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Henry Cavill returning as Superman? The Hollywood Reporter, in a story about a potential big shakeup of Warner Bros./DC Comics movies, says Cavill may be out again.
THR also said a third Wonder Woman movie with Gal Gadot has been shut down and Jason Momoa’s time as Aquaman may be nearing the end.
Cavill made a cameo in the recent Black Adam movie with Dwayne Johnson and said on social media that he was back as the Man of Steel.
THR, citing people it didn’t identify, said the new bosses of DC films, James Gunn and Peter Safran, are drafting a new plan and it may not include Cavill after all. Gunn and Safran “are expected to meet next week with David Zaslav, the Warner Bros. Discovery CEO who is radically reshaping the media company,” the entertainment news outlet said.
Cavill has had, at best, mixed luck with entertainment franchises.
The actor was in his early 20s when he was passed over for the role of James Bond in favor of Daniel Craig. Now, at 39, he may on the verge of aging out. Michael G. Wilson of Eon Productions has said the next Bond actor may be a “thirty-something.”
In the 2010s, Cavill won the role of Superman. But he only got one solo movie (Man of Steel in 2013) plus two other movies (Batman v. Superman and Justice League) where he shared screen time with other characters.
Cavill was cast in 2015’s The Man From U.N.C.L.E. but that was one and done. The actor was in the streaming Netflix TV show The Witcher, but he departed that role.
Sam Mendes has made points about his two-film tenure in the James Bond film series. Some are new, some provide new twists.
The director, in a Nov. 8 story by The Hollywood Reporter, made new versions of previous comments about his time on Skyfall and SPECTRE, the only Bond films made during the 2010s.
The Skyfall delay was good! Bond 23, which would become Skyfall, originally was to be written by Peter Morgan and the writing team of Neal Purvis and Robert Wade.
Bond’s home studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, entered bankruptcy in 2010, resulting in delays. An excerpt from the THR story:
Mendes and his collaborators used the downtime as an opportunity to creatively resuscitate the film’s storyline.
Morgan exited the project while Mendes brought in writer John Logan to rework the scripting by Purvis and Wade. Mendes has said that process helped the film and he repeats that in the new THR story.
Skyfall was the first time acknowledging that Bond aged: Skyfall “acknowledged the passage of time, arguably for the first time ever, in the series. It acknowledged that they are mortal, that they are going to age and probably die,” Mendes told THR.
Arguably, no it wasn’t. When Sean Connery did interviews for Diamonds Are Forever in 1971, he said he was playing Bond as older. In For Your Eyes Only, Roger Moore’s Bond goes to the gravesite of his late wife Tracy. That movie came out in 1981 but Tracy’s headstone says she died in 1969 (the year On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was released). Lois Maxwell’s Moneypenny in 1983’s Octopussy acknowledged being older.
SPECTRE was something else: The director didn’t get additional time for 2015’s SPECTRE.
With SPECTRE, “that time was not afforded to me,” Mendes told THR. “[With Spectre], I felt there was some pressure. Certainly Barbara (Broccoli) and Michael (G. Wilson) exerted some pressure on me and Daniel to make the next one, so that makes a big difference. People saying: ‘We want you to do it,’ and passionately wooing me to do it, was a big thing.”
Of course, Mendes could have said no. In 2015, Mendes told the BBC he almost turned SPECTRE down. “I said no to the last one and then ended up doing it, and was pilloried by all my friends,” Mendes told the BBC. “But I do think this is probably it.”
While not referenced by THR, SPECTRE also saw entire scripts made public because of hacks into Sony’s computer system. (Sony released four of the five Daniel Craig 007 films.) In addition to scripts, details about tax breaks from Mexico for SPECTRE became public. With SPECTRE, the writing team of Purvis and Wade was brought in to rewrite John Logan.
Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson in November 2011
Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson of Eon Productions “are set to receive the BFI Fellowship, the top honor from the British Film Institute,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
An excerpt from the article:
The BFI said it was recognizing the pair’s “extraordinary achievements and enormous contribution to cinema, with arguably the best loved and most enduring film franchise in the world — James Bond — celebrating its 60th anniversary this year.” The two will receive the fellowship at the BFI Chair’s Dinner, hosted by BFI Chair Tim Richards, on June 28 in London.
