Wolfgang Thurauf, Bond fan, dies

Wolfgang Thurauf, a prominent German fan of James Bond, has died.

Thurauf’s passing was reported on social media on Tuesday. His many friends posted about his passing.

I had exchanges with Wolfgang. I asked — pleaded, even — for more details from his friends. Age? Bond affiliation? Nothing was forthcoming. Over the years, I had seen photos of him at different Bond movie premieres.

Based on the social media announcements, Wolfgang had a huge impact on other Bond fans.

As the 007 film franchise advances, the likes of fans such as Wolfgang are passing from the scene. Such fans are no longer around.

UPDATE: I’m told Wolfgang was 62 and was the vice president of the German James bond Fan Club.

UPDATE II: Wolfgang’s DOB was April 29, 1962, meaning he was 61, 11 months, when he died.

Why Zack Snyder is wrong about James Bond

Zack Snyder’s Superman (Henry Cavill) in a filthy costume

Director Zack Snyder, after ruining the likes of Superman, Batman, and the Justice League of America, in a recent interview with The Atlantic, floated ideas he’d like to try with the cinema James Bond.

Most of that article is behind a paywall. But Variety provided a summary.

“It’d be cool to see, like, 20-year-old James Bond,” Snyder said. “The humble roots that he comes from. Whatever trauma of youth that makes you be able to be James Bond. There has to be something there.”

Earth to Zack: The entire Daniel Craig era (2006-2021) was all about exploring Bond’s roots.

Casino Royale? While Ian Fleming’s first Bond novel wasn’t a true origin story, Eon Productions (influenced by Batman Begins) filmed it that way. Eon opted to start the film series all over again. Goodbye, first 20 films of the series.

Skyfall? The 50th anniversary Bond film took its name from Stately Bond Manor, i.e. what was supposed to be Bond’s ancestral home.

SPECTRE? Eon, having gotten the rights to Blofeld and SPECTRE, came up with a ridiculous storyline where Blofeld was Bond’s foster brother.

No Time to Die? Daniel Craig’s Bond finale wallowed in the events of the Craig era.

Other than Quantum of Solace, the Craig films looked backward, rather than forward. You could make the case that Quantum also looked backward, except for just one movie (Casino).

So after all that, Zack Snyder says the film series should look backward? Again?

Snyder’s track record with Man of Steel (with Henry Cavill as Superman in a dirty costume), Batman v. Superman, and Justice League doesn’t give one a lot of confidence in his judgment.

Batman v. Superman saw Batman (Ben Affleck) go off his rocker trying to kill Superman until he realizes Clark Kent’s mother is named Martha, the same name his mother had. Martha?!

Justice League saw Snyder relieved from directing (though he kept the credit) after Warner Bros. ordered the film pared way back to about a two-hour running time. The revamped Justice League also had bad reviews. But at least Cavill had a clean costume.

Christopher Nolan, who produced the Snyder-directed Man of Steel, defended Snyder in The Atlantic story. “There’s no superhero science-fiction film coming out these days where I don’t see some influence of Zack,” he said.

Many Bond fans would love Nolan to direct a 007 film. Nolan said in November that’s not happening.

Whatever. Neither Snyder nor Nolan seem to be reading the room. Bond isn’t a “superhero science-fiction film.”

Yes, Bond movies, as far back as Dr. No, have had science fiction elements. Snyder may be the last person Bond fans want touching the franchise — assuming there is a Bond 26.

10th anniversary of Eon getting Blofeld back

“Good to see you again, Mr. Bond.” (Graphic by the late Paul Baack.)

Ten years ago, it was announced that Danjaq/Eon had gotten the rights back to Ernst Stavro Blofeld and SPECTRE.

Danaq/Eon along with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer said they had reached a deal with the estate of Kevin McClory to acquire “all of the estate’s and family’s rights and interests relating to James Bond, thus bringing to an amicable conclusion the legal and business disputes that have arisen periodically for over 50 years.”

