But the big money the Craig films made did so during the last period of big box office returns. Yes, NTTD did very well during the pandemic, but that might have also been caused by the desire to return to normal.
Normal is over now, however. Cinemas will never get back to the kind of attendance they were used to. And for big budget investments this will simply not be enough.
Amazon has tons of money, sure, but they won’t burn it to get a Bond film, especially not with an unproven new actor into cinemas, risking a flop. They would rather go the „we got this exclusively“-route.
Cinema is just in a time of course correction after decades of continuously inflating budgets and box office returns. It just couldn’t keep going up and up and up forever. Bond will be fine whenever they release the next one. It might not make as much as it did the last few times out, but it will still be among the leading properties when it continues. Bond managed to survive in 2006 when it finished in second place to a bunch of animated penguins.
Although it’s not cementing any franchise records (“Bad Boys for Life” remains the biggest opening of the quartet with $62 million), “Bad Boys 4” is providing a little needed encouragement to movie theater owners. Yet despite the film’s solid start, the year-to-date deficit has worsened over the weekend as ticket sales now lag 26% behind 2023, according to Comscore.
Because it had a marketplace to exploit which now, almost twenty years later, does not give the same returns anymore.
And the big and escalating budgets of the Craig era could only be kept due to product placement and tax rebates.
It really seems improbable to accept that the time of growing cinema attendance is over. But it is true. The studios were hoping that this will change for the better again - but secretly the strikes already were used in order to scale back production. Which means: less product for the cinema chains, which means: more theatres closing, which means: „events“ will be the only income for the remaining houses, and if those fail, goodbye.
Art house cinema is suffering just as well because most audiences not living in the big cities and still trying to attend screenings will stay at home and stream.
Im hoping the Bad Boys success should be a lesson. Temper expectations to not be MOST SUCCESSFUL MOVIE EVAR!!! IN TWO MINUTES!!!
It was always going to be a problem once studios, journalism and “audiences” (people on twitter) think money made on opening day is all that counts. Its the boom then bust model.
Why do I kick the one sequence from LICENCE TO KILL that’s going vaguely in the direction of the Gibraltar chase suspense? Where Bond is outnumbered, cut from air and going to drown already - until he miraculously hits the float and is pulled out of peril in a spectacular stunt that’s just inside of the physically possible?
While the ski jump is an entirely improbable affair with Bond going up the jump in a party of tourists as if that was an ordinary slope, not a venue exclusively for athletes. And how is Locque’s entire crew suddenly after Bond without obvious coordination - all but the Lannister guy who foils Kriegler’s shot by jumping with Bond, needlessly. Instead of just shooting him in the back.
Well, all I can say in my defence is, I have a soft spot for FOR YOUR EYES ONLY.
Jim, you’re being really cruel this month. Two excellent stunt sequences. It’s a travesty to have to discard one. Both have signature Bond moments that only Bond could, or would, do–skiing down a bobsled run in For Your Eyes Only and using a harpoon to waterski behind a plane before climbing aboard in Licence To Kill. And both have great music behind them. But my choice for elimination–and it pains me to say it–is (gasp) FYEO.
LTK’s underwater scene is suspenseful. You just don’t know how Bond is going to get out of his predicament. He really is in peril. Four fresh scuba divers with full air tanks and flippers chase after him while he only has a near-empty air tank and no fins. When they catch him, they begin pummeling him, but he manages to hold his own long enough to get a glimpse of the passing amphibious plane. He then takes a harpoon shot and hits his target and sails up to the surface just as the great Bond theme hits a crescendo. It’s all so perfectly done. You can’t help but appreciate the moment. Then he simply waterskis behind the plane and climbs aboard before it takes off and throws the pilots out before flying away, as Franz Sanchez would say, “like a little bird.”
Totally Bondian and one of the highlights of LTK and the series.
I would have eliminated the LTK scenes, but bearing in mind what happened during the shooting of that bobsleigh chase – a stuntman died –, it has to go.
Well…I guess bobsleigh goes because we have kind of seen it before; and I think there is a couple of fleeting EON back screen projection. But it is a fabulous sequence.
That said, considering the simplicity of the LTK sequence - sea, boat, plane, no crowd to play off of, no “props” to lean on (no skiing onto to tables or over houses), there is an incredible amount of tension and thrills the sequence is able to contain (for comparison, the DAD car chase - 2 cars on a large flat, white, surface, is underwhelming).
And as much as Sir Rog brings his charisma to the ski chase, the waterskiing to airplane chase IS TD.
Looks like I’m in the minority on this one. LTK’s barefoot water skiing is awesome and for me the most “Bondian” moment in the film. On the other hand, that also makes it stick out like a sore thumb since up until this point it’s felt more like a Steven Seagal movie. It’s certainly well done and exciting, and it sets up the fun moment when poor old Milton has to explain his failure to Sanchez (“So he just flew away…like a little bird…?”) although it’s not like he was the only witness. But it also feels pretty OTT in a film that’s more earthbound and gritty overall, though at least Glen didn’t feel compelled to score it to the Surfari’s “Wipeout.”
Meanwhile I love everything about the extended snowbound action sequence in FYEO, which for me strikes the perfect balance between tense and funny and has multiple moments where Bond has to adapt to reversals and complications quickly.
Or to just take all the excuses and explanations out of it, the bottom line is that I watch the FYEO sequence a lot more often than the LTK one, and I don’t expect that trend to reverse itself at any point. So the latter goes as I’m less likely to miss it.
Dalton’s Bond smiles all the time. I remember making a post about it on the old forum, that one could perhaps even make the argument that he smiles more than any of the Bond actors.
As for the poll, how are we voting on this? Do we vote for the one that we want eliminated or the one that we actually like? A bit confused about that one.
I’ll take the LTK sequence because, well, it’s from my favorite Bond film and it’s just an awesome action sequence. Of course, the other one is too, and FYEO is a great film, easily Roger’s best.
Thank you, Jim, for this breather. The remote car chase from TND I can easily dismiss although one would have to find a complete new sideplot for Q then. But there are no real stakes in this chase, Bond has too much fun piloting it.
The train chase, despite visible back projection - the CGI of its day -, is thrilling, involving, tense and also gives you remarkably clear skin (well, I went too far again).
This one’s quite easy, the Beemer gets the boot. Not because it’s a bad choice; it fits the banker cover - what cover there is - and was a modern vehicle in its time.
But overall it’s a bland choice, anonymous, uninspiring and as a limousine more what you’d expect the baddies to drive.
Yet what’s really not working for me is the backseat driving. That’s cutting the entire danger from the sequence, Bond sitting in a fun park ride, tumbling a bit over the upholstery but not having to sweat. Instead he’s even enjoying himself - which perhaps shouldn’t be the emotion transported here. It should be serious business even if he’s in control.*
And he should be driving from the front seat.
*Compare to this the Lotus/heli chase. Moore’s Bond flirts with the pilot - but he’s not chuckling to himself.
