition paperbacks

The Ian Fleming Publications 007 logo

Ian Fleming Publications unveiled a “new look” for Fleming’s Bond books and other works.

The announcement came shortly after IFP said it was scrubbing offensive bits from the author’s James Bond novels. That move stirred controversy about being “woke” and censorship.

In today’s announcement, IFP said Webb & Webb Design Ltd. had come up with new covers.

Besides Fleming’s James Bond works, IFP unveiled new covers for The Diamond Smugglers and Thrilling Cities.

Footnote: Thrilling Cities caused Ian Fleming to (briefly) become involved with The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Fleming would co-create the character of Napoleon Solo before abandoning the project under pressure from Bond producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman.

IFP has mostly ignored Fleming’s involvement with the TV project. Fleming sold his interest in U.N.C.L.E. for 1 British pound. IFP gets no money from U.N.C.L.E. as a result.

Bond 26 questions

Nature abhors a vacuum. With that in mind, here are some modest questions concerning Bond 26.

Time to lighten up? Over the past five Bond films made by Eon Productions there has been a lot of angst.

Bond losing his lady love (Casino Royale, based on Ian Fleming’s first novel). Bond out for revenge (Quantum of Solace). Bond not able to save M (Skyfall). Bond discovers his foster brother was his greatest enemy (SPECTRE). Bond getting blown up with missiles (No Time to Die).

The Daniel Craig era of Bond films (which started over from the previous 20 movies) was often very serious. That era was a big difference from the mostly escapist Eon adventures that preceded it. Should the past be the future?

Could it be time to lighten things up?

Time to reduce the budget? The Bond film series has a history of hiking production budgets and bringing them back under control.

With SPECTRE and No Time to Die, the production budgets exploded. U.K. regulatory filings in 2020 suggested No Time to Die’s budget was nearing $300 million. That doesn’t include marketing costs. Is this sustainable? Sure, delays related COVID-19 were a factor. But the film industry has, more or less, adjusted to all that.

Time to let go of the homages to past Bond movies? Quantum of Solace, SPECTRE, and No Time to Die all had homages (critics would say crutches) to previous Bond films.

No Time to Die alone had multiples homages to On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. At one point, Bond is meeting with M in London with John Barry’s theme from Majesty’s plays in the background. There are multiple references to the John Barry-Hal David song We Have All the Time in the World. And, of course, we get the Aston DB5 (in the form of newly built replica cars).

Is it maybe time to move on from the homages?

As usual, we’ll see.

Washington Post argues for Skyfall as 2012’s best picture

Daniel Craig in 2012 during filming of Skyfall.

The Washington Post, in an article about what movies should have won the Best Picture Oscar, says Skyfall should have received the award for 2012.

The story originally was published in 2016 but has been updated because of the Oscars ceremony scheduled for March 12.

Here’s the article’s entry for 2012:

Go big or go home. Listen, this was a tough year: “Argo” was delightful, but Spielberg was working at a much higher level of difficulty by making the weighty themes of “Lincoln” so human and relatable. But that’s beside the point: The academy had one chance to give a Bond movie the Oscar, and it was with the confident, thrilling, psyche-probing “Skyfall.” Bond may be the best franchise of all times, but its individual films rarely connect on all levels like this one did.

Skyfall wasn’t even nominated for Best Picture. The nominees were Amour, Argo, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Django Unchained, Les Miserables, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, and Zero Dark Thirty. Argo ended up winning.

Skyfall received five nominations. It won two, Best Song (the film’s title song) and it shared a sound award with Zero Dark Thirty. The results snapped a long Oscar drought for the Bond film series. Bond had previously won for special effects for Thunderball.

Still, there was disappointment among Bond fans. Roger Deakins had been nominated for Skyfall’s cinematography but didn’t win. (He would later win for Blade Runner 2049 and 1917.) And the film wasn’t nominated for acting, directing, or writing.

Since Skyfall, the Bond series has won two more Best Song Oscars for SPECTRE and No Time to Die.

Topol dies at 87

Topol (1935-2023)

Chaim Topol, the Israeli actor best known for playing Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, has died at 87, according to various reports, including The New York Times.