In the 1960s, Kevin McClory had a legal fight with Ian Fleming. Eventually, the result was Fleming could continue to publish his Thunderball novel, while McClory would have the film rights to the Thunderball book and the screenplays it was based on. Eon reached a deal with McClory so Thunderball would be part of the Eon film series.

Beginning in the mid-1970s, McClory began trying to develop a movie based on his Thunderball rights. After legal fights with Eon, a Thunderball remake, Never Say Never Again, came out in 1983, the same year as Eon’s Octopussy. McClory persisted for years trying to make other films.

McClory died in 2006. But the McClory rights issue still cast a shadow over Eon.

Eon rebooted the series starting with 2006’s Casino Royale. With 2008’s Quantum of Solace, a new villainous organized was introduced called Quantum. In the buildup to that film, Eon’s leadership, in effect, said SPECTRE was passe and that Quantum was *something new*.

Until, of course, Nov. 15, 2013. Blofeld and SPECTRE would get shoehorned into 2015’s SPECTRE. So much for the Quantum is the new and exciting villainous group talking point.

In 2014, Sony Pictures (which released four Bond movies) was hacked. Various emails and other correspondence became public. During the development of SPECTRE, it turned out, Eon considered an African warlord version of Blofeld and a woman version of Blofeld.

The production eventually went with a (somewhat) updated version of the 1967 Donald Pleasance Blofeld played by Christoph Waltz. Also, the Waltz Blofeld was revealed to be Bond’s foster brother. Many long-time Bond fans groaned. In addition, 2012’s Skyfall was retconned so that movie’s villain, Silva, was working for SPECTRE all along.

The results were mixed. Waltz’s Blofeld was brought back for 2021’s No Time to Die only to be killed by events manipulated by that movie’s villain, Safin. The Waltz version of SPECTRE also got wiped out pretty quickly.

In the end? The news of a decade ago brought about a mixed result.

Film Bond’s biggest enemy: Demographics

No Time to Die soundtrack cover

For at least 25 years, maybe longer, the makers of James Bond movies and the studios that finance the films, have fretted about demographics.

It’s no secret that 007 skews to an older audience. The first film in the series debuted more than 60 years ago and the second, From Russia With Love, came out 60 years ago next month.

In the 21st century, there was a local radio ad in the Detroit area for a lawn-care service. In the ad, a father is supposedly talking to his daughter. As the ad unfolds, the father says, “That’s just like James Bond.”

“Who’s that?” the daughter responds.

That was a little harsh, but it reflects reality.

With No Time to Die, the most recent Bond film, 007 had soft financial results, at least in the U.S. NTTD’s U.S. box office was just shy of $161 million, putting it at No. 007 among movies in the American market in 2021. That was down from about $200 million for 2015’s SPECTRE and even further down from $304 million from 2012’s Skyfall. All that despite rising theater prices during this era.

Some Bond fans dispute whether this is important. Well, Bond skews older so that’s not a factor, so the argument goes.

Not a factor? The money men of films and TV keep a close eye on demographics.

To be sure, many movies would kill to generate a $160 million box office in the U.S. But No Time to Die had major spending problems. That included the costs of a 350-foot replica rocket and a Russian gulag set in Canada which weren’t even used in the movie.

Also, No Time to Die went to pay-per-view in the U.S. a little more than a month after its U.S. debut. At that time, despite COVID, a monster hit would have an exclusive theater run of at least 45 days.

In addition, some Bond fans say “What about Mission: Impossible 7’s box office?” Well, what about it? The M:I series has never surpassed Bond at the box office. Both are popular with established fan bases. Yet each has encountered excessive spending with recent entries.

Bond, somehow, some way, needs to reach younger audiences. But its demographics aren’t an excuse for No Time to Die’s box office. That’s why studio executives get the big bucks.

2010: MGM plans to jump-start the 007 series

Back in 2010, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Under such a filing, a company produces a reorganization plan with the intent of continuing operations while debts are reduced.

