I do not think that people cared about the budgets of OPPENHEIMER or BARBIE. They responded to the stories and their relevance.
What would a relevant James Bond look like in 2026, and what narrative will be appealing?
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I wonder - did they really respond to the stories in Barbie and Oppenheimer?
So many just saw those movies because it was hip to do this double feature.
A pop culture moment which can hardly be repeated, especially not with a Bond film, I believe.
Letâs not forget: Bond films right now are considered action movies. Stunts, explosions.
FRWL would disappoint the audience of today, I fear.
Yet this is the kind of Bond film which should be made, in order to keep the budget small and the story interesting.
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Thatâs no surprise. Theyâve constantly been upping the price for Prime by adding features that nobody really wants or needs while stripping out features that were welcome. This is just another step in that direction.
When they finally release a Bond film, theyâll probably make the film stop every twenty minutes so you can put another $50 in the machine to keep watching.
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Great question: what is a relevant Bond story?
Was there ever one?
The only relevant aspect probably was and remains: is it great entertainment?
The ongoing theme of the Craig era âIs Bond, a field agent with personal agendas, relevant in todayâs world anymore?â hardly answered that instead of concluding without any surprise âDuh, we made the movies after allâ.
Instead of overloading the next era with concerns about age and anachronistic behavior they should embrace the character and step away from too much pseudo realism.
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Itâs possible weâll be getting a retro reboot:
A Bond in the fifties fighting SMERSH operatives and madmen trying to destroy England with giant missiles.
Like this U.N.C.L.E movie that was this big box-office hit a few years ago?
The audiences I saw them with did, and the reactions of friends and colleagues reinforced this perception. It was beyond âthe hip thing to do.â
Depends on how well the Bond film is connected to the moment. Previous ones were often well-connected.
I say yes, e.g., GOLDFINGER was of its moment; MOONRAKER of its; SKYFALL of its.
Were the films great entertainment as well? Yes. But the confluence of the two aspects is what made Bond films stick, and the franchise last.
But character evolves from environments at particular moments. Bond lasts because there was a Bond and accompanying characters appropriate to their moment of production. That is how the series avoids anachronistic behavior.
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I loved the 80âs Bond films as well. And I agree it could work, especially if they did the stunts for real like they did back then, with less CGI, and casting character actors in the key supporting roles of M, Q, Moneypenny etc. to help cut costs. Those films (with perhaps A View To A Kill excepted) were solid, entertaining films and I think a similar style would work, particularly if they again cast the right actor as 007 such as Henry Cavill. 
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I suspect heâs a little older than what they are looking for, but I would welcome his casting.
What exactly do you mean with âlow budgetâ? To me movies like Eyes Only, Octo, A View, Daylights are not low budget.
Maybe LtK in some aspects, it had a little television look, but otherwise I donât see it. All have huge actionsceneâs, are shot most of the time on beautiful locations and some even have famous actors as the bad guy (Jourdan, Walken).
Dr. No and FRWL are more low budget then Bond movies from the eighties.
Cubby said many times that the budgets for the later 80âs Bond films went down significantly. He made them look more expensive, as he always did.
Low budget like an independent film? No. Low budget action movie? More like it.
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Yes, I know he said this, but I donât see those movies as low budget action movies. For me low budget movies are all those Chuck Norris, Charles Bronson violent action movies produced by Cannon in the eighties and ninethies are. Or Steven Seagal straigt to video movies.
If you look at the budget of the late 80âs Bond movies and other blockbusters Bond is lower. Just a fact.
Yes, thatâs true, but makes them not low budget.
Itâs not about the low budget, I have no problem with small budgeted films, itâs just that the execution or the quality of it.
Actually Quantum of Solace did looked like filmed in a low budget (even though itâs not), but if one may look in that film, it felt very cheap for me, especially coming after Casino Royale, itâs a shame because thereâs an obvious drop in filmmaking quality, itâs devoid of sophistication, luxury, and charm that most Bond films known for.
The same for The World Is Not Enough, the look of it alone felt very low quality, also more like a Soap Opera drama in Television, even though, they did actually have more budget, itâs even more questionable when theyâve made Die Another Day next which brought back that high quality cinematography, making TWINE looked like an odd duck of the Brosnan Era.
It depends upon the execution for me.
I have no problem with the low budget films, but their execution, how they should looked like.
And yes, agreed that even though 80âs Bond films like The Living Daylights, A View To A Kill, Octopussy and Licence To Kill had lower budgets, they looked impressive when it comes to action set pieces and visual effects, those films doesnât felt low budgeted, if any Never Say Never Again did even looked more low budgeted than Octopussy (which really was, imagine that World Domination Game scene in Never Say Never Again, if itâs EON, it wouldâve looked beautifully futuristic).
Actually the 70âs Bond films like Diamonds Are Forever, Live And Let Die, and The Man With The Golden Gun did looked cheaper than most of the 80âs Bond films, and also lacking in quality too, especially The Man With The Golden Gun, it looked like a pirated, low rated Chinese Parody Film that you could just download everywhere in the internet (with PC virus added 
).
For me, the only odd looking Bond film of the 80âs is For Your Eyes Only, itâs such a very small scale of a Bond film, very low key, I have no problems with Bond being grounded (I liked Licence To Kill, and that film got it right; no, it doesnât looked like a TV show for me, more like what generic 80âs action shows tend to looked like back in the day), but For Your Eyes Only doubled down on that, that it never felt like a Bond film for me, more like an episode of an action/detective show on TV, even the cast were unknown and not much memorable as a Bond film, it doesnât have any big action set pieces, if the Bond films are considered giants, this is very small in comparison, very simplistic which made a bit looked dull, and to say it had a low budget? When the previous film, Moonraker made a lot more money, and became such a box office hit success and what theyâve ended up in FYEO was like that? I doubt it, I think itâs one of the appeal of making Bond grounded after the outlandishness of the previous film, but it shouldnât looked like that.
So, itâs more upon the execution, no matter what the budget is.
QOS looked great. Which scene are you referring to?
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Same for me with DAF, FYEO and TWINE. They donât look low budget either to me.
At this moment in time a big budget Blockbuster movie typically consts in the $200-300 million range, some spiked higher due to pandemic restrictions. According to Wikipedia NTTDâs budget was $250-300 million.
I think budgets need to come down, across the board. These bloated budgets arenât sustainable in the long run as exponentially increasing box office takes are needed to justify them.
In the case of Bond 26, bringing it in under $200 million would be a good start, maybe kick off the new era with a more modest $100 to 150 million.
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I ken not see it myselfâŚ(from the Barbie film, that is)
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