And imagine he makes a Bond film now and it does not fulfill financial expectations…
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It’s also worth remembering that Roger Moore was 45 when LALD was released. There is a very good chance Cavill will be younger and just a little older than Dalton when he started.
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Nolan will probably also only be interested if he can do Bond entirely his way: either telling a conventional Bond story in an unconventional way - or having Bond in an unconventional story from scratch. Both could be hugely entertaining - but would call for AmazonMGM giving him entirely free rein and trusting Nolan’s judgement.
Unlikely when they only just spent a billion on having it their way.
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Or it could be a recovery film from the reception of THE ODYSSEY. I am just not sure how much pent up demand there is for Matt Damon as Odysseus.
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Would’ve said that about Interstellar or Oppenheimer. Guess we’ll find out how far a Nolan/Damon collaboration can go.
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Those films fall within continuing Hollywood genres: sci-fi and important personage biopic.
THE ODYSSEY is a little more fringe. It will be interesting.
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Classic fantasy. 
I’d expect, depending on how Nolan tackles the tale, of course, it’s going to be potential success.
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It would make a lot of sense Amazon choosing Henry Cavill for the role. An unknown or under the radar actor would not look like their strategy. Cavill seems the obvious choice.
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Possibility.
Agreed. It will be interesting to see how the film fares in the political/social environment it will be released into.
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I don’t have an opinion about whether or not it ends up being Cavill - but it doesn’t make sense to me that Amazon are going to rush into the casting, however much they might like too. I suspect things will follow the standard pattern - script, director and then casting. WIth where things stand - change of ownership, a creative sense that with NTTD the “old ways” go back on the shelf, it’s a natural moment to “start over”, whatever that means.
Plus, there has to be some finite decisions on what else the “universe” contains. If you’re spinning off shows, what are you contracting the guy in the tux to do? Say for example, there is a desire to feature the character in streaming-only products, does that change who you get. Who you can afford - who wants to do it?
For example, the idea of remaking the novels in period is always intriguing on these here boards - but in practicality does that mean a second actor to play Bond concurrently with the cinema iteration? Is that even something the audience would accept? Does an actor want to sign up for (either) of the split roles. Bond used to be “the” guy - is the allure lessened?
Or if we’re spinning off content, what does that mean for the rest of potential casting? If we’ve got a Moneypenny doing double-duty, well does an actor want to sign up for that?
Being in this stuff seems like a dream to us that we would do for nothing - but in the trade a lot of this is just one more gig, and all these questions need to be answered.
As for anyone for the lead role right now, well, as I’ve said (and not dismissing Cavill here), if it was all so obvious, well, EON would have pulled the trigger a while back.
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That‘s why I wonder why Nolan chose this. Just a fantasy epic - or has he smuggled in an interesting contemporary subtext?
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I suspect the opposite. EON handled things this way. Amazon likes to package a project: actor, director - then hash out a story.
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To take a guess: the desire has lived for a good amount of time on his back pocket, and the success of OPPENHEIMER is allowing it to be fulfilled. We are in APOCALYPSE NOW/CATCH-22/A PERFECT WORLD territory (to name just three examples).
From my experience of his films, I would bet that Nolan feels there is a contemporary significance to the work. The question will be what he thinks it is. Odysseus will be the latest in a line of Nolan’s protagonists who are on a quest in a hostile world. It will be interesting to see how Nolan’s conservatism plays out next year.
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I love that film. Would enjoy your take on it.
Interesting - I haven’t thought about Nolan being that conservative, rather his own kind. Or do you mean his love for cinema and film in contrast to digital?
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To riff on Frankie Boyle: Nolan is a director who will make a movie about the man who led the project to develop the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that focuses its attention on how sad doing that made him feel.
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I am not familiar with everything Prime has done but here are two recent ones where they don’t seem to be in line with the pattern you say Amazon follows.
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The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay are hired as writers/showrunners in July 2018. July 2019 J.A. Bayona was announced to direct first two episodes and serve as an executive producer. The cast was announced in September 2020.
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Reacher: 2019 - series announced with Nick Santora set to as writer/show-runner. Richardson is cast in September 2020 (before the directors were hired).
The pattern for Lord of the Rings seems to follow the classic one. While Reacher did hire the lead before the directors, the show runner is clearly in place. There may be instances where what you say is the case. But these ones are following a different pattern.
Perhaps we ought to judge Amazon’s actions once they have taken them as predicting what they will do may be more difficult.
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With Reacher I would argue hitting the spot with casting the lead was probably essential. The two films weren’t really bad - but most fans hated Cruise in the role. Even if one follows the argument - as I do - that Reacher is in effect so ludicrously invincible it doesn’t matter if the steroid bull is played by a wiry, skinny guy, the core of fans that was the target audience wanted to see a guy like a half of beef.
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With tv or film series, isn’t it more likely the actor is there longer than the director, so there’s a kind of logic that the producer casts the lead that they’re going to be stuck with?
In practice, directors choice. It’s those 2 who are stuck with each other on a daily basis for months.
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In the case of Bond, the studio /producers are hoping to be stuck with an actor for a long time. Over the past 30 years I believe we only have had one director work with the same actor more than once.
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I liked the two Cruise films though I was unaware of the character prior to them. I really love the series with Richardson. Looking forward to watching season 3.
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