Great that we’ve got some news and there’s a lot to unpack here. The big news of course being Malek. The combination of his series coming to an end and being hot off an Oscar win this is the perfect time for him do a big franchise film and I’m glad it’s going to be Bond.
I also find the bit about the two female agents interesting. A while back I actually suggested Bond work alongside younger agent, specifically a double-oh, who wouldn’t be a love interest so I’d like to see how that plays out. And I know it says ‘younger’ but since Craig is in his 50’s I hope they don’t go too young and give us a character with some experience under her belt and not a complete rookie.
As for Madeleine’s future; I’m actually hoping they don’t kill the character now. There’s going to be a lot of focus put on the treatment of female characters and last year Deadpool 2 got a lot of criticism for it’s use of the ‘women in fridges’ trope.
The new CIA agent is a little disappointing though as I’d been hoping for a return from Felix. Maybe Wright could still be involved and Felix now occupies a more senior position with the CIA?
It mentions the role being re-written to be younger, which suggests to me than in earlier drafts it was Felix, but when Wright proved unavailable (Westworld s3 is filming around the same time as most of B25’s shoot, and given Wright’s role in that isn’t exactly small, scheduling around that could’ve proven impossible) they made it a new character rather than recast Felix
We don’t know he isn’t, we just know there’s a younger CIA agent “similar to Wright’s”. Said CIA agent could go the way most other agent’s in Bond movies, particularly Rogers, and die an undignified death to make a point.
We did have Gregory Beam in QoS as CIA agent and still had Felix. IIRC, Felix got promoted to Beam’s post at the end of the movie, so the younger agent might be Felix’ successor ‘in the field’ and Felix getting only a brief appearance.
Happy to read that Malek is indeed in; i imagine his fee might’ve jumped up a notch over the weekend, though. Guessing the rewrite was a combo of tweaking CFJ’s draft and accommodating Malek’s schedule. And if they knew they’d nab him it’s a luxury to be able to rewrite for his abilities.
My reading is that the CIA agent was never Felix. For CJF to want Magnussen suggests to me it’s to some extent an antagonistic character.
I’m ever more curious about the comparison between this script and the Hodge/Boyle script. With Malek’s character being likely the same that Taghmaoui was apparently set for in Boyle’s version they’ve ditched Boyle’s big bad, Tomasz Kot. Excising the big bad and switching those duties to a secondary big bad is, well, a big job. Was Kot’s character not that integral after all, or was it a major rewrite by CJF? Perhaps that role is Magnussen’s, the CIA replacing the FSB for a more complex - less cowboys and Indians picture of global machinations. That’s more keeping with Craig’s arc of a more corrupt and complex world order.
I agree! You have to laugh when you here BS like that! Script was GREAT! so we thought we’d pay someone a small fortune to ‘polish’. So if it wasn’t GREAT! they’d have simply run with that without any changes. They don’t polish turds, i guess!
One more interesting thing in the Variety article: the baddie could be blind.
Which is on the one hand disappointing, since Malek has so expressive eyes and would be robbed of one of his best features to act with.
On the other hand, I could imagine him being a torturer who never sees the pain of his victims, only hears them and maybe delights in that. A nod to Fleming´s villains with physically distinctive traits.
I know that physical disfigurement or some sort of disability for the villain is part of the Bond tradition. But recently there was this, so I prepare myself for a (small) backlash if the villain turns out to be blind. Because for certain media outlets the Bond franchise is their favourite shooting target. In the age of click-bait they’ll complain, no matter what.
On the other hand, I think Bond films are kind of invincible. Sure, there will be articles or some groups protesting. But mass audiences will watch Bond no matter what.
Does anyone Really think a disfigured face in the street is a sign of evil? Taking this further, perhaps the BFI should no longer offer funding for a film if the villain kills people. Perhaps even stop offering if there IS a villain.
I wonder if the “blind villain” element is why we’re seeing articles tying the script back to the Benson novels? I know that old chestnut gets rehashed every now and then, and Benson himself has said it’s not going to happen, but it might have given some journalist the idea that there’s a direction connection between the blind Bond 25 villain and Le Gerant.
Agreed. Deformities, creatures and the bizarre have always been Bond tropes. The franchise shouldn’t have to censor its creative licence for the special interest fun police. I’m actually glad that the Craig era hasn’t buckled in the way Bond’s sexual appetites are depicted. The scenes involving Severine in the shower, and widower Lucia, for example, are brave considering the climate we’re in these days.
True, the BFI doesn’t fund Bond movies. But funding is not the reason why I mentioned the article, it’s because I wanted to show there might be a growing concern in the British film industry and/or society about the portrayal of people with facial scars or disabilities. Of course, most people don’t care about the issue, and it won’t influence the success of the movie at all, but that won’t prevent certain media outlets from using it as ammunition. And who knows, maybe things will change in the future. The portrayal of women, Bond smoking, new sex mores during the AIDS crisis, and so on. It’s not as if the franchise hasn’t evolved over the years.
I’d argue if you’re thinking the scar is what makes him a villain, that’s on you. 2 out 3 of the most iconic British heroes (James Bond and Harry Potter) have scars canonically, does that mean they’re villains? Bruce Wayne IN THE VERY FILM THEY CITE has several scars, and yet that’s not mentioned. Scars do not denote character traits, all they show is you’ve lived a life.