James Bond 25 - Speculation and Anticipation Thread*

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Vidiot, May 19, 2016.

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  1. shokhead

    shokhead Head shok and you still don't what it is. HA!

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  2. Richard--W

    Richard--W Forum Resident

    The main title designs are the only thing I like about 21st century Bond films.

    The producers Michael Wilson and his twisted stepsister Barbara Broccoli need to step out of the creative process. Just remove themselves from any and all creative involvement. A total lock-out.

    Everybody with a low I.Q. has to go. Fire Daniel Craig, get rid of the house writers, shut the stunt team up and scale down.

    Engage a new production company to oversee the films -- the people who made the Horatio Hornblower cable films a decade ago would be an excellent choice. People who know how to "play the scene" as we say in the theater. Let them hire a handsome athletic Brit to play Bond, find the right actors for M and Moneypenny, oversee the casting, hire intelligent writers who can deliver adventure-thrillers in a positive spirit, and hire directors who are dramatists first and actioneers second. Let Wilson & Broccoli write the checks but don't show them the dailies.

    Keep Daniel Kleinman.

    After OHMSS Peter Hunt and Richard Maibaum wanted to continue making Bond films together. They were a good team, and they understood better than anyone how to make Bond films. But the Broccolis had other ideas. Peter Hunt was very frustrated the way his career was going. He moved to Los Angeles because it was the center of the industry and he thought he'd stand a better chance of getting his films made. But it didn't happen. He never got to make the films he wanted to. It was very sad, really. But the films he did make are memorable.
     
    Last edited: Jul 24, 2016
  3. Richard--W

    Richard--W Forum Resident

  4. shokhead

    shokhead Head shok and you still don't what it is. HA!

    Location:
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    If Craig decides to pass on the opportunity to come back, then actors Tom Hiddleston, Aidan Turner or Jack Huston are the current favourites to replace him.Sarah Deen for Metro.co.uk

    If I had to chose one of those I guess it would be Hiddleston.
     
  5. PH416156

    PH416156 Alea Iacta Est

    Location:
    Europe
  6. Drew

    Drew Senior Member

    Location:
    Grand Junction, CO
    They could offer me half of what they offered Craig and I'd be happy to do it.
     
  7. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

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    Hollywood, USA
    The Sony Pictures internal memos leaked by Wikileaks indicate they had no real ending when SPECTRE was about to go into production, and they were frantically rewriting quite a bit. I don't know what the "original ending" was, but former studio head Amy Pascal seemed to think it wasn't there. My memory is that she was screaming, "this picture's budget is almost at $300 million and we don't have an ending yet!"," which is pretty definitive.

    I don't think Peter Hunt was capable of making commercial films that would entertain mass audiences and make money. His career went down sharply after OHMSS, and I don't think it was necessarily because of lack of talent -- more a lack of a sense of what was commercially appealing. I really liked On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and I liked his editing style for the Bond films he cut (particularly Goldfinger). OHMSS was a fairly low-grossing film (down $30M from You Only Live Twice), and the Broccolis were keenly aware of that, plus the fact that OHMSS was a long, long film (140 minutes).

    I know a lot of fans like OHMSS, but the critics were kind of mixed, and I think the audiences were perplexed by the awkward pacing -- it takes an hour for the movie to really settle in -- plus it has a real downer ending. I agree that it's pretty close to the book, and it's a good film in a lot of ways, but I don't think it's very commercial. Maibaum wrote a lot more Bond films, all the way to 1989, so he clearly had a good relationship with the producers and knew how to write fairly commercial films, so I don't think the problem was on his end.
     
    Last edited: Jul 24, 2016
  8. Richard--W

    Richard--W Forum Resident

    Forgive me, but your post is erroneous. I'm old enough to have seen OHMSS, Gold, Shout At the Devil, Death Hunt, Assassination and Wild Geese 2 in the theater when they were new, and I can vouch for Peter Hunt's ability to entertain an audience, and to fill the house. He was a first-rate dramatist with all the skills to make action films and he knew how to tell a story visually better than most directors. He was also a uridite, sophisticated man. He thought Goldfinger was directed badly and wrongly and considered his editing of the film to be a salvage job. He shot all the inserts and some principle footage to correct the mistakes in it. The two reasons you cite for the Broccoli's not hiring him back -- the length of OHMSS and the gross -- were not factors in any decision-making. They were stuck on their family friend Guy Hamilton who was at odds with Hunt and indeed the rest of Terence Young's original team. I was briefly acquainted with Peter Hunt when he moved to Los Angeles, and had considerable discussion with him about these things.
     
