I’m probably showing my ignorance, but I thought $50 mil wasn’t that big a budget for a film like this. Isn’t 80-90 the norm?
The first John Wick cost 20 mil, 2 cost 40 mil and 3 cost 75 mil. That´s how you start a franchise.
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and of course the director Reed Morano, well known in the Action-Thriller-genre…
Not surprised it’s bombing, trailer made it look like the bland, Taken 3-esque nonsense it probably is.
People are crying out for a female James Bond (or so the internet will have you believe), but do they really want it? No.
Vote with your feet and actually go out and see the bloody thing, PROVE there is an audience for this sort of thing. And turns out there isn’t.
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whispers this is a good movie
Blake and Morano carry this entire thing on their shoulders. But in many ways it really feels like EON’s attempt at getting as faaaaaaaar away from any Bond comparisons as possible. Spy-assassin-craft is a bloody, messy enterprise. Hardly the glamour and class Bond and John Wick make it out. Evil organisations with heightened head honchos pulling the strings? Some schmucks out for profit. Can you train to be a good assassin? No. Does Lively’s character become one? Hell no.
Very worthy concept on paper but together with the colder, less actiony & more arthouse-y pace and approach and a certain sense of detachment that more typical genre films like this don’t really have, I can see why people were turned off by this. Because you can’t really sell a $50m wide studio release like that - that was the bone of contention apparently between EON and Paramount. And that sense anti-climacticness is arguably the only weakness of it I’d say - but maybe that’s the point. Because otherwise, with right expectations, I think most peeps would enjoy it! I certainly did.
It’s one of those where you admire them for giving this a wide traditional theatrical release and stuff instead of selling to eg Netflix but people would honestly probably receive the film better (& see it) had it been on there.
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I dont really have an opinion on female Bond either way… i’d probably lean towards it being a distraction rather than a good thing.
My point is just that its the continual treatment by studios and failure of films like this that make people online want the female and diverse representation to not be off in its own little low budget sequester of the internet and up front in blockbusters, so its why it is constantly a question in the market of ideas. Bourne is not an apt comparison because it was a big budget, heavily marketed “James Bond killer” blockbuster with a famous white male lead so… of course it got a lot of attention.
I’m not arguing the point - too much - but couldn’t they make a big-budget spy film with a famous white female lead? That’s what I meant with the Bourne comparison.
Red Sparrow, for instance: you couldn’t find a bigger star than Jennifer Lawrence (unless I’m seriously out of the loop), but because of the film’s actual quality it only got mixed reviews. Which would indicate that it’s not just about the gender of the lead, it needs to deliver in other areas too.
I’m an egalitarian, therefore I want equality for everyone, and I personally don’t think a feminist hijacking of Bond would be good in the long run. On the other hand, I’m delighted with Jodie Whittaker as the latest Doctor, but then such elabarate switcheroos are baked into the premise of that programme and the diversity of its casting just adds to its whackiness. You’re going to want to get as far away from William Hartnell - and then back again - as possible, otherwise there’s little point in regenerating at all and they might as well just have a conventional recast.
We musn’t give up hope that studios may give serious backing to a good film with a female lead. Instead of a spy, why not make her a thief? I love the caper genre, yet not much has been done with it. One film could have her steal a jewel in Egypt then, in another, a painting in Paris, etc. There’s some miliage that can be had there. (This will seem like an aside, but I saw Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit last night, and though it was all right, I couldn’t see much sequel potential. Putting aside the books, this is a visual medium and we can’t just watch city after city). Ava McCarthy’s Harry Martinez books centre on a hacker/thief.
That’s what they’ve done with Red Sparrow, with Atomic Blonde, with The Rhythm Section too. But because we are living in an IP-obsessed world, the budgets for original/new-to-cinema ideas (for a traditional theatrical wide release - crucial point) would be lower (all of these are in the $50m range, Atomic Blonde is even lower), and the marketing support would be less, particularly when critical reception ends up mixed and it’s not quite so audience friendly, as was the case with TRS and to an extent Red Sparrow also.
Atomic Blonde was very well received and did a very respectable amount at the box office, and yet according to the director a sequel is only very slowly in development…for a streaming service.
A ‘feminist hijacking’ of an IP like Bond would guarantee the stars and a director (particularly if female) a bigger budget, more marketing support, more in-built hype from casual audiences. And given a lot of the people that are the loudest voices re: wanting a female Bond are coming from a position of jumpstarting opportunities for more female talent on and off camera - as @aus89 explained, people don’t want diverse films to be just in their own indie/mid budget corner where they’ll be crushed, or streaming which, despite offering much opportunity, remains an unknown quantity in regards to cultural cachet.
If Bourne was adapted for cinema now I doubt it could really generate a franchise the way it has before.
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All good points and well put. Clearly, though, the wider issue is the fact that new material is difficult to put out there in - as you say - an IP-obsessed world. The fact some such films happen to have a female lead is just a symptom. The feminist issue has been caught in the crossfire.
I don’t think Hollywood can go on making films based on pre-existing characters or concepts, particularly when there have been several which have failed so badly (John Carter, The Lone Ranger) or were unable to kickstart a series (Man from UNCLE, The Legacy of Tarzan, Green Lantern, American Assassin), which is what they were supposed to do, first and foremost. Such studios are conditioning audiences to expect to know what a film is before it’s even made.
