No, CR opened a little bit under DAD, which was odd, since inflation pretty much guarantees that the numbers go up each time (unless you get an oddity, like the MGM morons releasing LTK against a flotilla of heavyweights without the slightest domestic PR campaign.)
Huh...well, I'll be damned. I could have sworn I read that was the biggest Bond opening. Maybe the thing I read was about totals. Oh well...
I know that, but that has nothing to do with it. And what makes you think it was talking to you anyway? Oh, and please learn to use the Multi Quote feature.
Ultimately CR did outgross DAD, but it's opening weekend was not as big. CR opened second that weekend behind Happy Feet. Final numbers came out for QoS in the US and Sony over estimated by $3 million. Sunday's gross was down from what they had predicted. Could word of mouth spread that fast? Neil
If I'm reading the thread backwards, then I don't know there's anything else to respond to. What kind of answer is that? You acknowledge that you're wrong, but that that is irrelevant? No, it just shows that making dumbass snipes ought to get you your ears thwacked, but hard. So try putting content in your posts instead of just 'tude you can't back up.
But I just don't see how. All third party accounts and evidence over the years have suggested Witthingham and McClory's actual contribution was limited and that all the parts in question (SPECTRE and Blofeld, for instance) were part of Fleming's original short story. If it had been dragged out in court, there's little doubt Fleming would have one. He was simply too ill to bother and acquiesced. Really, it was nothing more than piss-ant of a man trying to take advantage of an unfortunate situation and make a career for himself.. In fact, I'll even put it to the court that had Fleming been younger and of better health, McClory would've just stayed home--or gone back to holding the microphones. In any case, the issue is really over the Thunderball property itself which, by default, includes SPECTRE. However, one could easily argue Blofeld is not conclusive. He isn't actually called "Blofeld, nor had he been on film to that date. All there was was a couple of hands and a cat. Hell, people can't even agree on who provided the voice. So, if EON were to go ahead and make him the King of Quantum, I don't think there'd be anything anyone could say about it. And, it's not as if McClory is going to come back from the afterlife. I'm totally not with you. For starters, I never said I was wrong. But Never mind that. There was about two pages of threads of bickering over Mathis's fate in CR. I found it rather annoying and pointless, and I suggested, not so politely, that, instead of continuing the dispute, all involved parties should read the novel and come to a definitive conclusion on their own. You were not one of said parties. Also, whether or not Mathis lived or died in any subsequent novel had absolutely nothing to do with it.
Well, I did read the novel. Mathis is an ally of Bond in the book and future books that he appeared in (including Never Dream of Dying and Devil May Care). But since the film (and, really, any film adaptation of a novel) changes some things, the idea the Mathis is an ally is tossed out in favor of seemingly turning him into a villain (a decision that didn't sit well with me when I first saw CR). In any event, the discussion was about Mathis, the film character. Not Mathis, the novel character. There is a difference and where the question of his loyalties lie arises.
Mathis is innocent.He always has been. Here's why; QoS adresses a question I had about Casino Royale ,who paints Mathis as Le Chiffre's leak. If Mathis' intention was to kill Bond,why wait until he's concious and coherent to poison him with a drink? Granted Bond is in a wheelchair,but a former SAS soldier is still plenty deadly with his hands. Since the movie establishes Vesper and Mathis being present while Bond was passed out,that would have been a MUCH better time for Mathis to poison him via IV in his hospital bed while he's drugged to unconciousness instead of waiting X amount of days for Bond to be released to a wheelchair,then mixing the poison in his presence and asking him to drink it. Second,Vesper says 'Mathis needs me' before she stages her kidnapping by Le Chiffre.Who coincidentally utters the line about Mathis being 'his' special friend. This he said so that Bond wouldn't put two and two and suspect Vesper,who Le Chiffre still needed to matter to Bond so as to coerce the password out of Bond via Le Chiffre 'torturing' Vesper. When of course Vesper was in on the whole hustle. This also adresses why Vesper walks off the ship alive when the rest of Le Chiffre's entourage ate lead courtesy of Mr White.
Above average I can't believe that I'm saying this but there was way TOO much action and not enough plot. I liked the movie but it was not as good as CR. However Daniel Craig and Judi Dench were as great as always. The best parts of the movie were the all scenes that referenced CR.
