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

Timby said:
A really good friend of mine, several years ago, described Brosnan as a "greatest hits" Bond, in that he had the raw macho charm and sensuality of Connery, the comedy and absurdity of Moore, and occasionally he shows off the intensity and brutality of Dalton, all while never actually bringing anything of his own to the character.

Felt like a pretty bang-on assessment to me.
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I'd mostly agree with this, but I do think he does bring one thing to the role, which is schoolboy glee. Brosnan is the only actor you feel is genuinely excited to be Bond (at least some of the time) and there are moments where this is joyously obvious (the back seat driving in Hamburg for definite). Of course it also makes him perhaps the most immature Bond at times so it's as annoying as it is great.

Captaindemotion said:
I still say the first half of DAD is great, particularly how it handles Bond - the capture and torture, his having dispensed with the cyanide tablet, how he escapes in Hong Kong etc.
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Absolutely. Most of the Cuba stuff is great (just forget about CGI Jinx...) and the sword fight with Graves is wonderful.

MakeshiftPython said:
Sure, but that was the 1960s. Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman used to cast women based on wet t-shirt contests despite not having any acting experience. We’ve come a LONG way from that.

Daniel Craig probably wouldn’t have gotten the part in 1962 just from his height alone. One time Burt Reynolds was considered for Bond, but Cubby dismissed him for his height (5’11”) referring to him as a “shrimp”.

But he doesn’t run this franchise anymore. His step son and daughter do now. They picked Craig because he blew the competition with his charisma and devil may care attitud. In spite of not looking like a classically traditional leading man, he was able to command the screen and his success in winning audiences in the part showed that.
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I can still see why Reynolds was on the radar, he had the raw machismo of Connery but with the added benefit of the lightness of tone of Roger. I've no idea if he could have done a British accent and it might have been the death knell for the character but I can see him in the role (especially if you take Deliverance Reynolds rather than Smokey and the Bandit Reynolds.)

I was wary when they cast Craig, that wariness lasted until the pre-title sequence of Casino Royale. I think he's been a superb Bond (probably my second favourite after Dalton) but having said that I hope Eon go for a lighter more fun tone going forward. Not only does the next Bond need to differentiate himself from Craig, but in the post pandemic world I think we'll all want something a little cheerier ;)
 
In the early 70s they were seriously considering making Bond an American, which was why Reynolds was in their radar. So was Adam West. They did in fact officially sign in John Gavin for DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER, but the head of United Artists decided to intervene and get Connery back for what was then the biggest paycheck for an actor.

I think they did look into Reynolds again for LIVE AND LET DIE, but wisely chose Moore for the part, who really dialed up that urbane Britishness for Bond in a way Connery didn’t have.
 
MakeshiftPython said:
In the early 70s they were seriously considering making Bond an American, which was why Reynolds was in their radar. So was Adam West. They did in fact officially sign in John Gavin for DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER, but the head of United Artists decided to intervene and get Connery back for what was then the biggest paycheck for an actor.

I think they did look into Reynolds again for LIVE AND LET DIE, but wisely chose Moore for the part, who really dialed up that urbane Britishness for Bond in a way Connery didn’t have.
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I’ve heard that Newman, Redford and McQueen were all considered too, though I don’t know how far any of that went beyond someone at a meeting saying “what about…?”

Then of course you’ve James Brolin auditioning in the 1980s:
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And that could have actually happened! If Connery hadn’t done NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN, Brolin would have likely been our Bond for the 80s. Interesting that even after OCTOPUSSY, Brolin wasn’t ever approached again.

I do think we’ll get an American actor for the part one day, albeit maybe with a fake accent. For the longest time it was sort of an unwritten rule that EON would only hire British directors. That’s why Spielberg never got the gig when he sought it. And now NO TIME TO DIE has broken that with Cary Fukunaga. So anything is possible.

I do think Jon Hamm would have been a great Bond.
 
MakeshiftPython said:
And that could have actually happened! If Connery hadn’t done NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN, Brolin would have likely been our Bond for the 80s. Interesting that even after OCTOPUSSY, Brolin wasn’t ever approached again.

I do think we’ll get an American actor for the part one day, albeit maybe with a fake accent. For the longest time it was sort of an unwritten rule that EON would only hire British directors. That’s why Spielberg never got the gig when he sought it. And now NO TIME TO DIE has broken that with Cary Fukunaga. So anything is possible.

I do think Jon Hamm would have been a great Bond.
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Martin Campbell and Lee Tamahori are both New Zealanders; Roger Spottiswoode is Canadian (but I think he has British citizenship too). Marc Foster is German-Swiss. So it was broken some time ago.

Agreed on Hamm but I do think it’s important that whoever plays Bond can sound convincingly British (which ranges from Connery’s Scottish burr, to Moore’s RP & Dalton sounding at times like he’d walked off the set of Emmerdale)
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Starkers said:
I'd mostly agree with this, but I do think he does bring one thing to the role, which is schoolboy glee. Brosnan is the only actor you feel is genuinely excited to be Bond (at least some of the time) and there are moments where this is joyously obvious (the back seat driving in Hamburg for definite). Of course it also makes him perhaps the most immature Bond at times so it's as annoying as it is great.
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I would agree. People always focus on Bond's gloomier moments from the books, especially that one section at the start of Goldfinger, but those are pretty few and far between. I've always thought an ability to enjoy himself is a far more important part of the character, and it's really the element of his personality that translated most clearly to the movies. Brosnan nailed that slightly reckless sense of fun and lust for life, but he was still able to appear cold and tough.

