In the current climate Annapurna is surely happier to take risks than many contenders. Necessarily a risk means there are cases, frequent cases, when the risk doesn’t pay off. We’ll see if and how the company’s policy changes in the next few years.
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Perhaps suggests their interest in Bond. A smaller (it’s relative) blockbuster to prop up these smaller, less profitable, projects
I really cannot imagine Annapurna - or most other studios - would not be interested in Bond. But Annapurna’s catalogue, the kind of projects they tend to invest and eventually launch, suggests they will always be a hit-and-miss operation. With the hits having to feed the entire family. That’s not so different from other industry ventures; the trick is not to let the family live as if they all were huge hits - or getting more of just these earners. Like Bond.
For the industry companies like Annapurna are absolutely necessary if cinema as we know it shall survive. They need, urgently need, studios doing something else outside superhero blockbuster fare. They need the talent and the creativity and the passion, filmmakers who really live for their projects and want to present something else, stories told in their own time and rhythm, actors doing their thing in ‘real life’, not in a blue box.
Once companies like Annapurna disappear from the roster there’s not a lot left that would justify keeping the dinosaur ‘cinema’ alive.
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Well, good news for them, Skyfall has only just been dethroned as Sony’s highest earner, and that was a Marvel behemoth;
As financial props go, they’ve picked a good one.
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All other things being equal , if you look at the trajectory of blockbuster movies and the various markets etc. They have to be hoping that if it’s well received , Bond 25 will hit between 1.3 and 1.5 B , which is indeed, a financial prop and prestigious marketing offshoot.
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Reading about another film being delayed, including planned reshoots, it occurred to me that I don’t remember EVER reading about a Bond film requiring reshoots/additional footage. Is this correct?
Perhaps not, but wishing QoS had been the exception. Re-do the handful of mishandled and half cocked sequences and beats and it could’ve been a real gem in the collection.
It needed to be delayed until after the writers strike had ended. Releasing in 2009 would have done t wonders.
I really don’t think so. More time is just more time to overthink. Even if Foster afterwards said that editing had not enough time it was all PR bull. They wanted to edit it this way. And every editor would tell you they can edit any sequence in a short amount of time - unless people step in and rethink everything again and again.
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On behalf of editors, thanks for the faith. But I have to say that some rushes take far longer than others. The more accurate title for an Editor is all too often Damage Controller. And of course the worse the rushes the more proliferous the notes that follow.
I’m guessing that QoS’ writing-as-they-shoot scenario due to the strike meant there were plenty of half baked rushes that needed a little damage control.
Too much time to write a movie is probably a bad thing, but not enough time is no better and by all accounts the strike cut their time short.
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Agreed, but I don’t think that the professionals involved in QOS delivered rushes that had to be saved.
EON knew what Foster and his team were after, and the dreaded “Bourne”-comparison was not something that happened because they were rushed. It was intended. And for my personal taste, it still holds up as an interesting visual experiment that indeed differs from “Bourne” in having an own rhythm and not the hectic, jerky, only impressionistic quality that seems to be Greengrass´ only option.
Scriptwise, QOS did not suffer from the writers´ strike, IMO. It suffered from the pressure EON put themselves under after they had managed to get an Oscar writer polish CR. Now they thought Haggis was the important ingredient for a respectable Bond film - and then Haggis delivered a weird draft with Bond and Vesper having a child. And then Forster demanded another complete rewrite. That makes three different perspectives on one script, shortly before the strike happened. IMO that was a clear producers´ mistake. They should have decided on a story. And when Haggis proposed his take they should have said no. The same goes for Forster.
More control of a director will lead to smoother productions.
I know there is this mentality trying to push the myth of “a difficult set will produce a better film”. But that is just not true, only trying to put lipstick on a pig. From my experience the less trouble a film had the better it came out.
That QOS turned out to be still a good film is just proof for EON´s professionalism which even allows for a problematic production. But I guess they would love to have less hassles. Maybe that’s why they decided to part ways with Boyle.
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When I re-watched it recently I found the dialogue that jarred most was Judi Dench’s. It seemed a bit false for her character, like pronouncement rather than conversation.
The scenes that really work are amongst the best in the franchise, ( Opera scene is one that springs to mind ) which I’m not sure would have been improved by extra time.
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I think much of the Bourne inspired stuff works, it’s just the major set pieces that came unstuck.
Indeed! But it’s different for different filmmakers. Some thrive in tranquility, such as Eastwood, while others on tension, such as Peckinpah and Friedkin (firing a shotgun behind Ellen Burstyn to get the shock-response he wanted). And without the absolute madness of the Apocalypse Now shoot (see the fabulous Heart of Darkness doc) would we have gotten one of the greatest movies ever made?
Different strokes for different folks. But maybe it’s the the best filmmakers who know how to prepare for and cultivate the environment they need for individual scenes, rather than a one size - one approach fits all. Kubrick was a stickler for detail and process, yet he threw that to the wind to let Sellers improvise at will on the Strangelove shoot.
Sorry to go off topic slightly, but director MO is a fascinating arena.
Back on topic…
Personally, for all the reasons stated above, I like the director to own the story, rather than the producers hand them one. For me it makes a better movie, but it’s a more complex way of working in that pre£production will take longer to reach something everyone’s happy with. Given that time and a little luck the results are worth the wait (imho).
But perhaps some of the lessor scenes could’ve met that one’s high bar.
Perhaps , but the lesser scenes problems, were imo , down to script, not execution. So a dialogue “polish” ( is that what it’s called ) prior to filming, which couldn’t happen because of the writers strike, had they waited, perhaps the visceral energy of the film would have been lost.
For me the visceral energy is hampered by a vague, hopscotch plot, which the dialogue and action need to exposit. Too often bemusement at these lapses pulls one out of the action and mis en scene making the visceral merely stuff moving.
As for the major set pieces ‘visceral’ is the best compromise an editor has when the geography isn’t covered sufficiently.
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See; From Russia With Love
The weirdest being her strange heel-turn in a matter of about 15 seconds when Bond subdues an entire elevator of guards and insists on continuing his mission. If she was just going to defy her orders and trust him anyway, then why all the theatrics? That was something that could have changed.
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I thought it was Vesper’s child that Bond finds out about. Or do I have my facts crossed?