Wilson turned 80 earlier this year. He has spent the past 50 years in full-time service in the Bond film franchise.
Broccoli, who turns 62 on June 18, has spent 40 years in full-time service for the Bond film franchise. Barbara Broccoli worked part-time in the 1970s writing captions for publicity stills for The Spy Who Loved Me.
A trailer for Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One leaked for a time on social media before being yanked by Paramount.
A version of the trailer for the movie had been shown last month at CinemaCon. An official trailer hasn’t been released. The existence of the leak was reported by The Hollywood Reporter and other outlets.
A website called The Digital Fix quoted David Ellison, a producer on Top Gun: Maverick and the M:I movie, as saying the trailer will “drop next week.”
The video for the seventh Mission: Impossible film starring Tom Cruise that circulated on social media appears to have homages to the James Bond film series. They include scenes that evoke For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, and GoldenEye.
Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One is scheduled for release on July 14, 2023. The eighth film will be released in 2024.
Robert Wade, left, and Neal Purvis. (Paul Baack illustration)
Screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, in an interview with The Guardian, say the #MeToo movement didn’t affect their work on No Time to Die.
“I don’t think we did anything differently because of that,” Wade told The Guardian. “We’ve never wanted to be sexist: it doesn’t look good for Bond. I’ve got daughters, and I wouldn’t want him not to be a good role model.”
The comment was part of a broader profile of the writing duo, who have been involved writing every James Bond film since 1999’s The World Is Not Enough.
The comment also is interesting because the notion that No Time to Die reflects an adjustment to #MeToo had been a talking point in publicity for the film. #MeToo, per Wikipedia, refers to “a social movement against sexual abuse and sexual harassment where people publicize allegations of sex crimes.”
For example, there’s this excerpt from a November 2019 article in The Hollywood Reporter.
No Time to Die will be the first entry in the series to land in a #MeToo and Time’s Up world. And while the $7 billion franchise may forever be best known for its womanizing namesake agent, director Fukunaga (True Detective, Beasts of No Nation) and producer Barbara Broccoli have worked hard with both (Lashana) Lynch and (Ana) de Armas to create a new type of female Bond character who is much more fully realized than the “Bond girls” of films past.
“It’s pretty obvious that there is an evolution in the fact that Lashana is one of the main characters in the film and wears the pants — literally. I wear the gown. She wears the pants,” says de Armas.
In a September 2021 story, director Cary Fukunaga told The Hollywood Reporter that #MeToo did have an impact.
Perhaps the biggest hurdle for the film was bringing its globe-trotting lothario into Hollywood’s post-#MeToo reality. After all, No Time to Die began development in 2016, before the industry embarked on a period of self-reflection in the wake of Harvey Weinstein’s downfall for predatory behavior. Though Craig’s oeuvre puts a greater emphasis on the quality of drinks than the quantity of women, the history of Bond includes casual misogyny and worse.
“Is it Thunderball or Goldfinger where, like, basically Sean Connery’s character rapes a woman?” Fukunaga asks. “She’s like ‘No, no, no,’ and he’s like, ‘Yes, yes, yes.’ That wouldn’t fly today.”
In addition to directing, Fukunaga shared the screenwriting credit with the Purvis and Wade team as well as Phoebe Waller-Bridge.
In 2019, in a video interview in Jamaica, Barbara Broccoli, the boss of Eon Productions, also said #MeToo had an impact on No Time to Die, which was about to start principal photography.
“The #MeToo movement came at the right time — I mean long overdue,” Broccoli said during that interview. “It’s had a huge impact on the world…I think everything we do has to reflect that. So I think the film absolutely will incorporate that.”
The Hollywood Reporter has come out with a big feature story about Cary Fukunaga, the director of No Time to Die.
But there are elements that don’t square up previous tellings of No Time To Die’s back story. Naturally, the blog has questions.
Whose idea was it to bring aboard Phoebe Waller-Bridge as a writer for the 25th James Bond movie?
According to THR, it was Fukunaga’s, of course.
