Bond keeps marketing to the 1% (maybe 0.5%)

The “old days”: Affordable James Bond lunchbox seen around U.S. school yards, circa 1965-66

If you’re not among the 1 percent — maybe the 0.5 percent — then the James Bond film franchise doesn’t really care about you.

The latest offering from the 007 store is a James Bond backgammon set costing 4,895 British pounds (about $6,040).

Here’s a description:

Introducing a backgammon board worthy of James Bond. The 007 Bespoke Backgammon Set is hand built for champions and aficionados by the world-renown Geoffrey Parker, the backgammon championship board supplier of choice. Individually handmade to order, each set has a unique three digit number – which 00 will you be?

If you’ve got the money, perhaps you can play a game of backgammon while you sit in your Aston Martin DB5 replica that the car company is selling for more than $3 million each.

Of course, those replicas aren’t street legal, so you can’t drive them anywhere unless you haul them to a race track that you can afford to rent.

That’s not exactly marketing to the masses.

Bond became a phenomenon in the 1960s. Kids took their (affordable) lunch boxes to schools. Parents bought (affordable) puzzles and games for their children. All of that hooked future generations of Bond fans.

Today? Not so much. Many studios use forums such as the San Diego Comic Con as a big marketing platform. It’s seen as a way to market to young people. Not the Bond franchise.

Eon Productions briefly (1994 and 1995) held a fan convention as the franchise revived as the 1989-95 hiatus ended.

Since then? Forget it. Bond is all about the 1 percent, maybe even the 0.5 percent.

Well, that’s how it goes.

UPDATE (Oct. 4, 2019): Bollinger has its own offerings for the 1 percent. Details below from a press release.

Bollinger Tribute to Moonraker Luxury Limited Edition

Moonraker, released forty years ago, featured James Bond whose mission took him on an outer space adventure. It was also the movie on which the Bond and Bollinger partnership began. To celebrate their 40 year partnership, Champagne Bollinger and 007 pay tribute to their shared heritage and revisit the space shuttle created by legendary production designer Ken Adam. Champagne Bollinger enlisted designer Eric Berthes to re-imagine the Moonraker space shuttle. Crafted from pewter and wood veneer, encasing a Saint Louis crystal ice bucket and a magnum of Bollinger 2007, the Bond vintage par excellence. Each numbered piece has been crafted and finished by hand, making it unique. Limited edition of 407 copies. RRP £4,500.

That’s about $5,500.

The Bollinger 007 Limited Edition Millésimé 2011

To mark the release of the upcoming movie No Time To Die, the 25th instalment of the James Bond series, the House has created a limited edition wine dedicated to 007, with a 2011 vintage inspired by the world of Bond. The jet-black 75cl bottle is adorned with the number “25”, formed from the titles of the previous films, which are similarly etched on the glass of the wooden box. The 2011 vintage, an atypical year, inspired Cellar Master to produce a unique champagne, created entirely from Pinot Noir from the Grand Cru village of Aÿ, where the House was first established in 1829. This is the first time that both the vintage and village have been used exclusively by Bollinger to make a dedicated wine. The excellent 2011 harvest in Aÿ, produced complex, powerful and harmonious Pinot Noirs, fully expressed in this characterful wine. RRP £150.

That’s about $184.

Sky News says time for 007 to retire

Logo for the Kingsman sequel due out in September.

Earlier this week, the Sky News website HAD A STORY declaring that, “James Bond is dead, long live the Kingsman!”

Essentially, writer Duarte Garrido argued that Bond’s day has passed because he’s a sexist character as well as “his covert racism and weird taste in beverages.”

The new king of spies, we’re told, is Eggsy, played by Taron Egerton, from The Kingsman: The Secret Service.

“Bond was a spy for post-war veterans. Eggsy is a spy for enlightened millennials,” Garrido wrote. “Every generation has its heroes, it’s time for the old ones to retire.”

This is interesting on a number of levels.

A Bond-inspired poster for Kingsman: The Secret Service

–Kingsman: The Secret Service made homages not only to 1960s Bond movies, but Harry Palmer films as well as The Avengers and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. television shows. That’s not the blog saying it. Star Colin Firth, who played Eggsy mentor Harry Hart, said it at the 2014 San Diego Comic Con.

