Be my guest: When do you expect an announcement on BOND 26?
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Glad to see it up! I got my vote in but would love an announcement for Christmas!
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Thanks for the poll Dustin. I got my vote in.
Also, could somebody make a comment in the Casting the Continuation Novels thread? I’m out of turns. Thanks.
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It’s become a bit of “war cry” for me. Gone a bit viral in some circles.
“Bond 26 in '26”
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From another blog that I wrote, namely about certain names often brought up by fans. I can agree with more of an espionage thriller with Nolan. Same with Denis Villeneuve, I like how they use ensemble casts. I think the MI6 cast will be brought down in screen time, though. Knowing Villeneuve and Nolan though, as fans, they may bring back some iconic characters. If they both directed more than one, Blofeld would almost certainly show up. If they did an origin story, Charmian Bond would probably show up. It just seems like a trademark of theirs. Diving into the mythology of Bond, while using their ensemble casts to full use.
If EON is more interested in doing other projects, maybe they should just do that and shelve Bond for a while.
At least from my perspective, as the mileage of others certainly may vary, another mediocre to poor outing will be the end of it for me. The product that has been put out, as limited as it’s been, over the past decade-plus has not been up to any kind of standard. If the next one is in line with that kind of quality, I’ll just look back to Quantum of Solace as the finale of Bond and probably move on from it.
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It does seem as if Bond has become a burdensome obligation for EON, not a reason to exist as a producing entity.
I‘d say: sell it to others who really want to do exciting Bond films, without the baggage of everything which has come before. CraigBond dying was a fitting end to this (first) era.
Now let others start a new one.
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I just found out that the fourth „John Wick“ movie had a 100 million dollar budget - and the other three were below that sum.
Hmm. And a Bond movie now „has“ to cost more than double that and include plenty of product placement?
For action scenes the Wick films pull off much more spectacularly so much more often?
What exactly was so costly during the Craig era? Seems like EON could learn a lot from the „Wick“ producers.
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Even better: hire their director.
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He seems to be busy and booked out.
But really, if „Wick“ can do that action, looking that expensive… what is EON doing then?
A Bond film which could be brought in under 100 million, taking chances and being fresh and daring…
Why is that still not on the table?
Why do they keep holding on to the myth that they need product placement and a lowest common denominator for their movies?
It’s always been a bit more expensive to have a Bond taste…to answer with Atika*.
I really think this is the main reason, the Bond brand’s own insistence on exclusivity. These productions may have started out as small-ish modest adventure capers - but at their heart they call for scale and open cheque books.
I remember an anecdote from GOLDFINGER’s scrapyard scene. They drove a brand new Lincoln Continental, perhaps the dream car of the vast majority of the US populace back then, onto the premises and destroyed it, making folks in the crew cry. Okay, they probably removed the engine - but what we can see is an article of luxury destroyed for a few seconds of footage.
Fast forward 60 years to NO TIME TO DIE and we get several minutes and special effects, a huge chase and a shootout that would be the climactic set piece of many lesser productions. It took a whole fleet of specially produced replicas, each one practically coming without a realistic price tag since, how do you calculate ‘whatever it takes’?
This is just the field where the spirit of
putting the money on the screen became the most manifest. It’s not a bad principle per se - but somewhere during the last two decades Eon apparently acquired a car manufacturer - and they might look at a bargain on an aerospace manufacturer next…
*Former cigarette brand from the 60s almost nobody will remember today.
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It still seems - compared with what 87Eleven Productions achieve - not at all cost effective, spending more money to lesser effect.
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In the John Wick films, the action mainly consists of fights and you can often shoot that in a film studio and that will cost less than a car chase, or having to jump out of a plane eighty times for 2 minutes of film for an opening scene, although the last Wick also has a lot of action at expensive locations in Paris, for example.
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Does the action in a Bond movie of the last era do anything more spectacular?
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That, for example, is my complaint about Skyfall, which everyone but me seems to like very much. With the exception of the opening scene, there’s just a lot of running and shooting.
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For Spectre at least they had to pay every resident of Rome with a free vacation so it was completely deserted during the car chase.
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I got to say, after the „John Wick“ films EON is free to go back to the spy thriller intrigue of FRWL, because really, how could any action not look pale by comparison?
Even Tom Cruise can stop jumping from airplanes now. It’s all been done and done better.
I actually think that could and should be liberating for Bond. Stop competing in that league, go back to your own lane.
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We may have arrived - and sped past - peak-action. The competition does scenes which used to be The. Core. Competence. of 007 so professional, artfully and visually impressive there is literally no gap between the pack and the fox any more. NO TIME TO DIE’s Cuba shootout might as well have been in a John Wick - and the motorcycle stunt of that same film screamed MI.
The really unique action from this last era to me was the stairwell fight for its dirty brutality - and the opera/operatic Bregenz* shootout for its editing. Both not exactly going where cinema hasn’t been before - just where Bond hasn’t.
*Bonus points for the hilariously overcomplicated idea to hold a wireless meeting during the performance of Tosca. I’ve seen grown adults reduced to tears - and then torn to pieces and shreds by howling, bloodthirsty classical music devotees. For no greater sin than forgetting to switch off their mobiles. Try mumbling your schemes of world domination in that kind of cover…
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I will admit that JOHN WICK IV did not afford me the sense of opulence/spectacle I get from Bond films.
Also, from what I have read, Bond productions always go first class.
Maybe take a page from the Ritz Thrift Shop (a memory from my youth):
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Doing so would force them to make the films at a quality that EON, quite frankly, is not capable of achieving.
They have to continue doing essentially what they’ve been doing, because it is what is expected of them now. They completely panicked when they were on the doorstep of doing something that was somewhat different with Spectre and, in the process, ended up making the most boring and generic action films ever made. But, in the end, they were financially rewarded for it, which is the only thing. They won’t be financially rewarded for making another From Russia With Love or for making anything that resembles the John Wick movies, so they’re not going to do it.
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