BOND 25 - 11/8/19 - Annapurna to Release in US

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AndyDursin
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BOND 25 - 11/8/19 - Annapurna to Release in US

#1 Post by AndyDursin »

...making you wonder what the end of SPECTRE was supposed to signify. I'm sure they threw tons of cash at Daniel either way though to sweeten the deal.

Purvis and Wade are also returning -- must be in it to challenge Richard Maibaum for most writing credits in this series! :lol:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/24/movi ... =undefined
Sound the trumpets: Daniel Craig will play James Bond in at least one more film, which will be released in November 2019.

Eon Productions, the London-based company that oversees all things 007, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which holds rights to the franchise, said on Monday that the next installment would arrive in theaters in North America on Nov. 8, 2019. That will put moviedom’s most famous spy in direct competition with a live-action fairy tale from Walt Disney Studios. (Disney claimed the date last year but has not yet disclosed the specific movie.)

Eon and MGM also said that the script would be written by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, who have teamed up on the screenplays for the last six Bond installments, starting with “The World Is Not Enough” in 1999. The next Bond movie — the 25th in the series, if you include “Never Say Never Again” from 1983, which was made by an outside production company — will be produced by Eon’s Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli.

The companies said in a statement that details about a distribution partner, international release dates and the film’s cast and director would be announced “at a later date.” But Mr. Craig’s return is a done deal, according to two people briefed on the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid conflicts with Eon and MGM.

After a grueling shoot for the last Bond movie, “Spectre,” Mr. Craig expressed a strong desire to move on from the role, which he took over in 2006 with “Casino Royale.” “I’d rather break this glass and slash my wrists,” he told a British magazine in October. He later said that he had been overtired during that interview and that he would consider returning.

mkaroly
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Re: BOND 25 - 11/8/19 - Craig's Back

#2 Post by mkaroly »

Fantastic news on my end of things!

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AndyDursin
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Re: BOND 25 - 11/8/19 - Craig's Back

#3 Post by AndyDursin »

I don't mind that he's back -- but I'll probably mind if Mendes comes back and they reunite the SPECTRE crew. I really, really was bored by that movie. The "driving off into the sunset" ending of it now doesn't make a lick of sense at all.

Hopefully Craig's returning because he wants to make a better Bond movie, and isn't just motivated by the money...but I can't fault him if he just got a larger paycheck and extended vacation out of it.

Eric Paddon
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Re: BOND 25 - 11/8/19 - Craig's Back

#4 Post by Eric Paddon »

I'm frankly not happy to hear this. I was thoroughly bored with all of his films the one time I sat down to watch all of them in a row and it was a lethal combo of a poor Bond and all-around poor stories. This franchise could use a reboot that finally gives us a straight-ahead classic Bond story with the classic elements in place. For them to take four films to do that and then give us him walking away is bad storytelling on all levels IMO.

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Paul MacLean
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Re: BOND 25 - 11/8/19 - Craig's Back

#5 Post by Paul MacLean »

Eric Paddon wrote:I'm frankly not happy to hear this. I was thoroughly bored with all of his films the one time I sat down to watch all of them in a row and it was a lethal combo of a poor Bond and all-around poor stories.
I thought Casino Royale and Skyfall were two of the series best. I found both films to be expertly plotted (the last half of Casino Royale is also a very faithful adaptation of Fleming's story) and with adroitly-developed characters. I even applauded in the scene where Bond turns on the lights in the storage bay and we see the Aston Martin DB5.

If Skyfall had just had a real score, it might even be #2 on my list of best Bond films (OHMSS remains #1).


I am with you on the other two though. Quantum of Solace was unquestionably crummy (of course because of the writers' strike they were forced to start shooting without a finished script). I liked the first and final 30 minutes of Spectre, but almost nothing in between. The casting of Christophe Waltz was a critical error, as he's another one of these "trendy" actors who is in everything (and lacks the icy, monolithic presence you need in an actor playing Blofeld).

Still, I prefer the more serious tone of the Craig films. He may not be as "entertaining" as Roger Moore (who I did like very much), but these are spy stories, and I remain adamant that spy stories ought to veer toward serious end of the spectrum.

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AndyDursin
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Re: BOND 25 - 11/8/19 - Craig's Back

#6 Post by AndyDursin »

I guess my issue is as glum and serious as the Craig movies are, had they made glum and serious Bond movies right off the bat in the 1960s, they would've made THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD or THE IPCRESS FILE and this franchise never would've gotten out of the decade.

There is something to be said for the escapism of the "Golden Age" of the Bond movies that some "Bond snobs" today tend to look down on (and I'm not talking about anyone in this thread by the way!). Those movies are big, glorious widescreen entertainments -- they may not be faithful Ian Fleming adaptations, but they are candy-coated cinematic fantasies that were wonderful for what they were. And they have great scores, which the films today don't have. They also don't take themselves seriously, which the Craig movies absolutely do. They also functioned as travelogues, they drew in a massive amount of audiences who weren't all wrapped up in the humorless, cold, "franchise building" the movies today have.

