And, for your amusement… From the Sun…
LICENCE TO KILL OFF 007
Daniel Craig, who is said to be filming his final 007 movie, and producer Barbara Broccoli are believed to have wanted Bond to die in a “spectacular finale”, according to sources.
But Oscar-winner Boyle, 61, refused to kill off the secret agent, labelling the idea “ridiculous”.
An insider said: “There were discussions about killing off Bond in dramatic fashion at the end.
Well, cobbling together all the old rumours…
The impression I got was that they liked Boyle & Hodge’s pitch, just not the execution. I’m sure one the (many) articles said they wanted the new writer to rework that idea.
Yeah sounds like someone will rework Boyle’s script and Boyle wasn’t willing to have his writer rewritten by the producer’s choice (which he would see as someone watering down his film as happened with The Beach).
I sincerely doubt the Gareth Owen proposition that Hodge was only rewriting and adding things to the Purvis and Wade draft - he might have read the script and taken an element here and there - but from all reports it was very much a Boyle story concept written by Hodge.
I think we will almost certainly get a Purvis and Wade rewrite of Hodge at this point for Bond 25, with some finessing from the eventual director
I think it all depends on whether the team can find a new director fast enough to avoid another delay. If yes, the hodge script would be reworked most likely, with P&W and maybe others coming in to polish it with some potential input from the director. If no, everything might be scrapped and production will start from scratch with the film delayed into 2020.
Well, Eon is often working their stuff through various iterations - which parts of SKYFALL or SPECTRE are original stories by Logan and/or Purvis and Wade - and which are only elements the one or other worked into it? Impossible to judge from the outside. That Eon announced an original screenplay by Hodge maybe was the plan and fell through, leading to Boyle quitting.
It’s also confusing how the press release said Boyle quit the production - while some stories claim he was fired. As said above, a comprehensive making-of would be most welcome here.
Personnally I think it’s the moment for DC to quit.I trully loved his era but thimes change and I want to see a new 007.Roger Moore’s Commander Bond miss me very much.
Bourne, Robert McCall, Hunt are so efficient…Bond needs to restore his avantage.
Yeah, I think the safest bet is that P+W’s script was early and had little to nothing to do with Hodge/Boyle maybe some locations if they had done some pre-scouting or production incentives in place.
People are often given the opportunity to save face and say they’re quitting rather than being fired. I’m sure that happened here if they came to an impasse on whatever issue came up - looks much better for Boyle to quit for both sides, rather than EON fire him.
Unfortunately PR pretty much precludes the true story from coming out unless Boyle vents his frustration in the press, perhaps when his Working Title comedy comes out
I suppose a good chance to learn more - more, not necessarily all of it - might be when (if) Boyle publishes his memoirs in ten or 20 years. Then the Boyle-Bond that never was would surely be worth a chapter or two.
Wow, you go on holiday for a week without your phone and mayhem breaks out!
Well, i’m very disappointed to see BB stay true to her momentum in taking risks by hiring Boyle, only to bottle it. She only has herself to blame - you don’t hire boyle if you want to a director that bows down before the suits. Her indecisiveness has left Bond back in very murky waters.
I applaud Boyle for sticking to his guns. He’ been down this road before on The Beach; moreover he’s no doubt seen the final act of Spectre and the mess thats made when other ‘writers for hire’ are called in to write in to the script any whim the suits have. He’s not being ‘difficult’, he’s protecting the vision they’ve agreed upon and the year or two of his life he’s agreed to invest.
I think Gareth Owen’s ego is getting a little large for it’s podcast. AS above, see the final act of Sprectre for how re-writes do not necessarily ‘enhance things’.
To give the suits credit, as much as it hurts us fans in the ‘short’ term (not so short), it really is a wise move to delay a year. Any director that comes on to pick up the pieces now will simply be saying “Action” and "What else would you like?’ to the producers. Producers are not directors (obvs), they are usually crap at it and when they have a director with no discernible opinion you get movies like bland-fest Solo.
They need to let the new director start (almost) afresh so they can make their own movie. Mackenzie is my choice, since Vallee has said he’s too busy (though Mackenzie may also be busy on his tv show).
Honestly, Gareth’s big idea is to choose their directors based upon likely PR response. Thank god he’s not part of the team.
…But, not at all for PR reasons my first thought when i heard the Boyle news was to give Kathleen Bigalow a shot, if she wants it. Her gritty action style would work pretty well for Craig’s Bond.
In the same regard, letting a writer “stick to his vision” doesn’t necessarily make it good either - The Room very much stuck to writer/directors vision, for example 
We’ll never know as we’ll probably never see that script. all we can do is wait…and speculate with very little information whilst we do.
And there’s Boyle’s replacement - problem solved 
“Oh. Hi James”
All I can say is this:
Leaving a project due to creative differences is only the right way before preproduction. Afterwards it is just vanity, irresponsibility or fear.
I doubt Boyle went into the production ignorant of what would be expected - just as I doubt Eon didn’t know in time how Boyle would want to proceed. So to me the most likely explanation is the thing didn’t work out as hoped and Boyle wasn’t willing to agree with the necessary steps to get it back on track. Apparently that came as a surprise for Eon, or Boyle - or both. And they all can consider themselves lucky the wheel came off now and not sometime in March with half the film already shot.
So this just popped up in my news feed:
Now I will grant you that this article does contain the words “An insider told The Sun” so grab as much salt as you can to take with the article. But with that said…
This is a terrible idea. It’s an idea that’s been floating round ever since The Dark Knight Rises and Logan popularised the idea of killing off your hero and I absolutely hate it. It’s gotten to the point where it’ll just feel like a gimmick, we know Bond will be back in one way or another so killing him is an entirely pointless move. I can guarantee that a fake-out death would anger audiences and I dread to think what a “Doctor Who-esque” regeneration would be under these circumstances.
But it’s from the Sun so I’ll take my own advice and not get too worked up about it until we hear something from a more reliable source.
I’d be against them killing Bond unless it was a fakeout that brought the beginning of Fleming’s TMWTGG to the screen in the next installment.
Very unlikely that EON wanted to get ahead with that idea - it sounds rather like Boyle‘s.
But I guess the whole thing is just a reheated rumour.
Sorry, after a week incommunicado I’m playing catch up and this proves it. Thanks for correcting me.
Perhaps his offices at Pinewood means he overheard a few whispers, but his interpretations of them are pretty superficial imho.
That could apply equally to all parties.