So, it’s not exactly like Kingsman is blazing a trail. Rather, it’s more like a new take on a familiar genre.

–What about the ending of Kingsman: The Secret Service?

Sky tells us Kingsman is enlightened unlike that old sexist Bond. Remember, with Kingsman, we’re talking about a film ended with an anal sex joke.

Director Matthew Vaughn told the Cinema Blend website in 2015 that joke was another 007 homage.

It ends [on that joke] for a very strong reason. A lot of Bond movies used to end on things like Bond trying to ‘attempt re-entry,’ or ‘keeping the British end up.’ So I just thought, ‘We’ve pushed the boundary on every sort of spy cliché.’ We’ve got to end it on The Big One. And there’s only one way of doing it, taking it to the next level!

Meanwhile, Kingsman isn’t showing its superiority over Bond. It’s taking a Bond meme and taking it further. Doesn’t seem particularly enlightened.

–What about the connection between Sky and the Kingsman franchise? That would be Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox.

The company a 39 percent stake in Sky and wants to buy the rest. It also owns the 20th Century Fox studio, which released the 2015 Kingsman and its upcoming sequel, Kingsman: The Golden Circle.

That connection probably should have been noted in the Sky story.

Some unimportant questions about Bond 25

Image for the official James Bond feed on Twitter

Following this week’s announcement of a 2019 release date for Bond 25 here are some unimportant questions about 007’s next film adventure.

Why make this announcement now? The announcement came the Monday after last weekend’s San Diego Comic Con. That event saw November’s Thor: Ragnarok film, this November’s Justice League movie and next year’s Avengers: Infinity War film grab a lot of publicity. Perhaps it’s a chance to remind audiences that James Bond is yet to be heard from?

Why announce a release date without a star, distributor or a director? We don’t really know. See answer (such as it is) to the previous question for a possible explanation.

What do you mean by that? The San Diego Comic Con has become a publicity launching pad for movies and television shows. 007 has been mostly a no-show at the San Diego Con. Although, to be fair, there were some 007-licensed dolls that were part of this year’s comic con festivities.

Why not announce more? Short answer: The principals aren’t ready to say more right now.

Of course, the short announcement on Monday wasn’t the last word.

The New York Times reported the same day that Daniel Craig’s return as Bond was a “done deal.” Deadline: Hollywood said there were three finalists to direct. And Variety said one of said finalists, Frenchman Yann Demange, is the front runner.

Could it be this is part of a marketing master plan by Eon Productions?

Well, if:

–Eon and Craig got together as SPECTRE wrapped production in July 2015 and knowing Craig was scheduled to do some interviews which would be embargoed until October, Eon publicists encouraged Craig to say he’d rather slash his wrists than play Bond again.

–When the interviews came out in October, the plan was this would create some uncertainty whether Craig would and create extra buzz as SPECTRE was being released.

–That Eon’s Michael G. Wilson, in an interview in November 2015, would say Craig wasn’t signed to a contract, to deliberately further stoke up the uncertainty and buzz.

–That Eon (or Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) deliberately planted stories like a September 2016 one in Vanity Fair saying that MGM CEO Gary Barber contacted Craig “to express his frustration in no uncertain terms” with the actor because of the “slash my wrists” interviews.

So, if all that happened, then, yeah, events of the past two years may have been part of a well-oiled plan worthy of Ernst Stavro Blofeld.

Or maybe not.

DC rolls out more optimistic take on movies

Batman v Superman was criticized for being overly dark.

At this weekend’s San Diego Comic Book Con, Warner Bros./DC Entertainment provided its first preview of an more optimistic take on its super hero movies.

The studio used Comic Con to show a trailer for the Woman Woman movie scheduled for June 2017. Also unveiled was a video with footage from Justice League, due out for release in the fall of 2017.

To a degree, both seemed lighter than Batman v Superman, which was criticized in late March for its mostly dark and somber tone.

Batman v Superman got a ton of bad reviews, reflected in a only a 27 percent “fresh” rating on the Rotten Tomatoes website. More importantly, for studio executives, its worldwide box office was $872.7 million.

While impressive for most movies, the movie plunged after a huge opening its first weekend. Also, Warners was looking to join the $1 billion club. The movie didn’t match the 2015 James Bond movie SPECTRE ($880.7 million).

