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No Time to Die won the best song Oscar Sunday night.
Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell received Oscars for writing the title song to the 25th James Bond film. It was the third straight best song Oscar for the Bond film series, following 2012’s Skyfall and Writing’s on the Wall from 2015’s SPECTRE.
No Time to Die also had been nominated in the sound and visual effects categories. Dune won those Oscars.
The show’s in memoriam segment also included Leslie Bricusse, who co-wrote the lyrics for Goldfinger’s title song and who wrote the lyrics for the title song of You Only Live Twice.
The Oscars telecast also included a tribute to the Bond series via film clips while the title song for Live And Let Die played.
This is intended as a very quick review of No Time to Die. No spoilers here but I’m preparing a post that deals with the No. 1 spoiler.
After all this time, was it worth it? Yes, very much so. I am going back and forth whether it’s a B-Plus or A-Minus.
If you’re a fan of Daniel Craig/Bond, you’ll love it. If you don’t care for Craig/Bond, it won’t change your mind.
No Time to Die was in a position to take liberties knowing it would be the last movie featuring Craig, who is adored by Eon boss Barbara Broccoli. Knowing that, you can take more chances. That’s all I will say until later.
The movie is mostly executed extremely well. The score by Hans Zimmer (and Steve Mazzaro) is better than I thought it would be. They even found a way to get Mazzaro into the main titles.
It weaves bits from the title song by Billie Eilish and Finneas throughout. We haven’t experienced that so much since 2006’s Casino Royale, where David Arnold did the score and co-wrote the title song.
As I get older, I tend to appreciate the more talkative scenes more. One of my favorite scenes is when Bond, gone from MI6 for years, goes to M’s office. It’s quite good, with both sides of the conversation getting in their points.
And, for those who were concerned Bond was emasculated in this movie? Well, it didn’t happen. The trailers didn’t give away everything.
The movie mostly moved faster than a film running 163 minutes. It could have tightened some action scenes. But, these days, you can say that about most movies.
Hours after I saw the movie, I began to think about plot holes, questions, etc. But it’s a success when you don’t ponder that during the movie.
My main concern, if you want to call it that, is the movie is too self-referential. To examine that in more detail requires spoilers.
The song was performed by Billie Eilish and written by her and her brother, Finneas O’Connell. It won in the category of “Best Song Written For Visual Media.”
The song has been out for a long time. The title song debuted while the movie itself has been delayed multiple times. Fans have had ample chances to listen to the song. Eilish and her brother have commented in multiple interviews how the movie influenced the song.
No Time to Die is scheduled to come out on Sept. 30 in the U.K. and other countries. It will reach the U.S. and North America about a week later.
Here’s the tweet that the Grammys sent out on Sunday afterenoon:
Congrats Best Song Written For Visual Media winner – 'NO TIME TO DIE [FROM NO TIME TO DIE]' @billieeilish and @finneas ✨ #GRAMMYs
No Time to Die was featured on the Oct. 5 installment of The Tonight Show before being put back on the shelf until its new April 2021 release date.
The main new aspect was a brief clip. It’s from the Matera sequence and a bit more could be viewed of the scene where where Daniel Craig’s Bond jumps off a bridge. There was a brief chance to sample the Steve Mazzaro-Hans Zimmer score. (Remember, Zimmer told Variety that Mazzaro should get top billing. I am merely following his wishes.)
Phil Nobile Jr., editor of Fangoria magazine, posted the clip on Twitter. I am not embedding it, particularly if it gets yanked.
(UPDATE: Well, The Tonight Show posted it on YouTube. So no reason to be coy.)
In an interview with host Jimmy Fallon, Craig said the delay was so the 25th James Bond film could be shown worldwide. Now, Craig said, was not the time. The comment was a variation on the Oct. 2 announcement that the movie was being pushed back.
Craig also said he returned for a fifth outing as Bond because there was a story left to tell. This was similar to previous interviews.
The Tonight Show interview also had a 15-year-old anecdote about how Craig had never had a martini until just before the announcement he was taking over the Bond role.
Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas conducted what Fallon hyped as “the first U.S. performance” of the movie’s title song. It sounded pretty similar to all those other performances from months ago when the song first debuted. But the camera work was more interesting than the music video that came out last week.
Tonight also carried a new No Time to Die spot (now saying “in theaters 2021”) as well as Bond-themed Omega and Heineken commercials.
Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell did interviews on morning shows in the U.K. and the U.S. and provided a few additional details about the No Time to Die title song they co-wrote with Eilish performing.
BBC Breakfast: O’Connell said “we did go to re-listen to everything,” referring to past Bond songs to make sure they weren’t copying “other great songs.”
Eilish said she and her brother had a meeting Eon chief Barbara Broccoli in Ireland in early September.
“She basically gave us a little hint of what the first scene, what’s happening.” Broccoli later sent the first part of the script. “We had what the audience will have watched before they hear the song…It was really, really helpful. It really wrote the song for us.”
The siblings also said they had writer’s block initially. It was after that they wrote the song in three days.
Each also said star Daniel Craig had a big say in the song. “If Daniel doesn’t like it, you don’t get the job,” O’Connell said.
Toward the end, Eilish said she was scared about performing at the BRITS later in the day because “I have to hit a note I’ve never hit before.”
Good Morning America: O’Connell said the duo had “essentially total creative freedom in the writing process.”