Wouldn't say he doesn't bring anything of his own, just that he's a more well-rounded Bond. There's no single 'Bond characteristic' that he focused on, but his ability to juggle them all at once is something on its own. And in terms of looks I don't really think any movie Bond fits perfectly, but Brosnan is probably closest to how I see him.
 
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HugeLobes said:
I would agree. People always focus on Bond's gloomier moments from the books, especially that one section at the start of Goldfinger, but those are pretty few and far between. I've always thought an ability to enjoy himself is a far more important part of the character, and it's really the element of his personality that translated most clearly to the movies. Brosnan nailed that slightly reckless sense of fun and lust for life, but he was still able to appear cold and tough.

Wouldn't say he doesn't bring anything of his own, just that he's a more well-rounded Bond. There's no single 'Bond characteristic' that he focused on, but his ability to juggle them all at once is something on its own. And in terms of looks I don't really think any movie Bond fits perfectly, but Brosnan is probably closest to how I see him.
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I don’t think Brosnan is particularly good at balancing those aspects when he’s told to swing from one pendulum to the next. His most obvious was in TOMORROW NEVER DIES where one moment he’s mourning the death of Paris, and then less than three minutes later he’s grinning like a school boy. Out of context and with greater distance, he’s very good at those moments, but having them back to back makes his Bond almost schizophrenic. This why I think he’s at his worst in THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH because he’s trying to juggle between Roger Moore type humor and Dalton-esque brooding. I blame the filmmakers as much though, so it’s not all on Brosnan.

STEPhon IT said:
I think Jon Hamm would be a great PARKER, wonderfully written by Donald Westlake aka Richard Stark.

What are your thought on a James Bond with a different ethnicity?
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I’m open to a Bond with a different ethnicity. However, the thing about Bond is that Fleming wrote him as a man out of time. Bond is supposed to represent pre-WWII colonial British Empire. The last defender standing for an empire that has fell. The films have tried to play up that man out of time aspect, such as in GOLDENEYE where he’s referred to as “a relic of the Cold War”. They do that even with Craig, like how Silva mocks his Bond for defending “the Empire”, and 00s like are mocked by politicians as being something “antiquated”. This is part of what makes Bond seem like an old fashioned loner at times.

One of the things that sounds great in NO TIME TO DIE is that Bond retires to Jamaica. It’s not only a nice nod to Fleming, but it makes Bond look like a ghost of the British Empire, drinking himself on an island that is no longer part of England.

So if you cast a non-white Bond actor, you lose that subtext of him representing an empire long gone. However, the cinematic Bond hasn’t always had that aspect played up, so it’s really not that essential. If Idris Elba was Bond ten years ago he’d have totally worked in that Connery mold where he’s the cool and unflappably agent that every man wants to be and what every woman wants between her sheets.
 
Starkers said:
I was wary when they cast Craig, that wariness lasted until the pre-title sequence of Casino Royale.
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To me, that scene represents Craig’s best moments as Bond. His air of laconic menace is excellent, and in particular, his delivery of, “Yes ... considerably” is pitch-perfect.

It was all downhill from there. ;)
 
HugeLobes said:
That's exactly when he's good at balancing those aspects!
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MakeshiftPython said:
I don’t think Brosnan is particularly good at balancing those aspects when he’s told to swing from one pendulum to the next. His most obvious was in TOMORROW NEVER DIES where one moment he’s mourning the death of Paris, and then less than three minutes later he’s grinning like a school boy. Out of context and with greater distance, he’s very good at those moments, but having them back to back makes his Bond almost schizophrenic. This why I think he’s at his worst in THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH because he’s trying to juggle between Roger Moore type humor and Dalton-esque brooding. I blame the filmmakers as much though, so it’s not all on Brosnan.



I’m open to a Bond with a different ethnicity. However, the thing about Bond is that Fleming wrote him as a man out of time. Bond is supposed to represent pre-WWII colonial British Empire. The last defender standing for an empire that has fell. The films have tried to play up that man out of time aspect, such as in GOLDENEYE where he’s referred to as “a relic of the Cold War”. They do that even with Craig, like how Silva mocks his Bond for defending “the Empire”, and 00s like are mocked by politicians as being something “antiquated”. This is part of what makes Bond seem like an old fashioned loner at times.

One of the things that sounds great in NO TIME TO DIE is that Bond retires to Jamaica. It’s not only a nice nod to Fleming, but it makes Bond look like a ghost of the British Empire, drinking himself on an island that is no longer part of England.

So if you cast a non-white Bond actor, you lose that subtext of him representing an empire long gone. However, the cinematic Bond hasn’t always had that aspect played up, so it’s really not that essential. If Idris Elba was Bond ten years ago he’d have totally worked in that Connery mold where he’s the cool and unflappably agent that every man wants to be and what every woman wants between her sheets.
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Did black people worked for the British Government during the era of Arthur Neville Chamberlain? Hard to imagine, but in actuality those novel background of the Pre-WWII era is irrelevant in the 21st century and when the writers bring those man out of time references like in GoldenEye and SkyFall it shows how ridiculous the person saying such lines are. It means nothing today because the world and OO7 has evolved through the eras.

I agree with you about The World is not Enough, I thought was Brosnan's weakest movie, not only what you mentioned but also the villain was one note and boring and the Stockholm syndrome love interest was very predictable. Also Denise Richards being taken seriously as a nuclear scientist was cringe worthy bad, it should've been played for laughs but since it was played straight it was.... God awful.
 
Of course, the man out of time aspect is really not something most audiences pick up on as it’s really only subtextual for the films. It’s not something that would be missed beyond a few avid readers, which ain’t much.
 
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