I am open to different ways of telling the story (the OHMSS book starts with a flash forward) but yes, I agree. The uncertainty before any official announcements especially makes one feel anything could be on the table. Whatever happens is out of our control and I’ll judge the results. Casting the right people is half the battle.
I think they will. However, one area in which I suspect they may make changes is the title sequence. Bond is currently something of an outlier among the big franchise films in that it still has a full title sequence at the start, harkening back to an earlier era of cinema. No Time To Die, for example, clocks in at around three and a half minutes. I don’t think Amazon will phase it out altogether, it’s too iconic a part of Bond for that. But I wonder if we’ll get an abridged version of the theme, along with maybe a minute of titles at the start with the full song and credits saved for the end.
Even EON wasn’t afraid of abridged versions of the title song. I imagine they’ll keep a lot of it, given many of the things that people associate with Bond are EON creations, not Fleming.
Let’s call it AON instead of EON then!
Yes! And the crosspromotion with the latest singer sensation is too good to pass up.
I’d gladly see them drop ‘shaken not stirred’ and possibly even ‘Bond, James Bond’, as, to me, both lines now feel so impossibly weighted as to be almost cringeworthy in their self-conscious delivery.
I’d quite like the gunbarrel to stay, despite the Craig era showing it wasn’t indispensable. But the title sequence? They drop that when they pry it from my cold, dead hands!
Whilst I get your point, and whilst Moore got to do both first time out, doing either now would be used as a noose to hang Bond 7 with.
Your moniker leaves no doubt about that
Modern day Bond movie posters should use Robert E. McGinnis as a influence. Not this Bond solo or one other person crap. A mix of characters helps make a good Bond poster standout.
On April 22, Amazon MGM socials posted this:
"In the 1930s, the first Metro Goldwyn Mayer sign was raised on the company’s Culver lot as a beacon to the community and an iconic symbol that the studio was open for business. The MGM sign overlooked the famed studio’s sound stages for nearly sixty years.
To celebrate over 100 years of MGM studio’s cinematic history, Amazon MGM restored the original, iconic Metro Goldwyn Mayer sign and resurrected it at Amazon MGM Studios’ Culver City headquarters."
A gesture like that gives me hope traditional Bond components such as the posters can make a comeback. It may not be all modern revolution as one suspects.
That would really be a welcome return of an all but forgotten culture. The art of the poster - as that of the artful book cover - has suffered a major setback since the medium apparently isn’t relevant in modern promo campaigns any longer. Investing in a decent human graphic designer with a unique and uncompromising visual style would set Bond apart from the mass of cheaply churned out AI imagery. And give fans some stuff really worth collecting again.
Problem is: gestures are just what in business speak „positioning“ wants to achieve.
This is now Amazon wants to be perceived as because they know that their lack of studio history must be balanced to get into a position where they are „respected“ enough.
The decline of the great movie poster, however, cannot be reversed, unfortunately.
It used to be the big and decisive marketing tool for cinemas (because nowhere else you could watch movies). Newspapers printed smaller versions in their sections advertising the theatres and the dates and times. Then the VHS cover was already modified to accomodate the smaller package. Then DVDs already often got different covers. The photoshop revolution made it easier to quickly assemble a poster than to wait for the artist to paint one. Then the thumbprint of the streaming platforms did not need any poster, just an actor‘s face.
The studios are not going back. Only if there were no streaming anymore and cinemas and newspapers would be the sole place for marketing.
I would also note that Amazon MGM has little in common with classic MGM, aside from the name. The fabulous MGM from the days of Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg, the biggest and most successful studio in not just Hollywood but the world, was dead by the time Kirk Kerkorian finished with it. It was the purchase of United Artists that allowed the withered zombie of MGM to stumble through a few more decades as it was purchased and repurchased, with Amazon as its latest owner. In the “golden age” the Studios owned themselves, and the studio heads, despite their many gross failings, cared about making movies. Today the studios are mere properties of mega-conglomerates, and even the excecutives who care eventually get lost in the corporate shuffle.
While this article mainly addresses fantasy tv/streaming shows - the Marvel/Star Wars/Star Trek film branches don’t play a major role for the argument - it also illustrates the pitfalls apparently ‘healthy’ billion dollar franchises face in the current market. Overexposure, creative indigence, a lack of storytelling zest and potential and a general audience that has grown indifferent of its once-favourites.
Problems the Bond franchise has encountered before…
I guess Bond has one big advantage: it’s is not spread thin with countless spin-offs and a continuity which requires taking a test first.
Yet.
Yet indeed.
Speaking of superfranchises:
And yes–I already have a ticket for next Tuesday. My favorite Star Wars film after THE LAST JEDI, I am curious to see what I think after all these years.
“What Movie Have You Seen Today” might be busy next week: I have SINNERS on Sunday, ROTS on Tuesday, and 8 1/2 (4K restoration) on Thursday (plus “Coriolanus” on Saturday, but that is a stage production). I know the community is thrilled. LOL.
I am. And I expect lengthy reviews!
Enjoy!
Typical tabloids. But still a fun read.
My viewpoints. I still think that the next two Bond films could be filmed back to back. They could learn from EON’s mistake made from CR to QOS, or SP to NTTD. Every Bond actor’s second film came no more than two years after their first. Matthew Field is just guessing, and that’s fine. Also, I imagine that IFP might try to fix a relationship with Amazon, (originally a book publisher) to help them get better advertising campaigns for future Bond books. EON didn’t help them out as much as they arguably could have.
You should read some of the comments on this Bond site. Wow.