Those movies, the Connery and especially Moore entries, were aiming for a different audience and a different experience than the Craig pictures. If you like what they are doing with Craig's films, hey that's fine -- they're very much in line with all the cold, dour super-hero films that take themselves seriously and have amped-up violence. There's a part of that that connects with what Ian Fleming originally wrote, I get that, so it has a place.

Still, as much as some people take shots at Moore for being too campy, I personally think people mistake Craig's "toughness" for complexity. I find him a boring, one-note actor in most of his work. I thought he absolutely slept his way through SPECTRE, and I don't think they have done a good job, at all, "establishing Bond's persona" over these 4 films. The end of SPECTRE was supposed to mean something...what, I don't know. Most people didn't get it whatever it was.

I think the Craig movies are overall a mixed bag. I like CASINO ROYALE, it's really good. Most of SKYFALL is good, I don't think it's great, and then the last third is a bore. The studio had huge concerns with how that movie finished and it petered out at the finish line for me. QUANTUM OF SOLACE and SPECTRE are unequivocally two of the worst entries in the entire series with almost nothing redeeming to them at all as far as I'm concerned. At least with junk like MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN, there's pleasant cinematography to take hold of and a Barry score there to make it palatable.

With the running storyline being a bust (and seemingly played out at the end of SPECTRE either way), Craig coming back to me means it's about the money and they couldn't figure out where to go without him. And hey, it happened before with Moore staying too long at the party for A VIEW TO A KILL, so we'll see what happens here. I just think this is a spin-the-wheels type of move because an extended hiatus usually means it's time for a change as far as this series goes, and my guess is, originally, Craig was done at the end of the last movie.

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Re: BOND 25 - 11/8/19 - Craig's Back

#7 Post by Eric Paddon »

I would have been a lot more accepting of the franchise perhaps had they not made what I feel was a terrible mistake to carry over Judi Dench. The easiest way to accept a totally new Bond IMO would have meant giving him a new rebooting with a new M in the Bernard Lee tradition, new Moneypenny, new Q. Let us in the first film not just be given a chance to accept a new Bond but also give us the new ensemble of actors in the traditional supporting roles. Instead, they decided to retain Dench (I thought she was great in the Brosnan films so it's not that I have anything against her as "M" but she was needed for an era of extending the old universe of Bond) and they also inflated her role considerably (the idea that a Bond who hasn't yet gotten his license to kill in "Casino Royale" could have the ability to break into her apartment so easily and with acceptance set a wrong note with me on all levels) to the point where it took us three movies to get Bond with the familiar ensemble back.

I have to admit, as a non-Craig fan, this makes this parody trailer of "Casino Royale" done in the style of the 67 "Casino Royale" one of the funniest things I have ever seen. :)


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Re: BOND 25 - 11/8/19 - Craig's Back

#8 Post by KevinEK »

Not surprised to see this, and I think we discussed this around the time that Craig was complaining at the end of the Spectre production. I'm happy to see him continue in the roll. He's quite good in it, and in my opinion is the best Bond we've had since Connery.

His run in the role has been a massive step upward from what we had with Brosnan, who was unfortunately saddled with two of the worst scripts in the entire franchise (for Tomorrow Never Dies and Die Another Day), and frankly a more interesting take than we had on the character since the middle of Roger Moore's tenure. There were people who were ready to bash Craig even before Casino Royale came out, but I honestly didn't pay attention to that stuff and just waited for CR to come out in 2006.

I've enjoyed all four of his turns in the role, although I found Spectre to be the least satisfying and the most bloated. I really wish they hadn't played games in that one to try to tie everything together and to tie Blofeld and Bond together in such a ridiculous manner. That said, I agree that the opening 30 minutes and the closing sequence are both quite well done. Quantum of Solace is a problematic film, but it contains multiple sequences I've enjoyed - particularly the opera setup and the airplane chase. I agree that CR and Skyfall are easily the best of his films overall - Skyfall does run on a little long, but it keeps rewarding the viewer with these great scenes along the way.

As for the lower ends of the Bond films, I'd have to turn to License to Kill, A View to a Kill and The Man With the Golden Gun, not to mention Live and Let Die. Never Say Never Again has also aged quite badly, and I say that as someone who truly enjoyed the movie when it came out in 1983. (It was fashionable at that time to celebrate NSNA and put down Octopussy, but time has shown that the Moore movie has fared the years better.) I still enjoy all the films, but Golden Gun is just loaded with corny sequences that are increasingly hard to sit through - and it has the single worst Bond song of all time. View to a Kill does show that Moore should have hung it up one movie earlier, and it competes with Golden Gun for worst Bond song of all time. License to Kill just squanders Timothy Dalton, who showed a lot of promise in Living Daylights and was sadly rewarded with a terrible movie as its follow up. These movies were bad in general, and frankly poor Bond films to boot.

I did appreciate Judy Dench staying on for the Craig Bond films, although her appearance in Spectre is a bit pointless to me. But she does actually set up the new M in Skyfall, and Ralph Fiennes does quite well in the role. (There are two really great Fiennes moments in Skyfall - one is the bit where he catches Q red-handed and the other is the satisfying closing scene.)