At the time, one key element of MGM’s plan was reviving the James Bond film series. At the time, the last Bond film was 2008’s Quantum of Solace and the series was in hiatus.

An excerpt from a 2010 Bloomberg story:

New James Bond films may be released every second year starting in November 2012, MGM said. It aims to own 50 percent of Bond 23, due out that year, with an equal partner paying all of the production costs, it said. Later Bond movies would be wholly owned and funded by MGM, the company said.

Bond 23 would turn out to be Skyfall and it was co-financed by MGM and Sony. MGM kept 75 percent of the profits and Sony 25 percent. Eventually, MGM and Sony cut a two-picture deal, with Sony distributing Bond 23 and 24.

Stop to think about this. If MGM’s plan had come to be, Bond 23 (Skyfall) would be out in 2012, Bond 24 (SPECTRE) in 2014, Bond 25 in 2016, Bond 26 in 2018, Bond 27 in 2020, and Bond 28 in 2022. We’d be anticipating a Bond 29 for 2024.

Evidently, MGM’s bankruptcy filing overlooked (to be kind) how MGM didn’t have complete control over the Bond franchise. Danjaq LLC and its Eon Productions unit control the rights to Bond while MGM provides the financing.

Regardless, MGM’s reorganization plan got approval from a U.S. bankruptcy court and the studio exited bankruptcy.

In 2012, a Sony executive named Rory Bruer said Bond 24 would be out in 2014. Eon boss Barbara Broccoli and star Daniel Craig cut him off at the knees in an interview with Collider.

“He was getting a little overexcited,” Broccoli told Collider. “We’re just actually focusing on this movie. One hopes that in the future we’ll be announcing other films, but no one’s officially announced it.”

“No one’s announced anything,” Craig chimed in. “He got a little ahead of himself.”

Bond 24/SPECTRE, indeed, would not be out until 2015.

MGM management soon backed off the pledge to make a Bond film every other year. By 2016, company management said Bond films would come out on a three- to four-year cycle.”

At this point, having a Bond movie every four years seems like a dream.

Bond and the new cinema conventional wisdom

Still from Barbie (2023)

The old conventional wisdom (going into this year) was movie studios had to rely on established intellectual property (also known as IP). Sequels. Comic book-based movies. Etc.

The new conventional wisdom (since the July 21-23 weekend): Sequels are dead! Audiences want new things!

The U.S. theater box office was dominated by two non-sequels, Barbie ($162 million) and Oppenheimer ($82.5 million). The former was a satire based on a toy doll around for more than six decades. The latter was a serious, three-hour film biography directed by Christopher Nolan.

Box office stories tend to be written in a manic-depressive way. Either they’re huge hits or flops. Still, new installments of long-running franchises (Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One) didn’t get that kind of box office start.

So where does this leave the James Bond film franchise, at least in the U.S.?

Bond is the definition of long-running. 1962’s Dr. No was followed by 24 sequels from 1963 through 2021. You’ve had reboots. 2006’s Casino Royale was starting over with Daniel Craig. But Craig’s last three movies utilized the Aston Martin DB-5 first seen in 1964’s Goldfinger.

Other long-running movie series have faced challenges. The Marvel Cinematic University seemed invincible from 2008 through 2019. Since then? Not so much.

Bond remains huge in the U.K. In the U.S., the trend is not so sanguine. Skyfall (2012) globally was $1.1 billion, helped by $304 million in the U.S.

That slipped to $881 million globally ($200 million in the U.S.) for 2015’s SPECTRE and $774 million ($161 million for the U.S.) for 2021’s No Time To Die. In 2021, No Time to Die was No. 007 at the U.S. box office.

As stated before, box office stories are very much written in a manic-depressive way. This week’s hit can take on a new reputation if the second week at the box office drops too much.

Bond, definitely, is a cinematic survivor. At the same time, the movie business is volatile right now. We’ll see how it goes.

