Unofficial Tex Murphy

BOND IS BACK! Daniel Craig and Sam Mendes Set For Nov. 9, 2012 Release Date
By NIKKI FINKE | Tuesday January 11, 2011 @ 11:44am PSTTags: Barbara Broccoli, Daniel Craig, Daniel Craig Bond, James Bond, MGM, Sam Mendes
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EXCLUSIVE: MGM is announcing that "BOND 23" is set to go into production in late 2011. Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli of EON Productions, together with Gary Barber and Roger Birnbaum, the Co-Chairmen and Chief Executive Officers of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., today announced that the 23rd James Bond film will have a worldwide release on November 9, 2012 -- just as Deadline last month reported it would. Daniel Craig will be returning as the legendary British secret agent, with Sam Mendes directing a screenplay written by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and John Logan. That script is being kept under wraps but the story begins after Quantum Of Solace leaves off. The reason for the 007 delay is this: Broccoli and Wilson had been in pre-production on Bond #23 for release in 2011 but then it took almost a year for MGM's future to sort itself out what with the failed auction sale of the studio, then the pre-packaged bankruptcy getting approval, and eventually Spyglass taking over studio filmmaking.

Meanwhile star Daniel Craig filled in the time with various film commitments which he had to finish. The actor began work on the Hollywood remake of the Swedish original The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo as soon as he completed shooting Cowboys and Aliens in a nifty bit of schedule coordination between two studios and James Bond rights holders Broccoli and Wilson.

Mendes at first was brought on as a "consultant" because of the delays, and is now officially the director. He responded to the Bond delay by setting a feature adaptation of the Ian McEwan novel On Chesil Beach and directing the Broadway-bound musical adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Yet another James Bond videogame, which also had been held up because of the uncertainty, recently got the go-ahead. Meanwhile, the latest 007 vidgame was for sale this Christmas.

It's still not clear who will distribute the next Bond. Deadline's Mike Fleming reported in November that, if MGM isn't the distributor, the next installment of James Bond will be "a jump ball". Expect Sony (which distributed Casino Royale) to battle it out with Warner Bros and Fox, but Paramount could emerge in the thick of it because of its close relationship with Spyglass over the film reboot of Star Trek and sequel.

Teetering on the brink of bankruptcy and at the mercy of its creditors, MGM was in the news for more than a year because of its financial woes. While the studio's beleaguered backers unwisely allowed MGM and its library to languish by not making new movies and benching MGM's creative and marketing/distribution executives while it staged a futile sales auction that attracted bottom-fishing bids, MGM made sure to meets the minimum obligations to its two gems, James Bond and The Hobbit.

As you know, the James Bond filmmakers operate with great autonomy and watching the MGM situation unfold with a mixture of dismay and curiosity. Dismay because Bond's longtime studio home was a mess. And curiosity because Broccoli and Wilson hoped to move Bond to a fully functioning studio. Like Sony, where Amy Pascal was dying to keep the famous franchise. Or Fox, which handled Bond's DVD distribution. Broccoli and Wilson very deliberately made certain they didn't do anything on Bond #23 which tied the movie further to MGM. (That's why Mendes was hired as a consulting, not the director. Because once EON hires a director on their Bond films, it triggers a first payment from MGM.) Once the MGM auction apparently busted, EON Productions wanted to keep all its options open.

Meanwhile, Bond 23 may now be casting. Producer Broccoli has been to see actor Simon Russell Beale twice in his current West End play Deathtrap. Also, the Shakespearean actor is starring as King Lear for Bond 23 director Sam Mendes in a National Theatre production in 2012. And he’s exec producing Shakespeare’s History Plays for a new BBC TV season that Mendes is also overseeing. Beale told a UK newspaper earlier this year that he'd already dropped a hint to Mendes that “every actor wants to be in Bond [and] I'd love to be a baddie."

Awesome! I know they're fairly cheesey, but I love Bond movies.

This is great news! Course, along with Floods, Droughts, Snow, Sex, Drugs and Rock N Roll, birds that forgot how to fly, fish drowning because they forgot how to swim, bats in the belfry going batty and salamanders trying desperately to get in on the act before all mother species die off, added to the Maya calendar's ending by 2012, there's a good chance the world will end the day before it's released. You heard it first from TOG, remember that!

So why do to they keep having Craig do prequels? Is it because they know he simply can't compete with Brosnan

Nobody competes with Brosnan. Brosnan loses by being Brosnan. The man doesn't have enough charisma to open automatic doors. George Lazenby was a better Bond than Brosnan.

-Fred

Brosnan is my favourite Bond. I think the reboot following his tenure was quite welcomed because through no fault of Brosnan's...let's face it, through some very ordinary scripting and overuse of special effects, the films were starting to become a shadow of their former selves.

However, i'd like to see them pursue a new direction with the changeover of the Bond title from actor to actor. I always wanted it to be a little more like Doctor Who in the sense of establishing ongoing characters, plot devices to explain their recasting etc...but it has never really gone there apart from alluding to the idea. We did have Lazenby's "that never happened to the other fella'" comment. But we also had Moore mourning over the death of his wife from OHMSS and Brosnan awkwardly avoiding the question of a past marriage in The World Is Not Enough.

Strangely, in Goldeneye, Brosnan did remark to M that his predecessor kept some alcohol on the bookcase behind her. I love these moments as it doesn't feel as though this completely new face is to be treated as the same person, but rather as an individual that carries on the title in their own right. The idea was proposed for Die Another Day but was rejected by EON. In my opinion, plotted recasting is effective and there should be more of it. Just look at the transition from Q to R but eventually was renamed Q in the final Brosnan film - it was just great. Controversially, when Craig's tenure of Bond arrives, i'd like to see them somehow hand the title over rather than just call cut and call the new guy in for the next film.

Yeah, I liked Brosnan as well. But I enjoy Craig's portrayal of Bond too. In fact, I thought Casino Royale with Craig was the best Bond film ever made. Perhaps it was the refreshing change from the dole drums of Bond repetitiveness we were used to; perhaps it was a blond Bond, perhaps it was his overall displaced attitude towards everything except his job. Whatever it was, it worked.

Favorite line from Casino Royale:
Bond: "Vodka martini."
Bartender: "Shaken or stirred?"
Bond: "Does it look like I give a damn?"

I'm sorry, but Connery could come back and be Bond and still put them all to shame, even at his current age, if anything his voice has gotten even better along with his acting of course...

As for Craig, I don't like him at all, he just rubs me the wrong way for some reason... I like Brosnan better when he plays the bad guy...

well roger moore did it for me. saw an old movie the other night "the miracle" a favourite movie of mine from a young girl. Roger played a young dashing officer.

During the Napoleonic era, in Spain, a young postulant falls in love with a handsome British soldier who is recovering with others of his regiment after being wounded. Before leaving, he asks her to leave the convent and marry him. The postulant, devoted to the statue of the Virgin Mary, asks her for a heavenly sign and leaves when nothing happens. Then the statue of the Virgin descends from its pedestal & takes the nun's place in the convent.

well I would leave the convent for roger moore

I agree that Connery was the best. I liked Brosnan alright. Craig has grown on me. I'll have to see him in anohter movie or two before I make up my mind where he fits in the range of Bonds.

Roger Moore in Live and Let Die is my favorite Moore/Bond movie.

Connery - Goldfinger

Dalton - License to Kill (great Bond film)

Craig - Casino Royale

Lazenby - Good portrayal, lousy movie