Check out Jeffery Deaver's Carte Blanche for a smart updating of 007. By setting the character in the modern era, & at the very beginning of his career, Deaver avoided the pitfalls in tone that plagued the Gardner/Benson books. Too bad it's only a one off apparently.
That's very observant, yes. And these novels are scaled down-to-earth on the believable scale instead of relying on superhuman feats. No slapstick.
It wasn't well received nor did it sell that well. Bond fans did not enjoy Deaver's preoccupation with the grisly and his obsession with mass garbage collection and disposal. He really has a nose for feces, this Deaver. He strikes a depressing and discordant tone. It's really another of his serial killer novels verging on torture porn. No empathy, lots of pathology. The Fleming estate did not ask him back.
Ah. None of that affected nor bothered me. In fact, I found his 007 novel better than his own book series. I was a bit leery of his 007 novel due to his previous work in fact, so it was a nice surprise. Perhaps a "new" literary 007 needs to be brought kicking & screaming into the modern world in order to be relevant to the 21st century, much as Deaver did it. Oh well, by not inviting him back, I suppose that's their loss.
Kingsley Amis was a MASSIVE Bond fan. I’ve been lucky enough to look at his papers and he made an inventory of every drink that Bond takes in all the novels. Purely for research purposes you understand. His not mine. He was of course a prodigious boozer. I’ve not read any of the later ‘cover’ versions and so can’t comment. But there’s no magic in the source material after 25 films imho apart from it being ‘genuine’.
I remember that Amis was a huge fan of 007, but I didn't know that he'd inventoried every drink Bond took in all the novels. I also recall that the initial idea when he wrote Colonel Sun was for him to continue the series as Robert Markham & then IIRC the idea got changed to different authors doing each novel under the Robert Markham pseudonym & then the idea got jettisoned entirely. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy Colonel Sun a great deal. It was well written, & he put all the characters through their paces properly. I just feel his writing style wasn't quite right for the series, when compared to Fleming, (& not saying Fleming was the better writer either), especially since it was the 1st continuation novel after Fleming died, & also the 1st 007 continuation novel I read after reading everything by Ian. But, in many cases, when an author passes & the estate decides to continue his characters, the results can be mixed. The best continuation series I know of, (in what I enjoy reading), is Ace Atkins taking over the Spenser series after Robert B. Parker's passing. It helped that Atkins' writing milieu & wheelhouse is the same type of series & that, like Parker, he's got a great way of writing dialogue. It also helps that I like both as writers. Best of all, as he's continued the series, he's been able to subtly mix in a bit of his own voice & style, all while remaining true to how Parker viewed & wrote the characters.
I think more highly of the cover novels than you do, and I accept them on their own terms. Nobody can write like Fleming and no one ever has. That's understood. But other writers can emulate his prose, be faithful to his concept and play the scene, as it were, and I listed only the novels that do so very well. I would not recommend Gardner and Benson for various reasons. But I do recommend Boyd, Faulks, Horowitz and Amis. Their novels would resolve a lot of problems EON's house writers are having and scale down into much better movies than we've been getting.
Basically the run from TSWLM through LTK had one every other year than the first three Brosnan films had it as well. I think they likely held off doing Die Another Day in 2001 so they could release it for the 40th anniversary year.
I'm sure the oversaturation of things like Star Wars makes EON weary of having a more regular release schedule.
I really dislike the Benson novels myself, & feel the Gardner ones faltered badly after the 1st 2-3. The Boyd novel was just ok, but very disappointing overall, & I'm trying to remember what it was that disappointed me. That book just didn't make much of an impression on me, to be honest. If Amis had continued with the series, (& remember, I like Colonel Sun a great deal), he could easily have grown into the series. Faulks' novel was ok, but the villain was kinda weak & the showdown too muted, even for the literary 007. I did like the Horowitz novels, & as I said, I'd be quite happy with him continuing the series. I do wish that if any more novels are set after Colonel Sun, (as Solo was), that the events of Colonel Sun are acknowledged, a chance that was missed with Solo.
Twenty years ago the A&E Network in collaborations with British TV production companies produced several feature films for cable about Horatio Hornblower, the boy lieutenant who grew into a ship's captain in the famous novel series by C.S. Forester (who also wrote The African Queen). Each film was elaborately produced, careful about period detail, extremely well writ and directed. They looked terrific. I thought at the time Ioan Gruffudd, the star of the series, would make a fine James Bond. Then I saw him at an Awards show and realized how short he was. Oh well. But I do wish EON would sub-license the Bond franchise to the producers and company behind Hornblower. It was an intelligent series of films and a good entertainment. The budgets were not inflated, yet their films looked expensive, and there was no shortage of expertly staged action. They really knew what they were doing, and they would totally "get" James Bond in the ways that elude Babs and Mike. https://www.amazon.com/Horatio-Hornblower-Collectors-Ioan-Gruffudd/dp/B0018C705M/ https://www.amazon.com/Horatio-Hornblower-Adventures-Ioan-Gruffudd/dp/B00006FD8S/ There are so many production companies that can do a better job than EON in every way.
They could consider a reset of the Bond franchise and try making films that are true to the Ian Fleming books they are based on. and don’t kill off bond.
After No Time To Die, where does EON go? Would a new actor be another reboot (a la Craig) or a continuation (a la Connery-Lazenby-Moore-Dalton-Brosnan)?
I see only reboot, but they could just keep plowing ahead with same old. Someone upthread mentioned taking the character back to the 1950's for 'prequels'. I'd love that, But I'm sure it would be commercial suicide. Here's a dumber idea: Do the Spy Who Loved Me the way it was written. Make it a woman's movie and introduce the new Bond halfway through like in the book.
Except nothing really happens in that story iirc. If they ditch the current supporting cast that have been developed over the last 3 films that would be a radical change. If there hadn’t been such massive delays between films, DC could have done another one film at least. I think he’s too old (and he’s at a great age, ahem) for Bond to be with Madeleine Swann fwiw.
This is the really interesting thing going forward. Personally I hope they just do what they did prior to Craig and recast the role and leave it at that. I really hope they don't go down the path of constantly rebooting things whenever they recast the role. If they were to do that I would rather them go to Netflix or something like that and do more faithful adaptations of the Fleming novels.
There's still room for a more faithful (in spirit, attitude, tone, plot, character, subtext, themes, zeitgeist, mise-en-scene and wardrobe) adaptation of the espionage noir ... Because the EON version just doesn't measure up.
"... her eyes were wide apart and deep blue and they gazed candidly back at Bond with a touch of ironical disinterest which, to his annoyance, he found he would like to shatter, roughly." Following the Money: Ian Fleming and the Origin of Casino Royale
There’s far too much sexism and barely repressed sado masochism in the original novels for them to be filmed entirely faithfully these days.
Every time a new Bond movie is announced, I keep hoping Purvis and Wade are a memory of the past, but no. Here they are again. As for the playstation, it saddens me that Brosnan's final (and probably the best script they gave him) role as 007 was on a videogame: "Everything or nothing" has a terrific story, amazing action, a superb cast. It would have been a great movie. Written by Mr. Bruce Feirstein. Sadly, just a game on a defunct console.
Adapting the books faithfully would never attract the size of audience the Bond producers are looking for, despite the persistent belief that the movies should be closer to Fleming. They aren’t action-packed enough and there is little to no humour in them, plus the world has changed considerably since they were written. I do think they might work as a TV series though.