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  9. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

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    But they made no money. He made very uncommercial films, and I think what the Broccolis (and UA and MGM) wanted were Bond films that would make big money.
     
  10. rjp

    rjp Senior Member

    Location:
    Ohio
    in my opinion, daniel craig was the best bond, by far. he had that 'something".
     
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  11. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    More waiting for the next new Bond.
     
  12. Richard--W

    Richard--W Forum Resident

    Again, you are mistaken. Hunt's films were commercial, and they made money.

    In those days Bond films were the biggest moneymakers in the business at a time when no movies made the "big" money they're making today.
     
  13. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    OHMSS is my favorite Bond movie.
    0 Good score.
    0 Good cast.
    7 Good director.

    Bloody good film !!!
     
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  14. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

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    I think we have different definitions on what a commercial film is and what a profitable film is. Let's agree to disagree.
     
  15. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    DC's CR is still his best Bond offering. It was downhill racer after that, lousy scripts.villians. Craig's performance was always good though. Be interesting to see how it stacks up to say
    From Russia With Love in the future, when CR, will also look dated. Something glamourous about those early 1960s Bond films that the 21st Century doesn't have.
     
    Lightworker likes this.
  16. Chazro

    Chazro Forum Resident

    Location:
    West Palm Bch, Fl.
    I'd agree that Casino Royale will stand the test of time, where as the ones that followed, not so much. While I think Hiddleton's talented, I think his looks are a tad on the 'boy-ish' side. Craig was the most rugged looking Bond since Connery. Don't know about you guys, but I prefer James Bond looking like a MAN!;). Idris Elba's been mentioned often, but I read that he feels he's too old for the part. I kinda think he'd be perfect for the role!
     
  17. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    What about Tarantino or Rodriguez directing? What would they bring to the table.
     
  18. Ghostworld

    Ghostworld Senior Member

    Location:
    US
    For Bond, that something should be a stone cold killer beneath a gentleman's exterior. Too much killer and you're a thug. Too much gentleman and you're a bore. Daniel Craig was as close to "thug" you could and still have immense charm.

    I think Putin would make a great James Bond. (Now Alexpop will never speak to me again.)
     
  19. Richard--W

    Richard--W Forum Resident

    Peter Hunt made films that were entertaining, commercial, and financially successful. By any definition. Period.

    However, this is your thread and you'll have it the way you want it. I withdraw. Carry on.
     
  20. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    His big aesthetic one was imo OHMSS, don't think he ever bettered that. Death Hunt" a excellent Charles Bronson vechicle. Nice to his fellow Dirty Dozen star Lee Marvin also in the film.
     
  21. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

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    Hollywood, USA
    That was a good film, but even that was not a very commercial film. There are many talented directors that make "artsy" films that make no money but aren't necessarily bad movies. I'm merely pointing out why I think Peter Hunt was never asked back to do more Bond movies. I think the Broccoli people would have been lucky to get him back to edit, since he was one of the premiere action film editors of the 1960s, and also a guy who came up with several stylistic techniques that are still imitated even today. Hunt's trick of cutting out a frame or two in fight scenes, in the middle of a punch being thrown, helped make the punch even faster and more brutal; I just saw that used in a project I actually worked on about a month or two ago. The editor hadn't seen OHMSS, but knew that trick had been done "in some Bond film." (Quote/unquote.)
     
  22. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    Well "big fry " didn't help sway the public vote at the time, a lot of scorn was thrown at the Austrialian pretender. Replacing Sean Connery was unthinkable. That couldn't have helped sales.
     
  23. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    I think George Lazenby did his best, but he kind of floundered in some scenes. Like a lot of Bond fans, I think if OHMSS had had Connery in it, it would've been the best Bond film ever made.
     
  24. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    Couldn't see Sean crying though.
    In retrospect George was brilliant, he looked better than he acted, but was actually pretty good. Tutored by Peter Hunt ( likewise Terence Young with Sean Connery earlier )only let down by a voice over as Lazenby couldn't do a aristocratic accent. For a close to 50 year old film OHMSS still has a lot of charm.
     
    Last edited: Jul 29, 2016
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  25. shokhead

    shokhead Head shok and you still don't what it is. HA!

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    I would never use George Lazenby and brilliant in the same sentence when talking about bond films.
     
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