WB/DC’s big competitor, Walt Disney Co.’s Marvel Studios, made to the $1 billion club again a few months later with Captain America: Civil War. That movie had a serious, emotional payoff while still retaining the type of humor seen in other Marvel films.

Since then, there has have been executive changes at DC, including elevating Geoff Johns, a comic book writer turned executive, to co-head of DC’s movie operations. The news was broken in May by The Hollywood Reporter, which described the move as a “course correction.”

New York magazine’s Vulture website described Johns as “big on hope and optimism.”

The studio has a lot riding, in particular, on Justice League, because it’s DC’s answer to Marvel’s Avengers movies (the Justice League came first in the comics). Also, Justice League, is being directed by Zack Snyder, the director of Batman v Superman.

Anyway, both trailers are below.

Cavill, Hammer describe Solo & Kuryakin’s background

Actors Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer provided a look at the backgrounds of Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin during one of their many interviews at the San Diego Comic Con.

It was already known that The Man From U.N.C.L.E. movie coming out next month gave Solo a new back story of having been an art thief before joining the CIA. Here, Cavill provides additional details.

Meanwhile, Hammer tells new details about Kuryakin’s Russian background. It’s realistic (or at least semi-realistic) given the realities of the Soviet era.

Needless to say this is a spoiler. So if you want to find out, watch the video below. You won’t have to wait long for the details.

Warner Bros. releases extended U.N.C.L.E. trailer

Warner Bros. released a trailer for The Man From U.N.C.L.E. lasting more than five minutes at the San Diego Comic Con.

The trailer contained extended versions of scenes in previous trailers as well as footage not seen until today.

Among the highlights: an extended version of a scene where CIA agent Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill) and KGB operative Illya Kuryakin demonstrate how familiar they are with each other’s dossier.

“Obviously, I was briefed about your criminal background,” Kuryakin says. “Your balls are at the end of a very long leash held by a very short man.”

Solo references how quickly Kuryakin rose within the KGB. “I do wonder if it was your father’s shame that gave you such drive, though. Or was it your mother’s reputation? I understand she was extremely popular among your father’s friends.” Kuryakin does not take this well.

You can view the trailer below:

As an aside, today at San Diego was a big day for Henry Cavill, who participated in two panels: one promoting U.N.C.L.E., the other Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice that opens in March 2016. Warner Bros. also released a three-minute trailer for the latter film.

UPDATE: Composer Daniel Pemberton, who scored the U.N.C.L.E. film, confirmed on Twitter the extended trailer extensively uses his music.

New super-extended #ManFromUNCLE teaser from Comic-Con just hit – with first major reveal of the score throughout… https://t.co/zEQvVHyrb7

— Daniel Pemberton (@DANIELPEMBERTON) July 11, 2015

Meanwhile, Collider.com ran THIS POST summarizing what was said at the U.N.C.L.E. panel at the comic book convention. Entertainment Weekly ran THIS POST, which includes a video of the U.N.C.L.E. casting talking to an EW staffer.

U.N.C.L.E. stars to promote movie at San Diego Comic Con

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. teaser poster

The stars of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. movie will promote the film at the San Diego Comic Con on July 11, according to a WARNER BROS. PRESS RELEASE.

Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer, who play Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin, are scheduled to be joined by female leads Alicia Vikander and Elizabeth Debicki, the studio said in announcing its activities at the convention.

Cavill and Hammer reprise the roles that Robert Vaughn and David McCallum played on the 1964-68 television series. Vikander plays Gaby Teller, the “innocent” of the story while Debicki is the lead villain. The movie, directed by Guy Ritchie, is a different take on U.N.C.L.E., without familiar memes such as the organization’s secret headquarters.

The convention appearance will take place a little more than a month before the U.N.C.L.E. movie’s Aug. 14 release date.

Cavill is doing double duty for Warners at the event. He’s also scheduled to be promote Batman v Superman: The Dawn of Justice. That movie, which comes out in March 2016, features a conflict between Superman (Cavill) and Batman (Ben Affleck). It also an attempt to be Warners’ answer to Disney/Marvel’s Avengers franchise. The press release leads off with details about the Batman v Superman promotion.

Cavill first played Superman in 2013’s Man of Steel. He was cast as Solo in U.N.C.L.E. around the time Man of Steel came out in June of that year.