At Fukunaga’s suggestion, Phoebe Waller-Bridge was brought in to work on the draft he wrote with Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, who have worked on every Bond film since 1999’s The World Is Not Enough.
Except, supposedly it was the idea of star Daniel Craig. For example, there’s this story from IndieWire in February 2020:
The “Fleabag” creator, whose Amazon Prime Video series picked up six Primetime Emmy Award wins last year, was brought onto the film back in 2019 at the behest of star Daniel Craig.
Oh. Well, the winners get to write the history. Both Fukunaga and Waller-Bridge were among the winners of the No Time to Die saga.
How big a factor was #MeToo in No Time to Die’s development?
Apparently, a lot. We won’t really know until the movie comes out shortly. But THR’s story has some clues.
A quote in the THR story from Lashana Lynch: “Cary had big discussions with Barbara (Broccoli) and Daniel about how to give the female characters equity, how to keep them in charge of themselves, how to give them solo moments where the audience learns who they are. It was really important to empower the female characters as stand-alones. And I think that he kept that in mind throughout the whole shoot.”
A quote from Barbara Broccoli in the new story:
“I think people are coming around — with some kicking and screaming — to accepting that stuff is no longer acceptable. Thank goodness. Bond is a character who was written in 1952 and the first film [Dr. No] came out in 1962. He’s got a long history, and the history of the past is very different to the way he is being portrayed now.”
Finally a quote from Fukunaga himself in The Hollywood Reporter:
“Is it Thunderball or Goldfinger where, like, basically Sean Connery’s character rapes a woman?” Fukunaga told THR. “She’s like ‘No, no, no,’ and he’s like, ‘Yes, yes, yes.’ That wouldn’t fly today.”
Why did Bond 25 switch from Danny Boyle to Cary Fukunaga as director?
Bond 25 has a complicated history. Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, long-time Bond screenwriters, were hired in 2017 to develop a script. They worked on it for months. Then, in 2018, it became known than director Danny Boyle and his writer, John Hodge, made a pitch.
An announcement came out in spring 2018 that the Boyle and Hodge team were hired. The initial script was set aside.
But later that year, they were gone. Fukunaga would soon be hired.
The key excerpt from THR’s story:
With Boyle, there was a deviation of visions. His version was more tongue-in-cheek and whimsical. Broccoli and Wilson wanted something more serious for Craig’s final outing.
This leads to a lot of questions. Did Eon, which at one time loved the Boyle-Hodge pitch, not realize the tone was different? Did Eon not vet Boyle and Hodge?
We’re less than a week before the premiere of No Time to Die. Many fans don’t want to hear about this.
Still, The Hollywood Reporter raises more questions than answers
Danny Boyle, the original director for Bond 25, had in mind a project that was “more tongue-in-cheek and whimsical,” The Hollywood Reporter said today in a feature story about Cary Fukunaga, who ended up helming the 25th James Bond movie.
Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson “wanted something more serious” for actor Daniel Craig’s final turn as Bond, according to the entertainment news outlet.
After Boyle’s departure, Fukunaga told THR, “I emailed Barbara and was like, ‘Is there a chance to talk about this?’ She responded right away, and we set up a meeting the next week. I didn’t have a pitch or anything, just asked them what they’re after and what wasn’t working.”
This raises all sorts of questions. In 2018, Eon put aside a script it had been developing after Boyle pitched a supposedly great idea that wowed Eon and executives at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In May 2018, it was announced Boyle was directing with John Hodge doing the script.
The main question is did Eon and MGM vet Boyle and Hodge and the great idea? Boyle apparently did not vet how Eon works.
In the article, Fukunaga is credited with suggesting Phoebe Waller-Bridge as a writer for No Time to Die, Bond 25’s eventual title.
Robert Osborne, who made an Oscars “In Memoriam,” in the pilot of The Beverly Hillbillies.
Over the weekend, the BAFTAs came out with its “In Memoriam” segment. Diana Rigg didn’t make it, apparently because the BAFTAs considered her a mere “television actor.” Meanwhile, the general public sometimes gets upset when familiar actors don’t make the cut for the “In Memoriam” segments of the BAFTAs and Ocars while insiders do.