His death was announced on Twitter by Isaac Herzog, the president of Israel.

The actor “was one of the most outstanding Israeli stage artists, a gifted actor who conquered many stages in Israel and overseas, filled the cinema screens with his presence and above all entered deep into our hearts,” Herzog wrote, according to a Google translation of the tweet.

The actor starred in the 1971 movie version of Fiddler on the Roof. He appeared in stage revivals and played Tevye more than 3,500 times, according to the Times.

Topol played Columbo, an ally for Roger Moore’s James Bond in 1981’s For Your Eyes Only. The movie adapted two Ian Fleming short stories. The conflict between Topol’s character and Julian Glover’s Kristatos was taken from the Risico short story that was part of the For Your Eyes Only collection of stories.

The film For Your Eyes Only was a down-to-earth entry in the Bond film series. Columbo has been set up by Kristatos to appear to be Bond’s opponent. Eventually, Bond discovers the truth and joins forces with Columbo.

Pinewood Studios posted a tribute to the actor on social media. Topol was also in the cast of 1980’s Flash Gordon, as noted by the studio.

We are deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Chaim Topol. He starred in Fiddler on the Roof (1971), Flash Gordon (1980) and For Your Eyes Only (1981) at our Studios. Our thoughts are with his family and friends at this time. pic.twitter.com/9VC2nXd3M6

— Pinewood Studios (@PinewoodStudios) March 9, 2023

UPDATE: I was reminded by reader Mike Schneider that Topol played a role in having former Eon Productions partners Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman reconcile years after their mid-1970s breakup. Here’s an excerpt from an MI6 HQ biography of Saltzman.

The old partners had not parted on the best of terms but when, at Topol‘s suggestion, Cubby invited his long-time producer friend to the premiere of “For Your Eyes Only” (1981), they rekindled a friendship.

About that No Time to Die writing credit

Phoebe Waller-Bridge

Screenplay credits in movies can be elaborate and that was certainly the case with 2021’s No Time to Die. Four people got a piece of the credit, including actress and scribe Phoebe Waller-Bridge.

As you may recall, Waller-Bridge’s participation caused quite a bit of fuss. Among the many articles written was a September 2019 Daily Mail article by Baz Bamigboye. That piece quoted an executive the scribe didn’t identify as saying, “Phoebe’s contribution was great — far greater than we’d anticipated. She’s the savior of Bond, really. She was across the entire script.” (Bamigboye now works for the Deadline entertainment website.)

Eventually, the writing team of Neal Purvis and Robert Wade as well as director Cary Fukunaga received the screenplay credit with Waller-Bridge. Purvis, Wade and Fukunage were credited with the plot.

Now, a new Daily Mail story quotes Waller-Bridge that she maybe wasn’t the savior after all.

But she admits to being underprepared after signing up for the project, resulting in many of her early suggestions being dismissed by producers of the long-running franchise. 

‘I should naturally have done a lot of Bond research… I didn’t do a huge amount of research for it,’ she told Masterclass acting scheme students during a recent talk at London’s Haymarket Theatre. 

‘I’m not very good at homework. That says a lot.’

According to the article, Waller-Bridge said, “It is fun playing in someone else’s sandpit for a while as you learn stuff.” She also said she hadn’t been told the movie would end with Daniel Craig’s version of James Bond being killed. That had already been baked into the story

Of course, Waller-Bridge wasn’t the only writer whose work was hyped. The Playlist in a February 2019 story proclaimed Scott Z. Burns had been retained to “overhaul” No Time to Die’s script. Burns has a reputation as a script doctor and probably was well paid. In the end, his name wasn’t included in the screenplay credit.

About a certain No Time to Die anniversary

No Time to Die teaser poster

March 4 is the third anniversary of a No Time to Die event, the first time the 25th James Bond film made by Eon Productions, was delayed because of COVID-19.

Context: COVID-19 was spreading across the globe, causing major health problems.

No Time to Die had already been delayed multiple times, from fall 2019 to April 2020 because the original director, Danny Boyle, had departed the project.