Nolan provides a Rorschach test about 007

Link to audio version:

Christopher Nolan

Director Christopher Nolan, while promoting his new Oppenheimer film, was asked about the possibility of directing a James Bond movie in the future. His comments represent a kind of Rorschach test, spurring different reactions,

Nolan was interviewed this week by a digital outlet, Happy, Sad, Confused. At one point, interviewer Josh Horowitz changed the subject to Bond 26.

As he has previously, Nolan expressed his enthusiasm for Bond films. “I love those movies, the influence of those movies on my filmography is embarrassingly apparent, you know, so there’s no attempt to shy away from that,” Nolan said. “I love the (Bond) films, and it would be an amazing privilege to do one.”

People who saw those quotes reacted that Nolan is, indeed, a contender to direct Bond 26. His homages to Bond include bits in The Dark Knight (2008) and Inception (2010). The Bond series returned the favor with homages to Nolan in Skyfall (2012). And Eon Productions hired some Nolan crew members in SPECTRE (2015).

Yet, some — specifically the Screen Rant entertainment news site — refer to other quotes from Nolan in the same interview.

“You wouldn’t want to take on a film not fully committed to what you could bring to the table creatively, so as a writer, casting, or everything, that’s the full package. But no, I stand with the previous answer, which is you’d have to be really needed, you’d have to be really wanted in terms of bringing the totality of what you bring to the character. Otherwise, I’m very happy to be first in line to see whatever they do.” (emphasis added)

Screen Rant, in its story, opined, “However, as the director mentioned, limitations on what control he would have in the project may have already lowered his chances…As such, Nolan would be required to fit in with the decisions of higher powers at the earliest stages of production, limiting what he could do when crafting his own 007 story.”

Not mentioned in the Screen Rant story is how Nolan would bring a production company and his producer wife Emma Thomas in with him. Potentially, a Nolan hire may mean Eon relinquishing some control. That didn’t work out with Bond 25/No Time to Die where Danny Boyle was attached as director for a time.

For now, those interested in a Nolan-directed Bond have something to talk about.

The Horwitz interview with Nolan is embedded below. The Bond part of the interview starts after the 22:00 mark.

James Bond film items up for auction

A number of James Bond items are up for auction in Los Angeles June 28-30, according to Propstore Auction.

Doing a search on “James Bond” on the website, these are among the items that turn up:

–Lot 238, Dr. No: Five Le Cercle casino plaques and a chip. Starting price: $3,500.

–Lot 239, The Man With the Golden Gun, wooden master model of the golden gun. Starting price: $5,000.

–Lot 240, Moonraker speedboat. A bid of $15,000 has been entered (as this is being written) but the website indicates the reserve price hasn’t been met.

–Lot 241, The World Is Not Enough, Parahawk. A bid of $20,000 has been entered but again the reserve price has not been met.

–Lot 242, The World Is Not Enough, plaques and chips. Starting price: $2,000.

–Lot 243, Casino Royale, $500,000 casino plaque. Starting price: $2,000.

–Lot 244, Casino Royale, $1 million casino plaque. $5,500 bid, reserve price not met.

–Lot 245, Casino Royale, playing card deck. Starting price: $3,000.

–Lot 246, Skyfall, casino chips. A bid of $2,000 submitted, reserve price not met.

–Lot 247, Skyfall, poker chip. Starting price: $2,500.

–Lot 248, Skyfall, hard drive lanyard. Starting price: $5,000.

–Lot 249, Quantum of Solace, Quantum pin. Starting price: $2,000.

–Lot 250, SPECTRE, SPECTRE metal ring. Starting price: $5,000.

–Lot 927, The Man With the Golden Gun, transition model of the golden gun. Bid of $2,000 made, reserve price not met.

–Lot 928, Moonraker, two seats from the speedboat. Starting price: $500.

–Lot 929, Octopussy, replica Faberge egg. A bid of $4,000 has been submitted.

–Lot 930: A View To a Kill, two Sharper Image cards. Starting price: $750.

–Lot 931: GoldenEye, casino playing cards. Starting price: $1,000.

–Lot 932: The World Is Not Enough, clapperboard. Starting price: $1,000.