To keep this post manageable, here are a list of Oscar “In Memoriam” entries largely unknown to the general pubic from recent Oscars telecasts.
2020 Oscars: Gerry Lewis, “marketing executive”: Lewis was “the British marketing and publicity expert who promoted such films as Alfie, Love Story and The Godfather before spearheading international campaigns for Steven Spielberg efforts from Duel to Ready Player One,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
2019 Oscars: Pierre Rissent, “an important behind-the-scenes figure at the Cannes Film Festival and, as a result, an influential shaper of cinematic trends and directors’ careers for half a century,” according to The New York Times. Also, Paul Bloch, a publicist “adept at putting out fires in Hollywood,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
2018 Oscars: Robert Osborne, TCM host and earlier writer for Hollywood trade publications. He acted a bit including a small part in the pilot for The Beverly Hillbillies (a TV show, not a movie). Also, Joe Hyams, a long-time Warner Bros. publicity executive, according to Deadline: Hollywood.
Daniel Craig is about to get a huge post-Bond payday, in part because “tech companies” play by different rules than other businesses.
It has been reported by The Hollywood Reporter that Netflix will pay almost $470 million for two sequels to the film Knives Out. Now, Netflix resembles a studio (it makes original movies and TV shows). But it’s classified as a tech company because its productions primarily are shown on streaming, though its movies sometimes get theatrical releases.
If you’re a tech company, investors treat you differently. Your stock price often goes crazy and investors will throw money at you.
Netflix isn’t alone. Amazon is essentially a retailer but because it’s viewed as a tech company, it’s much more valuable. Ditto for Tesla, which makes electric vehicles but enjoys the tech company label, much to the consternation of established automakers.
Enter Daniel Craig, the five-time film James Bond. He starred in the original Knives Out, a 2019 mystery, as a project he squeezed in amid No Time to Die delays. Reportedly, he and Knives Out writer-director Rian Johnson may pocket $100 million each as part of the new Netflix deal.
Craig made plenty of money playing James Bond. His No Time to Die payday was a reported $25 million.
But that was under the old rules — release a movie to theaters, charge admission, then shift to home video and on-demand TV.
Netflix plays under new rules, which emphasize streaming. Others, including Walt Disney Co. and AT&T (owner of Warner Bros.) want in on that action.
The original Knives Out had a global box office of $311.4 million on a budget of $45 million. That’s nice but hardly the billion-dollar-plus blockbuster in theatrical release, which had been the industry standard. However, the COVID-19 pandemic adversely affected the traditional movie theater business.
Variety, in a follow-up story, described how things are changing:
Then again, the world of entertainment has changed so significantly, and the measure of success for streamers is not dependent on box office dollars but on signing up new subscribers.
“It’s a whole new equation,” as one of my sources put it.
The Justice Society of America, including Dr. Fate (gold helmet and blue costume) in 1940
One-time film James Bond Pierce Brosnan is joining Warner Bros.’s DC film universe as Dr. Fate, The Hollywood Reporter said.
Brosnan is joining the cast of Black Adam, a Warners/DC film starring Dwayne Johnson. Chances are a lot of the general public or Bond fans) may not be familiar with Dr. Fate.
The good doctor made his debut in 1940 in More Fun Comics No. 55. The sorcerer would soon be part of the new Justice Society of America.
The character was co-created by DC writer Gardner F. Fox, who would also write racy spy novels under a pen name. Besides Dr. Fate, Fox also had a had in creating the Justice Society (and the later Justice League), the original Flash and the original Hawkman.
It makes sense that Warner Bros. is bringing Dr. Fate into the movies. Marvel Studios has featured Dr. Strange, a sorcerer character created by Steve Ditko, into its movies.
UPDATE: Dwayne Johnson confirmed the Brosnan casting in a tweet:
Such a pleasure to announce the final member of our #JusticeSociety, the bad ass statesman, Mr @PierceBrosnan as the iconic and all knowing, DR. FATE. I’m grateful to have such a talented, diverse and hungry cast. #BlackAdam⚡️https://t.co/3gyTgP9MQ9
The Spy Command 