With so little info right now just about every titbit has a 50/50 chance of panning out. And often when the truth leaks it’s with a whimper rather than a bang.
I’ve always said it’d be Shatterhad, adapting YOLT with the finale of OHMSS as the pre-titles, so this slip of a local tabloid doesn’t seem incongruous to me.
I suspect (but can’t say I really know) the Deadline: Hollywood story from Sunday (that the MGM-Annapurna joint venture is close to being the US distributor for Bond 25) is correct. But that story said the international distribution was still unresolved.
Still, they’ve had plenty of time since Sony’s deal expired to put this together.
I’d love Mendes to return. Skyfall was superb. SPECTRE uneven but had its moments. I don’t think we can put the entire blame on Mendes. We all know they had significant script issues and lots of time pressure, injuries and so on. I also think our expectations were huge after Skyfall. Stack SPECTRE up against many of the entries in the series and it does well. My only major complaints have all been shared before: the Blofeld step-brother angle, the third half of the film, and just too much homage/derivatives of old films and lack of originality. But moments of genius: Belucci and the opening sequence being prime examples.
So I’d welcome Mendes and Craig to come back, finally crack Shatterhand, and play out some of the ideas we know they toyed with in the various SPECTRE scripts (Irma Bunt…). Would make for a great trilogy, chance for redemption, and nice way to round out the Craig era.
And whatever the “fall-Out” was between Mendes and Craig it could not have been that bad…they did a brilliant Charlie Rose interview together after the premiere and lavished praise on each other.
Bond and Blofeld are not brothers, step brothers, or foster brothers.
Hannes Oberhausen told his son to treat Bond like a brother. Blofeld’s jealousy of a temporary house guest warped into something far more sinister. It’s a one sided relationship that Blofeld has put far more significance into than Bond. For Bond he was just a snotty kid he spent some time with in his youth.
Seems like most people here were not on board with this storyline but I found it an interesting twist to thier relationship. I would like to see it more deeply explored in the next film.
I not adverse to to idea, or even the execution. However if Blofield is going to feature in a series of films they have rather written themselves into a corner as this sibling rivalry get old pretty quickly and then where do they go.
What I did take umbrage to was the hack handed way they try to tie all of Craigs previous films into your story. The obviously retrofitted idea felt as if it had been fleshed out on the back of a postage stamp. A few black-and-white posters of previously seen characters and a few lines of dialogue from Blofield is not a satisfactory way to exposit such a high concept.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Just know that this opinion (possibly the worst in the franchise) is not shared by everyone.
I agree almost entirely with this post. I have no problem with Mendes coming back.
Agreed. 
I agree that they did retcon a few things in Spectre to tie everything together, specifically regarding Silva and his plan, but a connected serialized story was already established in Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace. Mr. White and his “organization” certainly hinted at “the bigger picture.” Back in 2006 I was hoping White’s organization would be Spectre and even when Quantum turns up in the next film there was still some speculation that it could be a branch of Spectre instead of an independent criminal organization.
While Skyfall did not pick up on any of the story threads from Craig’s first two films the same could be said of Goldfinger. The Spectre storyline from Dr. No and From Russia With Love was put on the back burner for one film before coming back to the main stage with Thunderball.
The connections to the previous films was Spectre reconnecting the story threads that were already there while added a few new ones. One issue may be that so much time had passed between Quantum of Solace and Spectre that a lot people had moved on and didn’t want to go back.
The bigger problem however is trying to do an ongoing storyline spread across multiple films when your home studio is on the verge of collapse every three to four years. As much as I have enjoyed the overall story arch for the Craig’s era EON should return to stand alone adventures for Bond #7.
I don´t mind the connection between Blofeld and the previous villains in the Craig-era.
I just don´t think it was presented with the best possible impact and credibility.
Wouldn´t it have been much more efficient if Bond himself had followed clues that had led him to Oberhauser again and again, instead of Oberhauser telling him at the end of the second act? The picture-print outs in the Mi6 building were such a ridiculously cheap reminder that it just did not work for me.
There are hints that originally that was the plan - in particular M’s “in the event of death” video, but then you reach the films second half and we get an info dump - I’d be curious to know which of SPECTRE’s bts problems had them jump from investigation to flat out state (though I’d argue you could infer the connection from context through Mr White, long before they feel they had to state it.)
This.
At the time of writing, I don’t believe the plots of CR and QoS where intended to have been conceived by Blofeld in order to torture Bond. Am i write in assuming that Eon didn’t even know at that time when or even if they’d get the writes to the Blofeld character, hence the creation of Quantum.