–Lot 933: Casino Royale, three Ocean Club chips. A bid of $1,000 was submitted, reserve price not met.

–Lot 934: Skyfall, Kincade’s knife. Current bid: $2,500.

Revisiting issues about Nolan directing 007

Christopher Nolan

In the absence of actual Bond 26 news, Bond fans understandably latch on to crumbs.

One such crumb was an installment of the Hot Mic podcast, where co-host Jeff Sneider made the case that the time may be right for Christopher Nolan to direct a Bond movie (or two or three). Nolan’s prestige Oppenheimer movie comes out next month and his schedule appears clear after that.

Nolan is now in now 52 and if he’s going to do it, Sneider opined, now is the time. Also, he’d get the chance to recast the role of Bond with the departure of Daniel Craig after No Time to Die.

Also, as has been written over the years, Nolan is a 007 fan. His trilogy of Batman movies has Bond-inspired tropes. So did his 2010 movie Inception.

The possibility (and that’s all it is right now) of Nolan helming Bond 26 brings up some issues.

Does Eon bring Syncopy into the Bond mix? With Nolan, you typically also get the involvement of his production company, Syncopy. Nolan gets a producer’s credit. So does his wife, Emma Thomas.

Bond films traditionally were a producer-driven operation. Since the late 2000s. Eon boss Barbara Broccoli has been more enthused by “auteur” directors (Sam Mendes on Skyfall and SPECTRE, and Quantum of Solace’s Marc Forster). But would Eon accommodate Nolan’s production company in a Bond film? Or does Nolan, in effect, work as a director for hire?

Eon has gotten the Nolan bug before: Mendes, during Skyfall’s production, acknowledged The Dark Knight (the second of Nolan’s trilogy) was an inspiration for Skyfall. As a result, there are a number of similarities.

What’s more, Eon has hired some of Nolan’s collaborators. Chris Corbould, Eon’s long-time special effects whiz, has also worked on Nolan-directed movies. The crew of 2015’s SPECTRE included editor Lee Smith and director of photography Hoyte Van Hoytema, both Nolan veterans.

At this point, all of this chatter for fans.

Quantum’s 15th: Impact still felt on 007 franchise

International poster for Quantum of Solace

Adapted and updated from a 2018 post

This fall marks the 15th anniversary of Quantum of Solace, the 22nd 007 film made by Eon Productions. It’s a production that still reverberates with the franchise.

It was the last time the makers of James Bond films tried to come out with an entry just two years after the previous installment. It’s probably the last time this will happen.

As Casino Royale was ending production, Sony Pictures put out a July 20, 2006 release (the press release was once online but has been yanked by the studio) saying it intended to release Bond 22 (as it was then known) quickly — May 2, 2008.

“As we wrap production on CASINO ROYALE we couldn’t be more excited about the direction the franchise is heading with Daniel Craig. Daniel has taken the origins of Ian Fleming’s James Bond portraying, with emotional complexity, a darker and edgier 007,” Eon’s Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli were quoted in the press release.

Writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, with three Bond films under their belt, were aboard to come up with a story for what Eon would later describe as the series’ first “direct sequel.”

There were soon signs the pace was causing some strains.

‘Very Nervous’
Director Roger Michell (1956-2021) opted not to helm the movie because he felt the story wasn’t developed enough. In 2007, Michell gave an interview to The Times. The original link to the interview is broken, but the Commander Bond website’s summary includes some of Michell’s comments.

“‘Well, I did give up directing the Bond film,” Michell told The Times, according to the Commander Bond summary. “It was because in the end I didn’t feel comfortable with the Bond process, and I was very nervous that there was a start date but really no script at all. And I like to be very well prepared as a director.”

Eventually, Quantum was pushed back to a fall 2008 release. But there were still time pressures. The Writers Guild of America was in labor talks and a strike deadline was looming. The union went on strike from November 2007 to February 2008, with the Bond movie starting production in early 2008.

There are conflicting versions of the movie’s story process.