Now, a virus was going to have an impact. At the time, there was no vaccine. People were dying.

Here is one social media form of the announcement:

MGM, Universal and Bond producers, Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, announced today that after careful consideration and thorough evaluation of the global theatrical marketplace, the release of NO TIME TO DIE will be postponed until November 2020. pic.twitter.com/a9h1RP5OKd

— James Bond (@007) March 4, 2020

Two days before the announcement, MI6 HQ and the James Bond Dossier published an open letter urging the movie’s premiere be delayed because of COVID-19.

This caused a huge controversy in the Bond fan community. (Disclosure: I have been on MI6 HQ’s James Bond & Friends podcast and I have done some livestreams with the James Bond Dossier,) I know both were criticized after the open letter was published.

In the end, No Time to Die wouldn’t come out until the fall of 2021.

There may still be hard feelings about the open letter in the fan community. Still, it’s hard to believe three years have passed since the COVID-19 delays of No Time to Die.

Amazon to come out with a spy show

Richard Madden

Amazon, through its ownership of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, has ties to the James Bond film franchise. But Eon Productions controls output of the films and isn’t in a hurry to make Bond 26. What’s a huge company to do?

The answer: Come out with a new streaming spy show, one that evokes The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and Kingsman and features an actor who’s been mentioned as a potential film Bond.

The result is Citadel, described by Vanity Fair as “an action spy show that was the first-ever global TV series, with a main show and then local offshoots around the world.”

Citadel is described by Vanity Fair as “a spy organization that has no allegiance to any country.”

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. featured a multi-national organization, a sort-of United Nations spy organization. The Kingsman movies feature an independent intelligence organization, inspired by U.N.C.L.E.

One of the stars of Citadel is Richard Madden, 36, whose name gets mentioned as a potential future Bond actor. Also involved with the project are brothers Joe and Anthony Russo, who made the biggest hits for Marvel Studios. In 2022, the Russos made The Gray Man, a spy movie for Netflix.

Madden plays an agent named Mason Kane, according to Vanity Fair. His partner was Nadia Sinh (Priyanka Chopra Jonas). Citadel, the organization they worked for, has fallen to a villainous organization called Manticore (which sounds similar to Thrush, the villainous organization in The Man From U.N.C.L.E.). Their memories are gone.

In any case, Citadel’s first two episodes are scheduled to debut on Amazon Prime on April 28.

To view the Vanity Fair article about Citadel, CLICK HERE.

Octopussy’s 40th: Battle of the Bonds, round 1

Poster with a suggestive tagline.

Adapted from previous posts.

Forty years ago, there was the much-hyped “Battle of the Bonds.” Competing 007 movies, the 13th Eon Productions entry with Roger Moore and a non-Eon film with Sean Connery, originally were supposed to square off in the summer.

Things didn’t quite work out that way. In June 1983, Eon’s Octopussy debuted while Never Say Never Again got pushed back to the fall.

Producer Albert R. Broccoli was taking no chances. He re-signed Moore, 54 at the start of production in the summer of 1982, for the actor’s sixth turn as Bond. It had seemed Moore might have exited the series after 1981’s For Your Eyes Only. Broccoli had considered American James Brolin, and Brolin’s screen tests surfaced at a 1994 007 fan convention in Los Angeles. But with Never Say Never Again, a competing 007 adventure starring Connery, the original screen Bond, the producer opted to stay with Moore.

Also back was composer John Barry, who had been away from the world of 007 since 1979’s Moonraker. Octopussy would be the start of three consecutive 007 scoring assignments, with A View To a Kill and The Living Daylights to follow. The three films would prove to be his final 007 work.

Barry opted to use The James Bond Theme more than normal in Octopussy’s score, presumably to remind the audience this was part of the established film series.

Meanwhile, Broccoli kept in place many members of his team from For Your Eyes Only: production designer Peter Lamont, director John Glen, director of photography Alan Hume, and associate producer Tom Pevsner. Even in casting the female lead, Broccoli stayed with the familiar, hiring Maud Adams, who had previously been the second female lead in The Man With the Golden Gun.

