Bond 25 questions: The potpourri edition

New No Time to Die poster

We’ve had a few No Time to Die developments recently. Naturally, the blog has a couple of questions.

Will the gunbarrel be at the beginning?

Hard to say, but this week’s Cary Fukunaga video suggests it’s a strong possibility.

“The white dots on the screen…the adrenaline starts pumping,” Fukunaga’s voiceover says, accompanying the Daniel Craig gunbarrel from SPECTRE. “Settle in and get ready for a ride.”

That sounds like a description of the first 20 Bond films when the gunbarrel was at the start of the movie. Things got changed up with 2006’s Casino Royale, which began a new, rebooted timeline. The gunbarrel appeared at the end of the pre-titles sequence.

Then, for Quantum of Solace and Skyfall, the gunbarrel appeared at the end of the film. There was some pushback from fans. That generated pushback to the pushback where other fans questioned how dare fans question the artistry of the films. The comments section of this 2012 post demonstrates both sides of the argument.

The gunbarrel was back at the start of SPECTRE, although it wasn’t the best executed, including having Daniel Craig swinging his arm wildly showing he’s holding a gun.

In any case, Fukunaga at least sounds more appreciative of the gunbarrel logo than his Bond directing predecessor Sam Mendes. We’ll see.

Why didn’t Scott Z. Burns get a script credit?

Supposedly, the ace Hollywood “script doctor” in early 2019 was on his way to save No Time to Die’s script. Certainly, The Playlist website made it sound that way in a February 2019 story.

To give credit where credit is due, The Playlist was the first to report Burns participating in the writing of the film. Saving the script? Not so much. Burns ended up not getting a credit while Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, director Fukunaga and scribe Phoebe Waller-Bridge did.

Ultimately, script credits are decided by the Writers Guild of America. The rules are a bit complex but in general favor the early writers over those who rewrite. There is also a cap on the number of credits available. In this case, Burns had no seat when the WGA musical chairs of writing credits ended.

Bond 25 questions: Awaiting principal photography Part II

Daniel Craig in SPECTRE’s gunbarrel

Earlier this month, the blog had a few questions while awaiting the start of Bond 25 principal photography. If Variety is correct, the wait won’t be much longer. But, in the interim, here are additional questions.

Who will be Bond 25’s composer?

David Arnold has a five-film run as 007 composer. But that ended when Sam Mendes directed this decade’s Skyfall and SPECTRE, bringing along his choice of composer, Thomas Newman.

We’ve had disclosures about production designer (Mark Tildesley) and director of photography (Linus Sandgren). But there’s been radio silence concerning Bond 25’s composer. Having Cary Fukunaga as director perhaps will bring a new 007 musical voice. We’ll see.

Will there be some crew turnover in other departments?

The Eon-produced 007 film series is known for having crew members who work multiple films. But nothing lasts forever.

Peter Lamont began work on the series as a draftsman on Goldfinger and worked his way up to production designer. He worked on the series into his 70s, departing after 2006’s Casino Royale.

Terry Bamber worked on a number of Bond films, with jobs such as second unit production manager. But he hasn’t been on a 007 film since Skyfall.

We already know of turnover in the production designer slot. Dennis Gassner had a three-film run in the job but was replaced by Tildesley when Danny Boyle was named director. Despite Boyle’s departure, it appears Tildesley remains in place.

Which writers will get a Bond 25 credit?

The blog asked this in a previous Bond 25 questions post. Since then, the writer count has gone up again.

At least six writers have been associated with the project: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, John Hodge, Paul Haggis, Scott Z. Burns and Phoebe Waller-Bridge.

Writing credits can be subject to arbitration by the Writers Guild of America.

“In certain cases, the proposed credits are subject to automatic arbitration, and in other cases, writers are given an opportunity to protest the proposed credits to trigger an arbitration,” according to the union’s website.

There are limits to the number of credits. A writing team such as Purvis and Wade is counted as a single writing entity, as it were. Regardless, it doesn’t appear likely all six will be in the movie’s writing credit. Hodge, for example, was Danny Boyle’s guy and left the project when Boyle did.

What happens with the gunbarrel in Bond 25?

The first three Daniel Craig 007 films moved the gunbarrel logo around. It appeared just before the main titles in Casino Royale. And it was at the end of both Quantum of Solace and Skyfall. It finally placed at its traditional start-of-the-movie position in SPECTRE, though there were a few quirks.

When last we saw Craig’s 007 at the end of SPECTRE, he appeared to have departed Her Majesty’s Secret Service. If that’s part of the plot of Bond 25, does it make sense to have the gunbarrel at the start? Or does it get moved again?

About the SPECTRE gunbarrel logo

Original gunbarrel as seen from Dr. No through Goldfinger.

Back in 2012, this blog ran a post that raised the question whether the gunbarrel logo would ever begin a James Bond movie again.

In 2015, the answer, finally was yes with SPECTRE.

At the time, this blog didn’t comment much. After all, it doesn’t seem like good form to complain about getting something you wanted.

Since then, we’ve been reminded there were a few oddities about SPECTRE’s gunbarrel. For example, the Being James Bond website, IN THIS VIDEO, noted that Daniel Craig’s 007 wildly swings his right arm so that you can see Bond openly is carrying a gun. Not exactly an inconspicuous wielding of a firearm by a secret agent.

The website also noted that the three-dimensional gunbarrel effect that began with GoldenEye wasn’t used in SPECTRE.

Something else to consider: The SPECTRE gunbarrel uses a different musical arrangement from previous Bond movies. There’s a soft arrangement of The James Bond Theme that plays under the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Columbia Pictures/Sony logos.

Back in the “old days,” there was no music over studio logos. Music didn’t begin until the white dots began moving across the screen.

With SPECTRE, the music with the studio logs is followed by the start of gunbarrel music per se. But there’s a delay between the start of the white dots going across the screen and the time the last dot opens up to reveal Bond on the right side of the screen.

On the Being James Bond video, there’s speculation that the filmmakers really didn’t want to put the gunbarrel at the start of the film.

We guess Being James Bond is correct. With Skyfall, there was a song and dance about how a gunbarrel at the beginning just wouldn’t, couldn’t, etc. work. IN A 2012 INTERVIEW, Eon Productions co-boss Barbara Broccoli clearly was NOT promising the gunbarrel would be at the start of the next movie. “It will vary from film to film,” she said at the time.

As an aside, it should be noted that Daniel Craig is the only Bond to get to film a different gunbarrel for each 007 film he did.

Prior to Craig:

–Stuntman Bob Simmons’ gunbarrel was used for the first three Bond films.

–The same Sean Connery gunbarrel was used for three movies (Thunderball, You Only Live Twice and Diamonds Are Forever).

–George Lazenby only did one, naturally. (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service)

–Roger Moore did two (one for Live And Let Die and The Man With The Golden Gun, the other for his other five 007 films)

–Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan only had one on-screen gunbarrel in their films (although Brosnan got another for a trailer only).

Regardless, the SPECTRE gunbarrel will have to do. It doesn’t appear we’ll be seeing another version anytime soon.

What’s your favorite gunbarrel?

Part of the fun of a James Bond movie is the gunbarrel sequence. Dots move across the screen, the last one opening up to resemble the inside of a gunbarrel following James Bond…well, if you’re reading this blog, you know what we’re talking about.

Like other obsessive Bond fans, we’re curious to see how the gunbarrel will look in the new Bond film “Quantum of Solace.” But for the moment, it’s time for a trip down memory lane and look at the gunbarrels made to date. This YouTube video includes “Never Say Never Again” (which didn’t have a gunbarrel), but what the heck: