TWINE’s 25th: A transition for Bond

Cover to the original soundtrack release of The World Is Not Enough

Updated from previous posts.

The World Is Not Enough, the 19th film in the 007 film series made by Eon Productions, marked a transition.

Producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli hired a director, Michael Apted, with little experience in action movies. Apted was brought on because of his drama experience.

Apted also was charged with increasing the female audience for a Bond film.

“I didn’t understand why they picked me to do (The World Is Not Enough),” Apted told The Hollywood Reporter in an October 2018 interview.

“It turned out, they were trying to get more women to come and see it,” Apted said. “So, we really wanted to do a Bond with a lot of women in it. I was right person because I’d done a lot of successful films with women in them. But they didn’t tell me that until right before we started. When I found out, I finally understood.”

The producers also hired a new writing team, Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, to develop the story. They’re still in the world of 007 well into the 21st century.

The script development established a pattern the duo would soon be familiar with. They delivered their script, which would be reworked by other writers. In the case of The World Is Not Enough, Dana Stevens, Apted’s wife, revised the story. Another scribe, Bruce Feirstein, worked on the final drafts. Purvis, Wade and Feirstein would get a screen credit.

Meanwhile, Judi Dench’s M got expanded screen time, something that would persist through 2012’s Skyfall. The film also marked the final appearance of Desmond Llewelyn as Q. John Cleese came aboard as Q’s understudy.

Pierce Brosnan, in his third 007 outing, was now an established film Bond. In interviews at the time, he talked up the increased emphasis on drama. In the film, Bond falls for Elektra King, whose industrialist father is killed in MI6’s own headquarters. But in a twist, Elektra (played by Sophie Marceau) proves to be the real mastermind.

Q’s Good-Bye

The movie tried to balance the new emphasis on drama with traditional Bond bits such as quips and gadgets, such as the “Q boat” capable of diving underwater or rocketing across land. Some fans find the character of Dr. Christmas Jones, a scientist played by Denise Richards, over the top.

Years later, Richards did an interview with the SpyHards podcast. “Why is it on CNN that I am a Bond girl?” Richards said on the podcast, quoting her comments to her agent. The agent’s response: “Do you not know how big this movie is?”

Afterward, Richards told SpyHards, “I wanted to educate myself on the franchise” and she saw earlier films in the series.

For the actress, things were rough at times. She endured ridicule for playing a scientist. “I would go to my hotel and cry because the reviews were making fun of me,” Richards told the podcast.

Sometimes, the dual tones collided. Cleese’s initial appearance was played for laughs. In the same scene, however, Q, in effect, tells Bond good-bye in what’s intended to be a touching moment. It was indeed the final good-bye. Llewelyn died later that year as the result of a traffic accident.

The movie was a financial success, with $361.8 million in worldwide box office. Broccoli and Wilson, meanwhile, would return to the idea of increased drama in later entries after recasting Bond with Daniel Craig.

Good-bye, United Artists

The World Is Not Enough also dispensed (mostly) with the name of United Artists. UA cut the deal with Eon founders Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman in 1961 that led to the 007 film series.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer acquired UA in the early 1980s. But UA retained some kind of presence via corporate logos and such. (CLICK HERE for a history.)

With The World Is Not Enough, the film was branded as an MGM release, not a United Artists one. An MGM 75th anniversary logo appeared at the start of the movie. Deep into the end titles, the copyright notice listed “DANJAQ LLC” and “UNITED ARTISTS CORPORATION” as the owners of the movie. By this time, UA existed on paper only as part of MGM.

In 2019, MGM revived the UA name with United Artists Releasing, a joint venture with Annapurna, which distributed MGM and Annapurna movies in the U.S. Even so, with Bond films, the United Artists Releasing name appeared in small print on posters and wasn’t shown at the start of movies. No Time to Die had logos for MGM and Universal (which distributed the film outside the U.S.) or MGM only (in the U.S.)

Licence to Kill’s 35th anniversary: 007 falters in the U.S.

Licence to Kill’s poster

Updated from previous posts.

Licence to Kill, which came out 35 years ago, is mostly known for a series of “lasts” but also for a first.

–It was the last of five 007 films directed by John Glen, the most prolific director in the series.

–The last of 13 Bond films where Richard Maibaum (1909-1991) participated in the writing.

–It was the last with Albert R. Broccoli getting a producer’s credit (he would only “present” 1995’s GoldenEye).

–It was the last 007 movie with a title sequence designed by Maurice Binder, who would die in 1991.

–And the it was last 007 film where Pan Am was the unofficial airline of the James Bond series (it went out of business before GoldenEye).

It was also the first to falter badly in the U.S. market.

Economy Class

Bond wasn’t on Poverty Row when Licence to Kill began production in 1988. But neither did 007 travel entirely first class.

Under financial pressure from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (which acquired half the franchise after buying United Artists earlier in the decade), Eon Productions moved the home base of the production to Mexico from Pinewood Studios.

Joining Timothy Dalton in his second (and last) outing as Bond was a cast mostly known for appearing on U.S. television, including Anthony Zerbe, Don Stroud, David Hedison (his second appearance as Felix Leiter), Pricilla Barnes, Rafer Johnson, Frank McRae as well as Las Vegas performer Wayne Newton.

Meanwhile, character actor Robert Davi snared the role of the film’s villain, with Carey Lowell and Talisa Soto as competing Bond women.

Wilson’s Role

Michael G. Wilson, Broccoli’s stepson and co-producer, took the role as lead writer because a 1988 Writers Guild strike made Richard Maibaum unavailable. Maibaum’s participation didn’t extend beyond the plotting stage. The teaser trailer billed Wilson as the sole writer (“Screenplay by Michael G. Wilson”) but Maibaum received co-writer billing in the final credits (“Written by Michael G. Wilson and Richard Maibaum”).

Wilson opted for a darker take, up to a point. He included Leiter having a leg chewed off by a shark based on the Live And Let Die novel. A man gets his heart cut out (off-screen). Zerbe’s Milton Krest dies when his head explodes. Looking back today, the mayhem is relatively tame but it was a big deal at the time.

The writer-producer also upped the number of swear words compared with previous 007 entries. But Wilson hedged his bets with jokes, such as Newton’s fake preacher and a scene where Q (Desmond Llewelyn) shows off gadgets to Bond.

Licence would be the first Bond film where “this time it’s personal.” Bond goes rogue to avenge Leiter. Since then, it has frequently been personal for 007. Because of budget restrictions, filming was kept primarily in Florida and Mexico.

The end product didn’t go over well in the U.S. Other studios had given the 16th 007 film a wide berth for its U.S. opening weekend. The only “new” movie that weekend was a re-release of Walt Disney Co.’s Peter Pan.

Nevertheless, Licence finished an anemic No. 4 during the July 14-16 weekend coming in behind Lethal Weapon 2 (in its second weekend), Batman (in its fourth weekend) and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (also fourth weekend).

At the end of the day, Glen and Maibaum were done with Bond, the latter being part of the 007 series since its inception.

Bond 17’s Fembot

Initial pre-production of the next 007 film proceeded without the two series veterans. Wilson wrote a treatment in 1990 for Bond 17 with Alfonse Ruggiero that included a deadly fembot. Scripts with other scribes were then written based on that treatment. Author Mark Edlitz, in a 2020 book, detailed other attempts at writing a third and fourth Dalton movie.

None of the Dalton scripts were ever made.

That’s because Broccoli would enter into a legal fight with MGM that meant Bond wouldn’t return to movie screens until 1995. By the time production resumed, Eon started over, using a story by Michael France as a beginning point for what would become GoldenEye. Maibaum, meanwhile, died in early 1991.

Former studio executive Jeff Kleeman in a 2024 interview with the SpyHards podcast said the MGM leadership wasn’t enthusiastic about retaining Timothy Dalton while Eon wanted to continue with the actor. In the give-and-take that followed, Dalton stepped aside and GoldenEye would star Pierce Brosnan.

Today, some fans like to blame MGM’s marketing campaign or other major summer 1989 movies such as Batman or Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade for the 1989 box office results. But Licence came out weeks after either of those blockbusters.

And, it needs to be repeated, Bond couldn’t best Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, which also came out weeks earlier.

In the end, the U.S. audience didn’t care for Licence compared with other offerings. The movie’s total U.S. box office of $34.7 million didn’t match Batman’s U.S. opening weekend of $40.5 million. Licence’s U.S. box office was almost a third less than its 007 predecessor, The Living Daylights.

Licence to Kill did much better in other markets. Still, Licence’s worldwide ticket sales represented an 18%  decline from The Living Daylights.

Blood Is Thicker Than Water

As stated before, some 007 fans blame a lackluster U.S. advertising campaign. However, Michael G. Wilson said in 2015 that Eon officials “really run the marketing ourselves” and studios involved merely “execute it.” Did that apply to Licence to Kill? Or was Licence somehow an exception?

For Dalton, Glen, Maibaum and even Broccoli (he yielded the producer’s duties on GoldenEye because of ill health), it was the end of the road.

Michael G. Wilson, despite his enormous impact on Licence to Kill, remained in place. Blood (even adopted blood), after all, is thicker than water — or even box office receipts.

About those ‘entitled’ 007 fans

There’s a debate within James Bond fandom. Some believe Eon Productions is taking too long to move on from the Daniel Craig era. When will Bond 26 come out?

Others respond such fans are entitled and have no business second-guessing Eon. Eon belongs to its owners. The company is to do with what they will.

A few thoughts:

–Eon’s principals, Barbara Broccoli and her half-brother Michael G. Wilson, are public figures. They are prominent movie producers who control a major “intellectual property.” Their work as producers is fair game for comment. That’s true for actors, writers, directors, etc.

–There is a strain of Bond fandom, I have (mostly jokingly) referred to as FOE: Friends of Eon. At FOE, Eon is above criticism or even basic analysis.

— The question is what is worse: Complaints from “entitled” fans or no comments. The former indicates many still care. The latter is a sign that interest may be waning.

This month’s non-news about Bond 26

The Bond 26 news landscape

There was more Bond 26 non-news this week.

The British Film Institute honored director Christopher Nolan at an event. Eon boss Barbara Broccoli was present. Of course, the subject of what’s (not) happening with Bond 26 came up.

Deep, deep in the Baz Bamigboye story on the Deadline entertainment news site, Broccoli was asked if there was anything new on the Bond 26 front. Naturally, the answer was no.

 “(T)here’s nothing I can tell you about the next Bond film,” she said. “There’s nothing. Nothing is happening yet.”

This, of course, matches other “nothing is happening” quotes from Broccoli over the past few years. Gregg Wilson, associate producer of the last three Eon-made Bond films and the son of Eon’s Michael G. Wilson, told The Express the same thing in November 2023. “No plans on making the next Bond at this stage,” he said. “There will be another Bond someday, but we’re not actively developing it.”

On social media, there were the typical fan reactions. One of the more amusing came from @TheTchaikovsky on X/Twitter: “It’s quite all right, really. She’s having a rest. We’ll be going on soon. There’s no hurry, you see… We have all the time in the world.”

There’s nothing any Bond movie fan can do about it. You might as well get a good laugh.

Bond 26 questions: The future edition

Some fans of the James Bond film franchise criticize other fans who feel they are entitled to 007 films on a regular schedule.

Good god, people! Be patient! Shut up and wait!

Other fans say they aren’t entitled. They just want some indication that something is happening.

Amid all this, the blog has questions.

Once upon a time, Cubby Broccoli didn’t want to press a reluctant actor (Sean Connery) to act. Should fans press a reluctant producer to produce?

In one of the home video extras, Dana Broccoli (1922-2004) is interviewed concerning the backstory of Diamonds Are Forever. Her late husband didn’t want to press Sean Connery to come back as Bond for Diamonds.

As a result, Eon signed John Gavin as Bond. However, United Artists executive David Picker had other ideas. UA took a dump truck full of money (figuratively) to Connery and the Scot came back. Gavin got paid off.

More than 50 years later, the question is whether fans should expect a reluctant producer (Barbara Broccoli, Cubby’s daughter) to make another Bond movie.

What do you mean?

Eon’s Michael G. Wilson, Barbara Broccoli’s half-brother, has spent more than a half-century in Bondage. Barbara Broccoli has spent more than 40 years in Bondage (longer than Moses roamed the desert, according to the Bible). Cubby Broccoli himself was in Bondage only for 35 years (from the founding of Eon in 1961 until he died in 1996).

So?

If you had more money than you could ever spend, and you had spent decades doing something, might you want to take a break?

No! No! Eon plays three-dimensional chess! You’re not serious, are you?

In the past few years, I’ve seen a lot of complicated theories. Eon is playing three-dimensional chess with Amazon, which acquired Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 2021. The wheels are always turning at MGM!

What if — if — the answer is simpler.

Barbara Broccoli had a special relationship with actor Daniel Craig, who did five Bond films between 2006 and 2021. She was the first Bond actor she chose.

Maybe it’s hard — really hard — to do an encore.

Broccoli says nothing is happening. What if it’s that simple?

As usual, we’ll see.

Bond 26 questions: Nolan interview edition

Logo of Syncopy, Christopher Nolan’s production company

An Associated Press interview with director Christopher Nolan got a lot of notice among James Bond fans. Nolan was asked about directing a Bond film. He replied: “No, sadly, no.”

Bond fans had a lot of reactions. Naturally, the blog has questions.

What was the context of Nolan’s remarks?

The AP reporter asked if Bond might be his next project. He replied, “No, sadly, no. No truth to those rumors.” That’s the context.

Did the interview get into Bond more?

No. The question came up within the first 30 seconds. Most of the interview was about the home video release of Nolan’s Oppenheimer film and broader movie issues such as artificial intelligence.

What’s the dynamic of an interview?

Typically, interviewers leave the toughest questions until the end. I’m guessing Nolan’s future (?) with Bond was a bit of a throwaway question. It was something that had to be asked but wasn’t critical.

How can that be?

Because the AP reporter had a lot of ground to cover with Nolan. Let’s face it, Bond 26 won’t be coming out anytime soon. The issues of now-completed actors strike and AI are a little more pressing. When doing an interview, you have to make judgment calls.

Any background we should keep in mind?

Nolan controls his movies. The films are made through his Syncopy production company. Nolan and his wife, Emma Thomas, are listed as producers of Nolan-directed productions. If Eon actually brought Nolan on board, the Eon leadership would have to go off to the side while the director (who also writes his movies) does his thing.

Is there something else?

A lot of the latest Bond/Nolan fervor was generated by a website called World of Reel. That site had stories on Sept. 7 and Sept. 26 saying Eon Productions was hotly pursuing Nolan. HOWEVER, the site also had a Sept. 14 story saying Matthew Vaughn supposedly was the top choice to direct Bond 26. Except, Vaughn said in October that wasn’t happening. ““They’re not keen on me,” Vaughn said of Eon. Oh.

Any other observations?

People will believe what they want to believe. I’ve already seen comments on social media about how all of this is a smokescreen by Eon.

Just remember, Eon can’t keep its story straight whether Eon is an acronym. Eon’s Michael G. Wilson said in a 1990s home video extra it wasn’t. The documentary Everything Or Nothing, suggests it is. Caveat emptor.

18th anniversary of Eon getting its mojo back

Daniel Craig

Today, Oct. 14, is the 18th anniversary of Eon Productions getting its mojo back, when it formally announced the casting of Daniel Craig as James Bond.

People may ask whether Eon had lost its mojo. But in 2005, Eon itself said it had. Consider this excerpt from a New York Times article.

“I was desperately afraid, and Barbara was desperately afraid, we would go downhill,” said Michael G. Wilson, the producer of the new Bond film, “Casino Royale,” with Ms. Broccoli. He even told that to Pierce Brosnan, the suave James Bond who had a successful run of four films, he said.

“We are running out of energy, mental energy,” Mr. Wilson recalled saying. “We need to generate something new, for ourselves.”

Running out of energy, mental energy. Sounds like Eon’s mojo was running low on both in the 2000s.

With Craig, it was the first casting that Eon principals Wilson and Barbara Broccoli got to pick their own Bond actor. Albert R. Broccoli had selected Craig’s predecessors. Broccoli’s widow, Dana Broccoli, kept an eye on her children until she passed away in 2004.

Enter Daniel Craig. Barbara Broccoli said in 2006 that Craig is “the actor that defies his generation of actors.” In a 2017 podcast with The Hollywood Reporter, Broccoli said that until Craig announced in August of that year he’d return for one last Bond film, ““My heart was breaking.”

The Eon boss said in that podcast that Craig was the best Bond actor. “He is particularly incredible.”

Today, it has been about four years since he filmed his last Bond scene and two years since his final Bond effort, No Time to Die, came out.

Still, to note the return of the return of Eon’s mojo in 2005, the official account on X, formerly Twitter, this post appeared:

On this day in 2005, Daniel Craig was announced as the sixth actor to play James Bond.

Look back at his time as 007 in the documentary Being James Bond on our YouTube channel. pic.twitter.com/doIWRLEUzJ

— James Bond (@007) October 14, 2023

Bond 26 questions: The WGA settlement edition

The Writers Guild of America has reached a tentative settlement with studios and streamers. This may enable the development of Bond 26 to proceed. Naturally, the blog has questions.

How does this affect Bond 26? You can get a hint by looking at the past. Previous WGA strikes had major effects on Licence to Kill and Quantum of Solace.

With Licence to Kill, veteran 007 screenwriter Richard Maibaum had to drop off the project after the treatment stage and Maibaum didn’t work on the final script. Michael G. Wilson, the movie’s co-producer, essentially crossed the picket line and did the script by himself.

The final film writing credit gave Wilson top billing with Maibaum second. Some early trailer credits only mentioned Wilson. Licence to Kill would be Maibaum’s 007 finale.

With Quantum of Solace, Paul Haggis submitted a script hours before the WGA went on strike. Filming began while the walkout was still underway. When the strike was settled, Joshua Zetumer was hired to do last-minute rewrites. He didn’t receive a credit. More recent accounts of the making the movie leave him out of the story.

Presuming the new WGA settlement is ratified, Bond 26 script development can proceed.

And where does Bond 26’s script development stand? As recently as early 2023, Eon boss Barbara Broccoli said there was no script. Then again, she didn’t say there was no development material. Years ago, Broccoli said Ben Whishaw hadn’t been cast as Q (even though he was). With Broccoli, it’s caveat emptor.

So when does Bond 26 get underway? Hold on there, Tex. As far as we know, there’s no director in place. You need that before a new Bond actor is cast.

The WGA settlement has the potential to remove an impediment to Bond 26. But there’s a lot that needs to be done.

Bond 26 listing shows up on IMDb

A listing for Bond 26 is now on the Internet Movie Database.

The entry says it had an original title of Bullets for Winter. The project is listed as “in development.” Because of that, any other information is on the pay portion of the site, IMDbPro. Any information there “is subject to change,” according to IMDb. (h/t Ian Jacklin)

Bond 26 last week also was listed on issue 1,368 of Production Weekly, which references U.K. productions. No details were provided.

Throughout 2022, Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson of Eon Productions said Bond 26 would be a “reinvention” of James Bond and casting the part would take time. As recently as February of this year, Broccoli said at the BAFTA awards, Bond 26 didn’t have a script and no casting had occurred.

Here is a brief video from The Associated Press with Broccoli made at that time.

UPDATED: Eon’s drive for ‘respect’

A former image for the official James Bond feed on X, formerly Twitter

What follows is a post from 2010. Despite the passage of time, this article remains relevant today.

Since originally published, the Bond films have achieved Academy Award wins, including three for Best Song. But the Eon series received none for acting, directing or writing.

Prior to the release of 2021’s No Time to Die, on an official podcast, Eon boss Barbara Broccoli said her production company’s 25th James Bond film was a “cinematic masterpiece.”

Prior to No Time to Die’s production, auteur director Danny Boyle signed on to direct from a script by his writer John Hodge. But Hodge and Boyle bowed out and things started over with director Cary Fukunaga.

