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News Daniel Craig signs up for Bond 25, Christopher Nolan in talks to direct

Thing is the producers have been trying to ease Purvis and Wade out for years, that's why Logan was bought in on Skyfall and was then given Spectre. It was only once they realised Spectre's final act was shite that they bought Purvis and Wade back in to try and salvage it. How well they didn't do this is evidenced by the producers then brining in Jez Butterworth to try and salvage it (and even he couldn't save it).

I think even Purvis and Wade are tired of it now, but they won't turn down wheelbarrows full of money when they're offered, and honestly who can blame them? It's worrying that not long ago P&W basically said they had no idea how to write another Bond film in the modern era!

Hindsight, I know but Danny Boyle was a poor fit from the start, he baulks at big budgets and studio interference, but Broccoli and Wilson must have known this, just as Boyle must have known they'd interfere. I can't help but feel this was part of bending over backwards to get Craig back again. After Spectre they should have called time on the Craig era and started fresh. I can't help feeling they're stuck in the same kind mindset they were in the mid 80s, knowing they have to move on but unwilling to do so, so its easier to just bring the guy who guarantees box office back again, and again, and again...

They're also stuck with this small universe, lets emulate Nolan's batman films malarkey, which is why Spectre tried (and failed) to link the Craig movies together. I don't care whether the villain has some historical/emotional link to Bond, and I sure as hell don't want to see Bond go rogue again (which he's done in pretty much every 21st Century film as opposed to once in the 20th century). I just want M to give 007 a mission and for him to complete it. An evil villain, a pretty girl, great action, some comic beats and a lean running time. Frankly I'd kill for a Goldeneye or a Tomorrow Never Dies next time out.

Oh and the gap between films isn't helping. At least when they were churning one out every two years if one was rubbish you didn't have long to wait for the next one. I loved Skyfall but found Spectre incredibly disappointing, so effectively it's been 6 years since I saw a good new Bond film.

James Bond will return, but fuck knows when...
 
Brosnan, for better or worse, did seem a pretty archetypal Bond, pretty openly combining elements of most of his predecessors if not seeming like a real compromise between/mix of Connery and Moore.

I'm not fond of Craig, although he was fine in CR and it's a little hard to compare when he really is supposed to be very different from the others. It makes sense that Brosnan and the filmmakers incorporated Moore-ish elements after Dalton bombed and interesting that Craig is popular when Dalton generally wasn't.
 
The Craig version of Bond is a good action hero IMO, but just doesn't exude that upper-crust "old money" level of polish that the character is absolutely supposed to have.

Kor
 
^ The whole point of Bond is that he isn't the upper crust amateur ala Richard Hannay, he's no working class spy but I've never interpreted the character as upper class.
 
I think there's a difference between literary Bond and film Bond.

In movie terms, clearly Bond's parents weren't short of a bob or two, but it isn't like Andrew Bond was an earl or 37th in line for the throne or anything, and when 007 (briefly) went to Eton that was after he was orphaned and, as Vesper intuits, at the grace of someone else. Of course the existence of Skyfall House shows a certain level of wealth, but it's also a bit of a crumbling heap.

Clearly film Bond isn't any kind of working class hero, but he's no toff, and no one's ever played him that way, which is one of the reasons I wouldn't want someone like Hiddleston playing the part because he's a trifle too posh.

Of course given Fleming wanted David Niven, Stewart Grainger or Cary Grant, it suggests the original intention was for 007 to be more of an upper class gentleman.
 
Film Bond is that way too, as shown by how often Conery showed contempt for anything perceived as common or pedestrian.

It's also what makes the anti-Idris (Or Bond of Color) people so insidiously racist.
 
