Unless Amazon folds, another strike puts everything on hold or the lead actor gets bored, chances are the next era will produce more films or lead to another new era sooner.
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Some of my controversial opinions.
TSWLM was in someways ahead of itâs time for literary Bond. I say this based on the spinoffs, and I wouldnât be surprised if we get a Bond novel told in the first person from Bondâs POV or another characterâs again one day.
I think writing Bond novels set in the past is not really risk taking. At least in Ian Flemingâs timeline. It worked particularly well with Anthony Horowitzâs novels, but it truly needs to have a rest for good.
Iâm willing to bet that the next novel spinoff will be a classic villain origin story, hopefully set in modern day. My money is on Goldfinger or Blofeld, and their iconic evil allies.
IFP really should have written novelizations of some of the early 2000âs videogames in particular Everything or Nothing. Either Raymond Benson or Bruce Feirstein could have easily wrote it. I would have liked to have seen Max Zorin make a surprise appearance.
While Iâm happy with the movie we got, Richard Maibaum and Guy Hamilton shouldnât have worked on The Man With The Golden Gun. Sure the movie was rushed, but they clearly didnât help the movie with their usual trademarks, (particularly Guy Hamiltonâs cynical humor, and his helpless and often dumb women). Itâs kind of nerve racking that Hamilton could have directed TSWLM. That TRULY could have ended the series.
I still hope that May can find a way to be fit into the movie series. A surprise appearance or two couldnât hurt, honestly.
Live and Let Die can honestly be called one of the most unique Bond movies in more ways than one. No Q, no Richard Maibaum writing, no MI6 headquarters scene. Henchmen lives to die another day, as far as we know. Truly, no SPECTRE references in any way, shape or form. A truly unique experience both behind the scenes and what we see as the final product. And thatâs why I like it so much.
I only want spinoffs to books, not movies.
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This to me has always been puzzling. While she is certainly not a major character, she is far from insignificant. After 25 movies from EON, I would have thought she would have made an appearance. I remember her well from the Thunderball novel. We had 2 versions of that movie and still no May. Fitting her into the next actorâs run will be a little trickier if it is set in the present day but I am sure they can find a way to make it work.
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Could simply be someone he has come to check on his flat when heâs on mission.
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The moment would have been his return in SKYFALL*. It makes little sense to pronounce a person dead officially - but while his flat is gone all his other effects are still readily available. May refusing to see her bossâs household liquidated was somehow a nice touch in The Man with the Golden Gun.
*Though of course Kincade filled that particular spot, although seemingly without having been in touch with Bond for decades.
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Agreed.
Not only is it not risk taking, itâs just lazy. Bond should always be depicted in the present. Going back to the past to use the Fleming timeline as a crutch just shows that the franchise has just run out of ideas.
Both the cinematic and literary franchises need a serious jolt of energy. Itâs been over a decade since weâve gotten anything decent from either of them.
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On paper I fully agree with you here, which is why I was disappointed when they announced Devil May Care and then Trigger Mortis (each of which also had some additional gimmicks of âwriting as Ian Flemingâ or âwith original material from Ian Flemingâ, both of which I found rather off-putting at the time). But gosh those three Horowitz novels were so entertaining and engaging. This is why I think execution often matters more than anything else; even lazy ideas can turn out great in the hands of a capable writer.
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Iâd call it first and foremost fan service.
Letâs be honest, for many years fans have been calling for âclassic Cold Warâ adventures, pitching many different scenarios in filling gaps, the entire 70s lying idle, ready to be explored. Many of us, me included, pointed to the obvious target for Bond after his brainwashing, âColonel Borisâ. Which Horowitz finally gave us.
The problem is, itâs mainly hardcore fans who read and enjoy these works. While the general reading public is indifferent at best. That was somewhat different in Flemingâs time. But IFP tried hiring prestige authors too, to no avail. Perhaps the problem is that their idea of a Bond adventure doesnât connect with the readers the way Flemingâs did.
*And we have had âmodernâ Bond adventures, too. They became largely amalgamations of the literary and the film franchise. And in the end mostly struggled in both departments. Which possibly is why IFP gave that a rest for a time.
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Which, and I think this has been a common refrain around here when talking about other media entities (i.e. the MCU), is extremely lazy in and of itself.