Finneas O’Connell, older brother and collaborator of Billie Eilish
Finneas O’Connell, co-writer of the No Time to Die title song with his sister Billie Eilish, described the creative process in an interview with GQ.
“We wrote No Time to Die on a tour bus. Specifically, in the bunks of our tour bus,” told the magazine.
“We were given the first 20 pages of the script. I guess that’s up to the point when the song comes in during the movie, right? That’s how all the Bond films open up.
“So we were able to read the first 20 pages, which was obviously incredible. It gave us such a good steer and such insight into where the song would fall, and the tone. It makes it easier than having to write the whole song based on the entire movie; or in fact none of the movie.”
That sounds like the duo read the script’s pre-titles sequence. The general rule of thumb is that one page of script equals about one minute of screen time.
That suggests the pre-titles sequence may run about 20 minutes, although no one will know for sure until editing of the movie is complete.
O’Connell described what happened next.
“So Billie and I wrote the song, recorded the demo, sent it to them and then we finished it in London with Hans Zimmer doing the orchestral arrangements and also Johnny Marr from The Smiths,” he said. “I mean, James Bond? Hans Zimmer? Johnny Marr? Mind blowing.”
The interview covers other subjects. You can read the interview by CLICKING HERE.
No Time to Die’s title song will debut on Thursday, Feb. 13, co-writer and performer Billie Eilish announced on Twitter.
The song will be released at 4 p.m. Los Angeles time, or 7 p.m. New York time, according to the post on Twitter.
The song is actually titled “No Time to Die,” Eilish said.
Eilish wrote the song with her brother, Finneas O’Connell. The announcement that she was performing the Bond song was made in mid-January.
Eilish appeared on the Feb. 9 Oscars telecast. She performed the song “Yesterday” as part of the program’s In Memoriam segment.
Here’s the Twitter post that went out. There’s a snippet of the song.
The theme song for the 25th @007 film, written and performed by Billie, is titled “No Time To Die” and will be released globally tomorrow at 4pm PT. #NoTimeToDiepic.twitter.com/5QU9a3FPM0
Billie Eilish, ahead of winning a number of Grammy Awards on Sunday night, said the title song for No Time to Die is finished.
“It’s done,” Eilish said in an interview on the E! cable channel.
She didn’t provide additional details. (Does done mean it’s recorded? Or just written and recording still has to take place?). Eilish did talk about doing a Bond song in general.
“Writing a Bond theme song is like one of, I feel like, the biggest goals in life” for a musician and songwriter, she said.
Eilish is performing the No Time to Die song and co-wrote it with her brother Finneas O’Connell.
The interview is below. The Bond portion begins at the 1:19 mark.
Finneas O’Connell, older brother and writing collaborator of Billie Eilish
It took about a year to sell Eon Productions on the idea of a James Bond title song performed by Billie Eilish, Finneas O’Connell, who co-wrote the No Time to Die song with his sister, said in an interview with Billboard.
“We fought it out for a year,” O’Connell said in the interview. “We’ve always wanted to write a James Bond theme song. And you know, it’s a legendary franchise, so we had to convince a lot of people that we were the right choice.”
The interview was about O’Connell’s career with in general. But there were details about No Time to Die. O’Connor described the selection process.
“And then we had to write a song that everybody liked,” he said. “So it was a hard-won process. But everybody that we worked with on it, Barbara Broccoli, the producer of the Bond franchise (alongside Michael G. Wilson), we got to work with Hans Zimmer… it was a real joy.”
O’Connell reflected on the publicity about last week’s announcement concerning the No Time to Die title song.
“But uh, yeah, it’s so funny, ’cause some of the headlines have been like, ‘Billie Eilish and Finneas are writing the James Bond theme.’ And I’m so glad we’re no longer writing it — I’m so glad we wrote it a couple months ago, because, oh my god, if it was like, announced that we were doing it and we still had to write it, I would have such writer’s anxiety, you know?”
O’Connell described the ups and downs involved.
“It’s, in my experience, in my limited experience, as a songwriter and producer, it’s the hardest playing field I’ve never been on. … There were so many points where I was like, ‘I don’t know, maybe we don’t have this!’ (Laughs.) Like, it’s just like such a big deal. And you know … the whole pairing is very authentic to my and Billie’s relationship with those movies.”
Prior to the announcement, Eilish had earlier posted images of Bond actresses on the story portion of her Instagram account. The MI6 James Bond website reported Jan. 12 that Eilish, 18, would perform the song, becoming the youngest singer of a Bond title song.
Earlier in the morning, Variety ran a story concerning whether Eilish would be retained as title song performer. It included this analysis of how Eilish compares with previous Bond song performers.
If true, the choice of Eilish would be a dramatic change of direction for the legendary franchise’s long history of theme-song performers, which have progressed from Shirley Bassey to Paul McCartney and Duran Duran over the decades. More recent films have featured younger artists like Adele — who sang the smash hit “Skyfall” — and Sam Smith, both of whom, while contemporary artists in their 20s, are both British and create more adult-leaning music than Eilish: Her music is innovative and enormously popular, but her audience skews much younger than those artists’.
Eon yesterday announced that Hans Zimmer will do the score for the 25th James Bond film.
No Time to Die will continue a pattern where the title song is done separately from the score. A Bond film composer hasn’t been involved with a Bond title song since 2006’s Casino Royale, when David Arnold collaborated with Chris Cornell.
The Spy Command 