Right now, Bond 26 faces an uncertain future. Christopher Nolan, another auteur director (but a Bond fan who has been influenced by 007 films), is the subject of speculation.

Regardless, there is a question whether Barbara Broccoli, 63, still desires critical acclaim for her Bond movies.

Here is the original 2010 post:

The Peter Morgan situation (fiasco?), where Eon Productions’ flirtation with a “prestige” writer didn’t pan out, got us to thinking about the state of the James Bond movie franchise. As Lt. Columbo on more than one occasion said, “little things” bothered him about a case. So it is with our concerns about the state of the James Bond movie franchise.

Peter Morgan wrote Frost/Nixon and other movies that had the label of being a Very Important Film. So, in 2009, when Eon announced that Morgan would be part of a writing team to script Bond 23, it got a lot of attention, especially among Bond fans. Months after ending his 007 writing efforts, Morgan gave an interview where he indicated he really didn’t care that much for the Bond concept.

In a way, that seems to represent the approach of Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli after the death of Albert R. Broccoli, Eon’s co-founder, in 1996. There have been hints of this for awhile.

Michael Apted got hired to direct 1999’s The World Is Not Enough, even though he had basically no experience directing action films.

But the stepson and daughter of Cubby Broccoli really hit paydirt on the respect scale with 2006’s Casino Royale, which arguably got the best reviews of a 007 film in decades. Part of the reason was co-screenwriter Paul Haggis, known as a writer and director of Very Important Movies, despite the fact he also created the schlocky TV series Walker, Texas Ranger.

That’s a heady thing to ignore. So the duo hired Marc Forster, also known as a director of Very Important Movies, such as Monster’s Ball, to direct Quantum of Solace, with Haggis returning as the lead writer, getting first billing ahead of Neal Purvis and Robert Wade.

The result: a $230 million-budgeted movie that was hard to follow in many places and seemed twice the length of its 106-minute running time, the shortest of the 22-film Eon/Bond series.

For an encore, the Wilson-Broccoli duo hired Peter Morgan to write Bond 23. Now the delay in Bond 23, understandably, is blamed on financial problems at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., 007’s home studio which also controls half of the Bond franchise with Eon.

But even if MGM’s finances hadn’t tanked, there’s some reason to doubt the current Eon regime was up to getting out a Bond film in a reasonable amount of time. In April, when Eon said it was suspending the development of Bond 23 because of MGM’s financial ills, it said the film was originally scheduled for a “2011/2012” release. That would have been three or four YEARS after Quantum of Solace.

What’s more, Morgan revealed in an interview that after months of work in 2009, he had gotten no further than a “treatment” (essentially a detailed outline) and never had gotten around to actually writing a script.

Aside from Morgan himself plus the grateful city of Vienna (where Morgan lives), it’s hard to see who else benefitted from the decision to hire Morgan in the first place.

Morgan made his reputation on films that were lathered in politics. Bond films, while having a few references to the time they were made, tended to be as “timeless” as possible.

Eon’s co-founders, Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, de-emphasized the Cold War roots of Ian Fleming novels such as Dr. No, From Russia With Love and Goldfinger, which formed the basis of the first three films of the series. The Russians were the ultimate villains of all three novels; in the first two films the independent SPECTRE took the place of the Soviets while in Goldfinger, the title character was acting independently with the backing of the Chinese.

Bond 23 has been delayed primarily because of MGM’s financial ills, make no mistake. But even if MGM’s finances were fixed tomorrow, Eon would still have a lot of work to do to get a shootable script ready.

The Broccoli-Saltzman team was able to do four films in four years and, after that, adhere to producing a film every other year (more or less). It’s unimaginable to envision the current Wilson-Broccoli regime sticking to such a schedule.

They seem too busy worrying about their press clippings. The irony: Cubby Broccoli, a supposed hack, in 1982 received the Irving Thalberg Award, one of the most prestigious awards Hollywood gives to one of its own. Does anyone really think either Michael Wilson or Barbara Broccoli will receive that award anytime soon?