News on NO TIME TO DIE (no spoilers)

We’re getting off-topic…

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To be fair, Joel Silver-produced action movies did hurt LTK at the US box office… :slight_smile:

But now…https://variety.com/2019/film/news/sherlock-holmes-3-release-moved-1203154935/

Just finished reading the latest issue of Empire magazine. There is a big feature on Danny Boyle and his films, and a section where he answers readers’ questions.

He is asked: “Which of your projects that have fallen by the wayside do you regret not doing?”

Response: “The Bowie film we talked about, and the Bond, actually, because our version of it was good. Those are the two which kind of haunt you. They could have been really good”

Ahhh I was so excited when he was initially announced as director. He refuses to say what his and Hodge’s idea was, out of respect to Cary.

I’m just counting down the days til the presser. Whenever that may be!

Discussion on this started a while ago, before the thread derailed into a Die Hard appraisal…

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And GoldenEye did rip-off Die Hard 2’s ejector seat stunt!

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Which TND used once again in its PTS. But it gets a pass because it cleverly inverted the stunt by turning it into a weapon.

I find it interesting that more light is being shed on the Boyle situation right as production is set to begin. From what tidbits I’ve caught up on, I’m sensing a faint odor of sour grapes.

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As in, Boyle being upset he’s not the one directing? Or EON still bitter about Boyle’s exit?

Eon had a story idea from P&W before Boyle came aboard and pitched his, so I imagine he (and everyone else) is curious if the current approach borrows from his, or reverts back to the original - or is a combination of both. If I had a really good idea and ended up having someone else use it and get the credit - I’d have sour grapes.

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It’s a Bond movie! It’ll be a combination of everything with a last minute kitchen sink tossed in for ‘good’ measure.

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That’s not how it works. Boyle and Hodge will have signed a contract, selling their work to EON in order to enable the producers to use it. But still they will have to credit Boyle & Hodge. This is different from script doctors who often stay uncredited by contract.

In the end, it will be interesting to see how the writing credit for BOND 25 will end up.

I suspect this: Written by Neil Purvis & Robert Wade and Scott Z. Burns. If they use the Boyle idea it will most probably be credited as Based on an idea by Danny Boyle & John Hodge.

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From the tidbits we heard of the Boyle/Hodge story, it seems vastly different to what is being filmed. Boyle said his story was going to be a modern day Cold War story with a supposedly polish villain. Fukunaga’s film seems to be a direct sequel to Spectre with no elements of a modern Cold War story. I’d say the Boyle/Hodge idea went out the door with Boyle and Hodge. It seems more likely that this is the original idea turned in by P&W that Burns and Fukunaga have then reworked.

Depends what was meant by ‘cold war’. Probably an east/west dynamic. But couldn’t that take place almost anywhere and couldn’t Malek’s character be a player for the ‘cold foe’?

Even with the east/west dynamic ditched Eon could still salvage scenarios, action set pieces and maybe even characters and story beats.

Not saying it’s so, just that it’s entirely possible.

The new breed of “Cold War” is ripe with options. M’s statement in SF summed it up perfectly while also making a case of, in the present day, the need more than ever for HUMINT beyond tech overwatch.

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Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol had a decidedly Cold War feel to it, probably a result of a major part of the film taking place in the Kremlin.

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M’s thesis was that the enemy is in the shadows; that we don’t know who they are. Whereas i think in a cold war situation you know exactly who they are, but can’t act openly lest you start a hot war. Hence the cloak & dagger.

So i imagine Boyle’s idea involved a known enemy state using actors/cloak & dagger to damage the enemy (us). It also requires us (Bond) to try and act with equal anonymity or risk a hot war.

I know that’s rather simplistic, but it’s more commercial than HUMINT, so that’s how i read Boyle’s ‘cold war’ notion: A return of SMERSH, or something like it. All very topical with the awful Salisbury affair.

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Has Burns ever been confirmed? I think Variety mentioning it was the closest, but he was never announced as a writer was he?

Bond 25 will need its own page for - Writers who may or may not have worked on it but definitely won’t be credited because of WGA rules.

Oh, boy.

I sincerely hope that the wording in that reporting is just not pointing to what I associate with that.

I hope that EON was fully aware that they only get Burns to do a rewrite/polish within a very tight timeframe.

I fear that Burns just does not want to go on working on this and cites other pressing commitments just to get off this assignment.

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