Behind the cameras, perhaps the main new face was writer George MacDonald Fraser, who penned the early versions of the script. Fraser’s knowledge of India, where much of the story takes place, would prove important. Richard Maibaum and Broccoli stepson Michael G. Wilson took over to rewrite. The final credit had all three names, with Fraser getting top billing.

As we’ve WRITTEN BEFORE, scenes set in India have more humor than scenes set in East and West Germany. Sometimes, the humor is over the top (a Tarzan yell during a sequence where Bond is being hunted in India by villain Kamal Khan). At other times, the movie is serious (the death of the “sacrificial lamb” Vijay).

In any event, Octopussy’s ticket sales did better in the U.S. ($67.9 million) compared with For Your Eyes Only’s $54.8 million. Worldwide, Octopussy scored slightly less, $187.5 million compared with Eyes’s $195.3 million. For Broccoli & Co., that was enough to ensure the series stayed in production.

Hype about the Battle of the Bonds would gear back up when Never Say Never premiered a few months later. But the veteran producer, 74 years old at the time of Octopussy’s release, had stood his ground. Now, all he could do was sit back and watch what his former star, Sean Connery, who had heavy say over creative matters, would come up with a few months later.

Over the years, Octopussy has continued to generate mixed reactions

One example was an article posted in 2018 on the Den of Geek website. 

While the site said Octopussy deserves another chance with fans, it also levied some criticisms.

It’s a funny old film, Octopussy, one used as evidence by both Moore’s prosecution and his defense. Haters cite the befuddled plot, an older Moore, some truly silly moments (Tarzan yell, anyone?), a Racist’s Guide to India, and the painfully metaphorical sight of a 56 year-old clown trying to disarm a nuclear bomb (rivalled only by Jaws’ Moonraker plunge into a circus tent on the “Spot the Unintentional Subtext” scale.)

At the same time, Den of Geek also compliments aspects of the movie, including its leading man.

Moore also submits a very good performance, arguably his strongest. Easy to treat him as a joke but the man really can act. Sometimes through eyebrows alone.

Octopussy still has the power to enthrall some and to generate salvos from its critics.

Ying and the yang about entertainment

Image for the official James Bond feed on Twitter

The past few weeks have demonstrated the yin and the yang about entertainment.

The pro-artist side:

–Actors owe fans only their best performance,

–When it comes to Bond films, the Bond producers don’t owe anything to fans. Fans can accept what the producers come out with or no.

The pro-fan slide:

— Without fans, nothing much else happens.

Regardless, the entire enterprise is complicated. There are (potentially) millions of dollars at risk.

Still, producers are as subject to fan reviews as actors. When you get into “the arena,” your efforts” are subject to fan reviews and comments.

It has been like this since the earliest days of movies and more recently with TV shows. Audience reactions for both movies and TV shows have had an impact for decades.

Broccoli seeks to cool down Bond 26 speculation

Barbara Broccoli, boss of Eon Productions

Barbara Broccoli, the boss of Eon Productions, has again tried to cool down temperatures related to Bond 26.

Last week, the LAD Bible website carried some comments from Broccoli that Bond 26 isn’t that far along.

“No, we haven’t even started casting yet,” she said. “There isn’t even a script.”

In past months, there have been stories from British tabloids such as The Sun that Eon has gotten hot and bothered about Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Eon’s Bond No. 007 to succeed Daniel Craig.

Some Bond fans have bitten on such reports. They figure there’s something behind such smoke.

Over the past year (or longer), there’s a notion that Eon is coming up with a long-range plan.

IF that’s true, that would be a change.

During the Daniel Craig era (2006-2021), Eon said Skyfall (2012) had nothing to do with Casino Royale (2006) and Quantum of Solace (2008).

But, with 2015’s SPECTRE was suddenly talked about part of an extended storyline (especially after Eon regained the rights to the character of Ernst Stavro Blofeld). That was extended with No Time to Die.

Eon *never* envisioned a five-part arc. But, as the movies unfolded, the talking points changed.

Now, we’re told that Eon is trying to come up with an extended plan for a post-Craig era. Maybe yes, maybe no.

But, as the saying goes, when the legend becomes fact, print the legend.