Excellent - I really, really enjoyed this. A fast-paced, uncompromising sequel to CR with enough quieter and well-placed moments to give the characters the space they need. I think the Bond, M dynamic is excellent and one of the major reasons this works. I also thought Bond and Camille worked very well together. Camille is an interesting character, I think. I'm curious to see what they'll do with her in the future (I'm assuming she will be back in some form). I also really like what I've seen of 'Quantum' so far. For the bad guys, they're frighteningly down-to-earth in their approach, which is exactly why you could imagine they might succeed whit what they're doing. My favorite scene was probably the opera house in Bregenz when Bond calls out and photographs all the bad guys and especially that moment when Bond stands opposite Greene and everything is mute for a few seconds and then the sound of the Opera takes over. I thought that was really, really well staged and shot. One of the few complaints I have was the building blowing up at the end. It was just that bit too much, I thought. However, I am glad that it actually leads to something on a character level with Camille re-living her childhood experience. So, having been uncertain as to how this would turn out after reading some reviews I'm happy to say I really, really enjoyed this and am looking forward to re-watching sometime in the future.
Craig's under 5'10", and that is confirmed by my interview with QOS dp Roberto Schaefer, who had to deal with the lack of height dif of Craig and Olga (probably why Craig had to wear lifts in the desert scenes.) Owen and Craig both look like they have something of the brawler in them ... dif is Craig looks like the guy you have to pick up off the floor (again, referencing Roberto Schaefer, he looks like a bashed-in Russian boxer) while Owen is the guy who put him there.
He had 6 of them on the airplane. And just for the record, Roger Moore, though he was in seven Bond adventures, never once ordered that drink. Neil
Interesting. I didn't realize that. That's a mixed bag for me. On the one hand, I really love the character of Wai Lin (one of the best Bond girls IMHO). On the other hand, I can't stand DOD. And I doubt her inclusion would have made that much of a difference to the film as a whole since it would have been a relatively small part the way you describe it IIRC.
So, did we ever find out what the secret organization was? I mean other than a cheap rip-off of Munich.
I love Fleming's Bond novels, and have great respect for his inimitable style. However, I think your bash of McClory is unfair, and Fleming really did make a tremendous mistake in not acknowledging or compensating him for his contributions to what became the Thunderball novel. The 1959-1960 effort in developing the Thunderball screenplay as the first Bond film was a collaborative effort between Fleming, McClory, Whittingham and Cuneo. The Thunderball script was shelved in favor of Dr. No, and Fleming made a decision that was to haunt him for the rest of his sadly short life: publishing the book with no compensation or acknowedgement of McClory or Whittingham's contributions. If he had done the right thing and bought out McClory and Whittingham's rights to Thunderball prior to publishing the novel he would have saved himself and EON much future grief. I do think McClory & Sony overreached in their final lawsuit by trying to sue for compensation for McClory having created "the cinematic Bond" and asking for payment from profits of the entire series. But, it should also be noted that the suit was dismissed on the grounds that he took too long to bring it to court, not that it had no merit. Of course, EON still owns the celluloid of Thunderball, and now MGM owns Never Say Never Again. It seems that there is ambiguity if the McClory estate still owns rights to the Thunderball script and its contents. Sony settled with MGM (and in a twist worthy of Hollywood, ended up owning Bond's distribution rights via MGM) and so it appears McClory's renewed claim of rights to yet another remake of Thunderball was never decided. It also seems that EON/MGM/Sony do not want to run the risk of opening a can of worms to resolve this ambiguity as they have repeatedly declined to ever use SPECTRE or Blofeld again, even in the recent video game version of From Russia With Love. As an epilogue, it should be noted that Sony's distro rights to Bond ended with Quantum of Solace (see, on topic!) so who knows what the future holds. Links of interest: A good summary of events from Universal Exports. Another summary of events. McClory's side of the story (via the Internet Archive, as the site is now defunct). "The Battle for Bond" an excellent book on the creation of the Bond film series, sadly in printing limbo as evidently anything that even touches Thunderball is cursed (e.g. the newspaper strip). Copies may still be available out there somewhere.
Pretty much what I thought. Not a terrible movie by any means but nothing outstanding, either. I consider CR overrated but it's much better than this. Judi Dench is marvellous as usual (then again I'd watch her reading a phone book so that's not saying much), and she and Craig work well together. That's about all I have to say about QoS.
Actually, Agent XXX ordered a martini for Roger Moore's Bond in The Spy Who Loved Me while delivering the line "Vodka martini. Shaken, not stirred."