With the writes secured this whole thing has been ret-conned.
And like SAF says above, it’s ok to do this, so long as you do it properly, rather than hoping that posters of Vesper, Le Chiffre, Silva and M, plus a few arch cliches from Blofeld all in the final reel will suffice to complete the picture of an elaborate multi-film conspiracy. It was well and truly botched.
Felt to me like a quick last minute add-on after less than enthusiastic notes on the original ending from the studio (just guess work, but that’s how it felt).
The interesting question here is: how will BOND 25 deal with this?
I would not mind at all if it rectified Blofeld´s claim, having Bond uncover that Blofeld is just an instable psychopath who wanted to believe that he masterminded everything that caused Bond pain in the past, when in truth someone else was calling the shots, without caring about any agent´s feelings.
I really would love Belucci to turn out as the real villain and head of Spectre, someone who used Blofeld as a front, knowing he would want to believe that he is the biggest villain ever when he was just a puppet for her.
That could repair the whole “I am the author of your pain”-business and explain the printouts as the feeble attempts of a sick, narcissistic mind.
That would work, but at the same time i think it would be leading them further down this dead end rabbit hole.
I think that after years of fighting to use Blofeld and SPECTRE and giving their iconic place in the public consciousness (most people have heard of one or the other) i doubt Eon will be ready to write Blofeld off as a flash in the pan loon.
I hope that Eon now expect the audience to take it as read that they’re step brothers and ease off of it. Carry on using Blofeld, but only reference the history if absolutely necessary, but preferably not. Leave that behind and move on to Blofeld-schemes that have nothing to do with Bond until Bond makes himself a nuisance.
Once they’ve recast Bond and obviously Blofeld won’t be Waltz the audience will be happy to forget the ‘brother stuff’ and enjoy the adventure.
But, yeah, the next one will be the tricky balancing act between preserving enough continuity and leaving the surplus baggage behind.
Blofeld’s and Spectre’s schemes in Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace were never intentionally directed at Bond, nor were they intended to be. Neither storywise nor by the filmmakers. Casino Royale was Le Chieffe’s mess and Spectre had to clean up. The fact that Bond became involved and was emotionally hurt was a nice byproduct for Blofeld. Had Bond not perused it further it could have ended there.
Bond bringing down Quantum and Green is what really got Bond on Blofeld’s radar in a big way. That’s why Blofeld gave Silva the go ahead to attack MI6 and kill M. Silva gets revenge and Blofeld disgraces MI6 which will lead to the end of the Double - O program and the creation of 9 Eyes.
“A nice pattern emerged. You destroyed my world and I destroyed yours.”
Blofeld’s schemes didn’t start at a direct assault on Bond but as 007 worked his way up Spectre’s ladder a direct confrontation was inevitable.
This organization that has plagued Bond’s career as 007 has a leader and a name and they’re one in the same. Blofeld IS Spectre.
“We have people everywhere.” - Mr. White, QoS
“He’s everywhere!” - Mr. White, Spectre
“Me, James. It was me. The author of all your pain.” - Blofeld, Spectre
That’s exactly how I see it! Sure it would have been nice for th producers to have had the rights to SPECTRE all along and planned out an early Conneryesque sequence, but they didn’t, so I think they did a pretty good job. If only they stopped there instead of making them step brothers… now that’s too much of a coincidence!
A bit of an update:
So… no news to be expected until next year.
At least they can´t say that they did not have enough time to work on the script…
Although - that´s rubbish. I know from painful experiences how a director came on board, threw out all the old ideas, had tons of own ideas, always changed his mind until the start of production was looming - and then the star balked, the director was fired, and so was I…
“you know what’d be cool” - Lee Tamahori during location scouting and viewing a finished set.
“I think we need to take another look at this plot, the shareholders are uneasy” every studio ever two weeks into filming.
“Layer Cake didn’t have any studio interference, but then our budget was less than Spider-Man 2’s catering budget” Matthew Vaughn when asked about the one film he didn’t get studio notes on from first meeting to films release.
Melbourne model Ajak Deng auditioned for Bond girl role
The statuesque beauty, who made a whistlestop visit back to Australia from her New York base last week, revealed she tested for a role in the yet to be released new James Bond film.
“I tested for one of the Bond girls for the new James Bond movie, but … they told me I was too pretty for the role. It was so good just to have that experience.