I don't think Sam Mendes is going to return to Bond - I think it will be a new director, which I think is a good idea. Let's see what they come up with and maybe there will be a good idea running through it.

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Re: BOND 25 - 11/8/19 - Craig's Back

#9 Post by Paul MacLean »

AndyDursin wrote:I guess my issue is as glum and serious as the Craig movies are, had they made glum and serious Bond movies right off the bat in the 1960s, they would've made THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD or THE IPCRESS FILE and this franchise never would've gotten out of the decade.
I'm currently working my way through the Bond books, and I'm getting a better sense of what Ian Fleming was on about. I would say the difference between Fleming and Len Deighton or John LeCarre is that Fleming's stories had glamorous settings -- like the films, the Bond books are full of opulent hotels, casinos and beautiful woman, as well as somewhat fantastical villains (LALD's Mr. Big maintains a smuggling operation built inside a Jamaican cave by the sea). But Fleming does not shy-away from action and gritty violence either (Felix Lighter's being fed to the sharks -- seen in the film Licence to Kill -- is drawn from LALD), and he strikes an effective balance between the two -- this is what I appreciate about the first and third Craig movies (and miss a bit in the Moore films).

But I still love some of the Moore movies, for all their camp humor. I can even roll with a ship that swallows three Polaris submarines, or a fleet of space shuttles rendezvousing with a space station. But I draw the line with Jaws surviving a cable car crash and suddenly falling in love with the nerdy girl who comes to his rescue (complete with Tchaikovsky's Romeo & Juliet playing on the soundtrack)!

But for me it's ultimately more about whether the overall film is entertaining rather than the aesthetic approach, or even who is playing Bond. Connery is still #1, but Never Say Never Again is not a very good movie. As far as Daniel Craig, what can I say? His interpretation of the role just "works" for me. Certainly he is better than Pierce Brosnan. Roger Moore's charm is irresistible, which is why I can (almost) pardon things like the "Tarzan call" in Octopussy.

Where I think Bond films run into trouble is when they strive to be mercilessly gritty and ludicrously campy within the same movie -- which was the problem in some of the Brosnan pictures (especially Die Another Day), and Spectre as well. Spectre begins with an effectively serious sequence where Bond comes across an assassin, and executes him on the spot, then it turns completely silly when 007 lands comfortably on a couch after the bomb explodes. Later, Bond lands a plane whose wings are broken off, then toward the climax of the film endures one of the most unpleasant torture scenes I've ever seen.

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Re: BOND 25 - 11/8/19 - Craig's Back

#10 Post by AndyDursin »

I actually see some of the problems from the Brosnan films in terms of plotting showing up in the Craig movies and for good reason...they're all written by these same two guys in some capacity. They have changed the tone yet the underlying films are very much being made by the same people to a large extent, director notwithstanding. And even then it's not like Eon would ever let Sam Mendes have full control over these films.

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Re: BOND 25 - 11/8/19 - Craig's Back

#11 Post by Monterey Jack »

Four years has to hold the record for longest gap between Bond movies without replacing the lead actor. :? Diamonds Are Forever doesn't count, because they did replace Connery, only to ask him back after the "failure" of casting George Lazenby in OHMSS.

As much as I've loved Craig's tenure in the role (only Thingy Of Whatsis -- Something Of Boris? -- was a complete wash), he's clearly only in it for the money at this point, much like the post-70's Roger Moore or Connery in DAF. Yeah, retaining Craig will assure a certain portion of the audience will come back, it'll slowly erode that fanbase to see Craig joylessly sleepwalking through the role for a paycheck.

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Re: BOND 25 - 11/8/19 - Craig's Back

#12 Post by mkaroly »

KevinEK wrote:Not surprised to see this, and I think we discussed this around the time that Craig was complaining at the end of the Spectre production. I'm happy to see him continue in the roll. He's quite good in it, and in my opinion is the best Bond we've had since Connery.
Seconded from me. I have thoroughly enjoyed all four films (warts and all) - I love soaking in his Bond character (which I feel comes pretty close to the character in the original books) and his world. I get the criticisms of his films and respect that. Craig has a smarmy arrogance about him that I like - and from SKYFALL I give him and Judi Dench credit for the most emotionally moving scene in a Bond movie since OHMSS. All in all he would be my number 2 Bond - Connery being in first, Lazenby in third (OHMSS is an outstanding film), Brosnan, Dalton, and Moore.

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Re: BOND 25 - 11/8/19 - Craig's Back

#13 Post by Eric W. »

Overall happy to see this.

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Re: BOND 25 - 11/8/19 - Craig's Back

#14 Post by Paul MacLean »


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Re: BOND 25 - 11/8/19 - Craig's Back

#15 Post by AndyDursin »

The era of humorless 007 outings is going to continue if either of them are hired.

And just what everyone wants too -- a Bond score possibly written by Jóhann Jóhannsson! :lol:

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