Marc Forster

The director hired for the movie, Marc Forster, said in an April 2008 Rotten Tomatoes story, said there was a reset after he arrived.

‘From Scratch’
“Once I signed on to do it we pretty much developed the script from scratch because I felt that it wasn’t the movie I wanted to make and we started with Paul Haggis from scratch,” Forster said in the story. Haggis was the writer who did the final drafts of Casino Royale.

“And I said to him these are the topics I am interested in this is what I would like to say, what’s important to me,” the director said. “And we developed it from there together. Then Barbara and Michael said they liked where we were going and they liked the script.”

In this interview, Forster said everything worked out fine.

“The good thing is that Paul and I and Daniel all worked on the script before the strike happened and got it where we were pretty happy with,” the director said. “Then we started shooting and the only problems I had with the script we were shooting in April, May and June so as soon as the strike was over we did another polish.”

The writer doing that polish, Forster said, was Joshua Zetumer. The scribe’s involvement with the film was noted in other stories written during the production.

More Complicated
Forster, in a Nov. 3, 2008 story on the Vulture culture blog of New York magazine, indicated things were more complicated.

“Haggis had an idea they weren’t fond of, and I didn’t know if it would work or not,” Forster told Vulture. “The idea was that Vesper in the last movie, maybe she had a kid, and there would be an orphan out there.”

Eventually, with the clocking ticking to a WGA strike, the idea of Bond searching for Vesper’s child was rejected. Haggis, though, delivered a script ahead of the WGA walkout.

Daniel Craig in 2012 during filming of Skyfall.

In 2011, as Skyfall was preparing production, a new scenario was unveiled.

Daniel Craig in an interview with Time Out London, said he and Forster were forced to rewrite the script as Quantum was being filmed.

The actor described what they had as a “bare bones of a script.” Because of the WGA strike, “We couldn’t employ a writer to finish it.”

This tale has emerged as the now-accepted version, with Joshua Zetumer the movie’s forgotten man.

(This SUMMARY OF THE INTERVIEW ON INDIEWIRE has the Craig quotes involved.)

The movie did fine at the box office, with $586 million globally. But Quantum’s biggest effect may be that Eon doesn’t want to rush things if it can help it.

‘External Pressures’
“Sometimes there are external pressures from a studio who want you to make it in a certain time frame or for their own benefit, and sometimes we’ve given into that,” Eon’s Barbara Broccoli told the Los Angeles Times in 2012.

Barbara Broccoli

“But following what we hope will be a tremendous success with ‘Skyfall,’ we have to try to keep the deadlines within our own time limits and not cave in to external pressures,” the Eon boss told the newspaper.

She didn’t mention either Sony or Quantum of Solace. But it’s not much of a stretch to wonder if both were on her mind during that interview.

What’s more, a Sony executive told theater executives in 2012 that Bond 24 (eventually titled SPECTRE) would be out in 2014. Broccoli and Craig, in a May 1, 2012 interview with Collider, shut down such talk.

Broccoli: He was getting a little overexcited (laughs). We’re just actually focusing on this movie. One hopes that in the future we’ll be announcing other films, but no one’s officially announced it.

Craig: No one’s announced anything. He got a little ahead of himself (laughs). It’s very nice that he has the confidence to be able to do that, but we haven’t finished this movie yet.

SPECTRE, of course, came out in 2015, not 2014.

Today, Quantum occupies an odd space. Despite its financial success, it wasn’t discussed much in the 2012 documentary Everything Or Nothing. But many fans feel it’s more than a worthy entry in the Eon-made series.

Regardless of how you feel about the movie, though, it had an impact on the franchise. Trying to make a James Bond film within two years is now unthinkable. There would be a six-year gap between SPECTRE and No Time to Die. The COVID-19 pandemic was a major reason, but not the only one.

As for Bond 26? Who knows. It’s obviously not coming out in 2023 (two years after No Time to Die). There’s no script, no Bond actor, no director (as of this writing), etc., etc.