Casting Idris Elba as OO7 would be interesting but producers would have to go all in, and that means create a new history for the character through the eyes and world of a so called "Black man". This OO7 could actually go and blend in the Middle East territories without fearing he could get abducted and later be seen in a desert, wearing an orange jumpsuit, head shaven, force the say a monologue about how suck England is and then is beheaded. Strange thing for me, I hate the notion of a OO7 who happens to be of color, but Idris for some reason I can buy into this stunt. He's miles more attractive than Craig, and has an edge that intrigues me. Guys, and Gals check out Elba's series Luther, an interesting series of character with full of complexities. The producers should go with anyone but an actor who went on record he would rather slit his own wrists than be Bond again.
 
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CorporalClegg said:
Film Bond is that way too, as shown by how often Conery showed contempt for anything perceived as common or pedestrian.

It's also what makes the anti-Idris (Or Bond of Color) people so insidiously racist.
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Or maybe they acknowledge that Connery's version of the character was probably a bit racist, and/or they just don't truck with the Connery depiction of the character in modern times?

STEPhon IT said:
Casting Idris Elba as OO7 would be interesting but producers would have to go all in, and that means create a new history for the character through the eyes and world of a so called "Black man".
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Agreed. Indeed, it seems obvious to me that the most interesting course would perhaps be to pair Bond on a mission with a fellow 00 agent of African/Middle Eastern descent, so the movie could play off of and explore what ethnicity means in the modern espionage world.

Of course, coming up with a substantive story idea is tricky to fit into a hashtag, so...
 
Kor said:
The guy went to Eton College. That's pretty upper crust.
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Not really, his parents might have been nouveau riche (I can't recall Bond's parental origins other than him having a Scottish father and Swiss mother). Wikipedia has the following:

It was not until the penultimate novel, You Only Live Twice, that Fleming gave Bond a sense of family background, using a fictional obituary, purportedly from The Times. The book was the first to be written after the release of Dr. No in cinemas and Sean Connery's depiction of Bond affected Fleming's interpretation of the character. The novel reveals Bond is the son of a Scottish father, Andrew Bond, of Glencoe, and a Swiss mother, Monique Delacroix, of the Canton de Vaud. The young James Bond spends much of his early life abroad, becoming multilingual in German and French because of his father's work as a Vickers armaments company representative. Bond is orphaned at the age of 11 when his parents are killed in a mountain climbing accident in the Aiguilles Rouges near Chamonix.

After the death of his parents, Bond goes to live with his aunt, Miss Charmian Bond, in the village of Pett Bottom, where he completes his early education. Later, he briefly attends Eton College at "12 or thereabouts", but is removed after two halves because of girl trouble with a maid. After being sent down from Eton, Bond was sent to Fettes College in Scotland, his father's school. On his first visit to Paris at the age of 16, Bond loses his virginity, later reminiscing about the event in "From a View to a Kill". Fleming used his own upbringing for his creation, with Bond alluding to briefly attending the University of Geneva (as did Fleming), before being taught to ski in Kitzbühel (as was Fleming) by Hannes Oberhauser, who is later killed in "Octopussy".
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So, seems like he was nouveau riche and sent down in disgrace from Eton. His aunt was Miss Charmian Bond of Pett Bottom - lol.
 
Bond 25 will be directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, filming will start in March and the release date has been pushed back to Valentine;s Day 2020!

Link

I'm not happy about the further delay, but at least Boyle's departure hasn't shifted things too much. Very happy with the choice of director though. The first season of True Detectives was gorgeous!
 
Wow, I'm surprised they chose a relatively unknown director who has spent half of his short career working on television.

That said, I loved his work on Beasts of No Nation and the first season of True Detective. Plus, Maniac looks excellent.
 
I guess after the hoo hah with Boyle they wanted someone who was potentially more controllable (which sounds worse than I intended it to)
 
Emh said:
Maybe, but didn't Fukunaga walk away from It over creative differences?
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Yes, he has and he's left other projects because he's known as a control freak, which means the themes of the picture and most of all-- the script. I wouldn't hold my breath on this one until there's an official video presentation announcement--you know-- those events where the producers go on full blast along with the cast revealing everything about the film and all of the endorsements which helped fund the spectacle.
 
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