A faithful adaptation of L&LD would be amazing and giving us a nod to the movies L&LD, FYEO and LTK, always felt robbed that the best elements of the novel were split across three films.
Guess I’m a bit anal that I prefer movie adaptations that stick to the source material. If only they would remake all of the adaptations where the film wildly deviated from the plot, but then would a faithful adaptation of Moonraker work as a movie I wonder, whenever I read it I always finish it thinking that it would only fill up an hour of screen time, it has been a few years since I read it however.
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The concept of faithful adaptations…
For the Fleming originals that’s mostly no longer the stuff the big screen calls for. If we look at Live and Let Die the core scheme is neither very mysterious (How does he do it, smuggling those gold coins? Cannot for the life of me think of a way, he’s only bringing in that rare fish with his private yacht. It’s really a conundrum…), nor is there enough flesh on the story to make up a contemporary screenplay of about two hours.
But I would like to see an adaptation that takes enough liberties to dive deeper into a cult network that reins with terror and hate preaching, lies and deceptions and keeps its disciples in a quasi-religious trance of awe for their cult leader and frenzy of rage for their enemies.
That could either be a spy/horror production by Guillermo del Toro or a BBC documentary.
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It all depends on the next actor.
With Bond mainly drawing older audiences I predict the next phase will feature a younger heartthrob, especially getting more young females into the core audience.
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I don’t think continuing on from NTTD is the way forward but just as a fun hypothetical…
Influence could be drawn from TMWTGG but I’d avoid the amnesia as I find it a tiresome plot device. Maybe Bond’s head is a little scrambled and can’t recall specifics but not full blown amnesia.
The nanobots are the issue that needs to be dealt with so that’s the side I’d lean into. Bond is picked up by the organisation of a rogue tech genius, someone who would have the skills and resources to deactivate the nanobots. Their price is that Bond needs to perform various jobs for them, the first of which would be to assassinate M.
From there it’s a race against time as Bond must stay one step ahead of the villains controlling him.
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Live and Let Die is a very uncomfortable story to read and there’s no way it could be filmed as a faithful adaptation of the book in the 2020s. Especially not after the Craig era modernized Bond. Better to create new stories.
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After the world has gone through a pandemic it could see going more fantastical, less grounded in reality.
James Bond meets Val Lewton’s I Walked With A Zombie (1943)? I’m liking where this is headed… a lot.
That beind said, The Undertaker’s Wind, LALD’s original title, would make a good title for the next Bond film.
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I saw a recent interview with CJF. He said that when they were working out the title for NTTD they considered both short story titles and Fleming’s chapter headings. At least we know they consider them and one day we may get another Fleming title, even if it is a chapter or unused title.
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I’d like the next actor to get at least one Fleming title, even better if it’s for their debut.
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007 in New York? I suppose that would make more sense for a Craig film 
. It’s actually strange to think how much some films actually reference Fleming:
- Die Another Day: Blades, Sex for dinner death for breakfast
- Spectre: Hildebrand
- No Time To Die: Garden of Death, Dr. No’s heart on the right, Bond’s child, Bond’s death, Die Blofeld Die! (just to name a few), OHMSS
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Garden of Death would have been a good Fleming title for NTTD, but I see why they went with the latter.
I think Garden of Death would’ve given too much away. I think Property of a Lady could’ve worked well. But I think, in the end, No Time To Die is perfect. Does it have a Fleming connection?
You might be referring to when they offered Craig $100M for two Bond films back around 2017 or so, and he declined. My reaction to NTTD’s run time was that they had two movies worth of material.
Would love another film from CJF, absolutely. I think his directorial style is perfect for Bond and it would be great to see a film where he gets more of a say from the very beginning as opposed to NTTD where it was clear he arrived quite late in the day and had to pick up the pieces (and he did a good job of that!)
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For the series to figure out what to do next, it needs to come to terms with what it’s done and what it’s been. The longer the franchise exists, the more it has its own history to come to terms with.
The hook for NTTD is that it (as has been said with someone on the boards but can’t remember who so forgive me!) is OHMSS inverted. To the extent, that it steals that film’s musical cues, title song, car, what-have-you. As fans we’re lapping it up, but I do question what a 30yr old member of the general audience really gets from references to a movie with a star they don’t know or might not have even watched. NTTD references a “universe” that logic says that this incarnation of Bond doesn’t even exist in - it’s a film referencing it’s own identity. As a film!
Why is it any different from the Q scene in DAD, with Brozza messing with gadgets that SC used - 35 years prior! It doesn’t make sense story-wise, unless you admit that it’s scene that exists only to reference its history. As a film!
My point is, to move forward the franchise has to figure out its relationship with its own past. DN dots at the start are one thing, but quoting lines and using the music from another film in the series (and I’m not talking a Barry LALD reference as Sheriff Pepper goes in the water in TMWTGG), are a step further down a direction that has limited potential unless you go the whole way into remake territory.
DAD is self-awareness to an extreme. The film that follows tries to avoid any overt example of that (unless you count the alarm in the embassy) by not having a single obvious (or in-joke) reference to the 4 decades that preceded it. I’d offer that’s one of the reasons it resonated at a level beyond fandom. People who weren’t self-professed Bond fans went and embraced it.
I don’t have an opinion as to the future, but the series needs to set some ground rules for handling the past. Otherwise we’ll be forever locked (Star Wars-style…!) in a discussion about canon, about what we like, what the general audience like etc.
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My impression is that Bond movies work best when they wear their past lightly, with each film simultaneously being of the moment and (deftly) acknowledging that there were other movies which preceded it.
I think culture has changed, and there is now a greater interest in/expectation of coherent timelines–consumers do not want the world of an individual film, but instead a world in which the individual movies/collectibles exist (maybe because of the high degree of incoherence they experience in the real world, they desire a place where they can invest themselves fully without fear of erraticness).
Also, years ago I had a lover who was a huge comics fan (he had every issue of Alpha Flight, and our apartment was full of long, white boxes). He explained to me that Marvel simply made the X-Men teenagers again or sent them to Australia, to establish a new timeline, and generate more revenue. Such world-building creates consumers willing to invest time and money, with the expectation of being rewarded with realms to become lost in. On the highbrow end, Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County comes to mind as an equivalent.
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Here’s what I see. The year is 2050, a known terrorist has been knee-capped by an as of yet unseen assailant and is bleeding on the street. A now classic Aston Martin Valhalla (in silver burch) rolls up to the wounded man. The driver’s door opens and a shapely, female leg is seen climbing out of the car and walking up to the target. The terrorist, between very deep breaths, looks up from her ankles to her still hidden face and asks, “Who are you?” The camera pans up and we see a stunning brunette with equally stunning blue eyes holding a rifle with telescopic sight. She looks down and says with an UK RP accent with a bit of a French lilt, “Bond, Mathilde Bond.”
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I think Bond still had Mathilde’s bunny tucked in his braces for a reason.
When the still-breathing body is rolled over on the beach, no matter whose face we see, it will provide instant recognition.
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And ruin NTTD’s ending as well as handcuff Eon to never using Felix Leiter or Blofeld with a future Bond.
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