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I guarantee you it is only getting worse - they would rather attempt an IP that’s failed before than make something new - I would expect to see all of those you list except maybe American Assassin again before 2030. Keep in mind too, TRS is also based on an IP (book series) so even though it is a smaller IP, its still part of the same issue - there might be (let’s be fair, their definitely is) an amazing female led action script that went ignored in favour of TRS because its based on a book.
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Since I haven’t seen it yet I can only guess why this bombed so hard.
Personally, I don’t agree on the ‘better action on tv remark’ - but there’s a sense of ‘having seen this before’ about it, the Bourne vibe, the whole woman-turns-to-revenger theme maybe lacking just that bit of intrigue that would keep the casual viewer interested in the character.
I know there’s a life shattering loss at the core of the heroine’s plight - but from the trailer I don’t see much of it and I don’t know how well it’s depicted in the film. There is a mystery there, but no sense how the heroine would learn about it. And why the audience should care about it. I have difficulty to see the unique selling point of THE RHYTHM SECTION, what sets this apart from RED SPARROW or ATOMIC BLONDE, or maybe even SALT if we want to reach way back*.
So it’s not Bond, it’s trying to be its own thing. But what exactly is that? And is it worth my time and effort to see this at the theatre? It’s entirely possible that the answer is given in the film itself but I don’t see it in the trailer. It looks a bit Bourne-ish passé - or really like something that might have been produced for Netflix. And would possibly have found a larger audience there.
*BLACK WIDOW doesn’t count since she’s well established in AVENGERS lore. And BIRDS OF PREY caters to an entirely different style and audience.
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Not only do they attempt an IP that has already failed, but ones which the target audience doesn’t even know about it. See, for example, The Man from UNCLE (which really should have been made during the '90s tend in which 1960s TV shows got film remakes for the baby boomers) and the behind-the-scenes efforts to film The Saint, Modesty Blaise and Doc Savage.
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I’m not sure the female Bond route is truly pursued with any consequence. The recent films, just as the not-so-recent ones like THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT and KILL BILL, use the imagery but consist of more or less artificial action shooting with the women depicted as pure fighting machines that just happen to pop up in a spy-ish context. There’s rarely any sense of adventure that would accompany the shootout/strikeout splatter. The aim seems to be not Bond but being harder than Bond, more brutal and violent even down to sex.
If the industry was really looking for a franchise with that particular mixture of exoticism, suspense, adventure, and exquisite danger that marks out Bond the answer would be there since 1963: Modesty Blaise. The setting would be one step removed from the Cold War which would even allow for a discrete modernisation. But the mixture would be right for a strong female lead whose character would be worth exploring beyond the more or less artistic breaking of necks and piercing of torsos with various products from the shooting iron industry.
Apparently this doesn’t happen and I don’t believe the reason is that Quentin Tarantino sits on the rights. If there was adequate trust in the general idea a studio would buy him out and set their sights on getting this off the ground. In my view the reason that they don’t is simply that studios are reasonably confident they can generate more box office returns with the simpler approach of pure action.
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The problem is the audience. It´s down to percentages. How many people want to see something like Avengers? A lot. How many something like Bond? Also a lot, because you have a mixed audience. For something like TRS? Just a small fraction of people like the gritty spy genre, and more men like women, i´d guess. So with something like TRS where no big star is attached you have to start with low budget and build a fanbase with an interesting story and gritty action (like John Wick f.e.). When you have the Thriller-fans on your side, you can go for the blockbuster audience, because if you loose some of the early fans, you get 5 new ones for every one of them.
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And that´s also why the last attempts of female IP hijacking (Ghostbusters, Oceans 8, MIB or Dirty Rotten Scoundrels aka The Hustle) didn´t work. You have to get a lot of new audience if you scare away most of the old fans…and they didn´t because all of them where mediocre films.
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On Indiewire someone wrote: the title sounds like a movie about a band. Must be the same guy who didn´t know what “a quantum of solace” means…
Or the meaning of the word “Revoked.”
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Something of a side-issue, but I’ve a question about Blaise: Tarrantino allowed a Blaise film to be made in 2004 in an effort to retain the rights to the character. How come, then, he hasn’t needed to do something like that again?
John Wick had something else going for it, of course: the return of Keanu Reeves, riding the Taken train of middle-aged, fading stars picking up a gun (Kevin Costner in Three Days to Kill, Pierce in November Man).
Though, funnily enough, when I first saw the trailer (dead dog his dead wife left him), I assumed it was a spoof of Taken. Which isn’t that bad of an idea.
I have no idea how long exactly the rights option is supposed to keep up; the Modesty Blaise flick from 2003 is already 17 years in the past. Maybe Tarantino had to extend his option by paying the estate of O’Donnell another sum - or perhaps he has lost the option already?
It seems like the character itself is only moderately in demand, the Titan reprints finished a couple of years ago with the much weaker stories of the late run of dailies. And some of the books - once more the weaker stories towards the end - have been out of print for decades even. So there is a kind of fanbase but it’s largely made up of middle aged men - and beyond us there doesn’t seem to be an appetite for Blaise in the wider market. This is probably a character that lost its last chance to a successful adaptation in the days of Lara Croft and Tomb Raider.
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