The Bond franchise has gone on long enough now and has become so steeped in nostalgia and fan service that itâs reaching a saturation point now where the franchise, both the cinematic and literary franchises, are just going to drift away and become increasingly irrelevant, a process which I think is already very much underway. Due to all of this fan service, there is nothing really original about any of these pieces of entertainment anymore, and going forward itâs just going to be an endless parade of works that just reference the times when the franchise was really on top of its game and creatively vibrant rather than trying to tell their own stories.
Both the literary franchise and the cinematic franchise are, I think, at an inflection point and if they continue to go down the nostalgia and fan service route the next time out, weâll be nearing the end of both of them as creatively viable entities and theyâll essentially just be like an aging rock band thatâs just out there playing âFree Birdâ one more time because thatâs what itâs also aging audience wants to hear.
Thereâs plenty of things going on in the world right now that Bond could take on in an interesting and entertaining way. But, weâre not going to do that because references to Goldfinger are more âentertainingâ.
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But they are not going to since there is the strong possibility/certainty that they will take on a subject in a way that a major/loud cohort will regard as âwrong.â There was a consensus in Flemingâs time that he could rely on, and write from/against.
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I have no problem with the level of fan service we got from the Craig era and a great many people see his era as one of the high points of the Bond franchise. It seems to me that most fans think we got two classic films during his run (CR and SP) and only one bit of a clunker (QoS). I know there are other views out there, including yours, but we are a long way from some of the low points in the franchise.
Having said the above, I think the next run should tread a lot more softly with the references to the past given that it was regularly done during the Craig run. If they have references, I think they should be subtle like they did with the stolen painting in SF and avoid bringing back villains for a little while.
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NTTD is in my top ten! I understand if I have my licence revoked!!
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They really should. The Moore and the Dalton era were much ballsier than what came after. And the more these films rely on past moments the less they create new ones.
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We are not at all far off from the only thing the new films will be able to reference is previous references to classic material. The Bond films are basically on their way to becoming the third page in a triplicate form.
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It just might be in my top five, so (to quote Jinx): âit looks like weâre going down together.â
Unrelatedly, I do agree with all the above posters about the overreliance on references, homages, winks and nods, etc⌠I want to see the series look forwards rather than backwards.
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Leaving this here for obvious reasons. Itâs a rather long and winding thing, but this is the gist of it:
They were once a sweet treat for audiences, but Deadpool & Wolverine proves that gorging on cameos, callbacks and end-credit stingers can leave you gagging
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I saw the first Deadpool on a plane and was surprised how well it could take my mind off my usual fear of flying. The second one was for me already the bigger but less interesting blockbuster sequel with some funny moments.
I will probably catch this third one on a streamer, but the idea of a multiverse is fine once but deadly if it is established as the norm. Nothing then is of consequence, and the huge success is probably due to a computer game perspective where everything can happen but still reboots to level one next time.
As for the umpteenth references, ironic and naughty in-jokes Reynolds has built his career on: diminishing returns. And self-destructive because who wants to see him doing any serious part ever again?
Although I prefer his style to Downey jr.
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I will never understand the attraction to the Deadpool movies. Watched part of the first one and it was one of the worst times Iâve ever had watching a movie. Just garbage. The small bit I saw of the second indicated that it was just more of the same. Have no interest in this new one and they honestly couldnât pay me to watch it. The Deadpool seriesâ success is just another sign of the times.
Richard Maibaum was overused for writing. He was too full of himself.
I like the idea of Bond spin-offs in the literary world, not the cinema world. Blofeld, Goldfinger and their second hand muscle deserve a full book to themselves.
Michael G Wilson needs to fully retire.
Blofeld needs to be reintroduced as much as Bond himself. Itâll be hard to keep an actor quiet from the internet now nowadays.
Ralph Fiennes should stay on as M. He can now play Sir Miles.
Mâs death at the end of SF feels like a tribute to Judi Dench herself, over M. Martin Campbell shouldnât come back. He got lucky, because he directed the series when it was at a low point.
Adam West should have played Bond in Diamonds Are Forever. The movie is basically a giant Batman â66 episode, inside a Bond movie.
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You donât get tired of assuming that.