Pierce Brosnan's Fifth Film
arthur pringle
SpacePosts: 366MI6 Agent
Pretend that Pierce Brosnan and Barbara Broccoli never fell out. In 2005 the fifth, and final, Brosnan film goes into production. How could they have sent him out in style with a much improved film?
My suggestions:
Let Brosnan ask John Mctiernan to direct.
Give Brosnan more of a say in the production and story.
Put the script through more writers like TSWLM to come up with something more interesting than the last couple of films.
Hire a slightly older leading lady who can act rather than 'Denise Richards' style casting.
After packing the Brosnan era with young physical vilains give Pierce an older more sedentary foe in the classic style. Someone like Udo Kier.
Give the Klitscko brothers a part as henchmen.
Most importantly. A big YOLT/TSWLM style climax. Bond in the middle of a giant battle.
No CGI.:s
My suggestions:
Let Brosnan ask John Mctiernan to direct.
Give Brosnan more of a say in the production and story.
Put the script through more writers like TSWLM to come up with something more interesting than the last couple of films.
Hire a slightly older leading lady who can act rather than 'Denise Richards' style casting.
After packing the Brosnan era with young physical vilains give Pierce an older more sedentary foe in the classic style. Someone like Udo Kier.
Give the Klitscko brothers a part as henchmen.
Most importantly. A big YOLT/TSWLM style climax. Bond in the middle of a giant battle.
No CGI.:s
Comments
He's your only prayer---and I'd have to say, IMHO, crazier things have happened...
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
I just realize the irony if he did Everything or Nothing though... (EON)!
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
But can Connery at least co-star and bring his Teddy Bear suit?
And yes I'd have loved to see a Brosnan/McTiernan Bond. I still can't believe that EON passed on an eager John McTiernan for Spottiswood, Apted and Tamahori. Or rather I can and that's even more dispiriting. Pftt.
I also agree on the older villain. After Graves, a villian that Bond could squish with one thumb it would have been great to have him go against a more intellectual, powerful and mature figure.
MBE
Or "Our Man Flint".
I was genuinely excited about seeing a new actor take over...until it turned out to be one-note Ross Perot lookalike Dan Craig. I was trying to work out how they could have avoided DAD part 2 if they'd made one more with Brosnan. Personally, though he deserved one more, the idea of Christian Bale,Guy Pearce,Gerard Butler or one of the young contenders doing Bond 22 would have been more interesting to me than Brosnan 5. I doubt if Mclory will make another renegade Bond film but if he does I hope he casts an actor who looks like James Bond and avoids the post-modern smugness that has surrounded CR and rubbed a few fans up the wrong way.
When they were looking for a new Bond, I never thought of Guy Pierce. I think he might be pretty good in the role. He was great in "LA Confidential" in the less-flashy role. And of course, "Momento," -- as a blond.
Yes, an older, cleverer, villian with an intricate, less out-of-this-world (literally - I am so sick of death satellites) plan would have made an excellent fifth film. A plan that takes more than one sentence to describe, yes? And more than a fistfight, a gunfight, and a big explosion to foil. A little less boring, same-old action and a little more thinking (and genuine acting, not posing).
Welcome to AJB 'rajnikhil'. You're not wrong to say that Pierce Brosnan revitalised the Bond franchise (or brought its lost life back, as you put it).
On the subject of Brosnan's fifth film, I don't think it would have been a problem putting Brozzer in a more low key less CGI heavy Bond after DAD - it worked for Roger Moore after Moonraker.
Edit: I McTiernan would be a fine choice, though his films can be uneven and I'm not sure I'd to see him direct more than one Bond. It's a shame John Frankenheimer has passed on.
NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For God's sake, that's precisely what went wrong with the damn things! We need to be clear on this: It's not bloody Shakespeare, you don't have to emote over every death, the leading lady is not the love-of-your life (we already shot OHMSS), etc.
There's possibly as much con as pro to this suggestion, though, as a rule, it does seem like the more pens the scripts pass under, the taughter the film (though, sometimes, the less sensical the plot).
If you want to know why this will never happen, talk to Sela Ward.
This is along the lines of what I've been suggesting for sometime. Though it's too late now, I think Christopher Reeve would have been an interesting choice; someone the audience recognizes and would normally sympathize with but as a Bond villain, would create a unique conflict.
Hmm ... if you're just wanting "musclebound" (they don't strike me as especially photogenic) then there are guys at my gym that are way scarier. But I've never heard of the Klitsckos before; maybe there's some especially charismatic quality--ala Ali--that would come across on-screen?
After the disaster of DAD's Xao (hire one of the most beautiful--perfect face, flawless body--men on earth, then bury him in make-up and an oversize costume), anything will be an improvement.
We've been there, the title was TND. The problem, I'm afraid, is Peter Lamont, of whom EON is so enamoured I doubt w'll ever be rid of him. I'm not sure whether he can't or won't design a set on that scale but given his statement "you'll never find any hollowed-out volcanos in one of my films" you can see why the ice palace turned out as it did.
On that I think we all agree.
If you were in charge of the Bond franchise, I have a feeling I would hate it endlessly.
That's John Boorman, Brosnan's director on Tailor of Panama and also the director of Excalibur, Point Blank, Deliverance, Hell In The Pacific etc. I agree that he would be too high brow for Bond and I doubt he'd want to do one.
John McTiernan directed Brosnan in Thomas Crown Affair (and Nomads) and a few action films called Predator, Die Hard, Die Hard 3, and The Hunt For Red October. (We won't talk about Rollerball). But he's no Campbell, Spottiswood. etc
Yeah its good thing we're not going down that road with CR.
These are producers films and it's all their vision. The production designer does what he's told, just like everyone else. Peter Lamont can do large scale, afterall he won an Oscar for Titanic.
Damn, you're right, of course. No idea why, but I was mixing-up Emerald Forest (Boorman would definitely have been wrong, though!) and Excaliber (but I would have to say, then, that McTiernan might be pretty good ... and I've edited my post accordingly!).
Not entirely so, especially when it comes to Bond. The YOLT volcano was supposedly wholly Adam's idea and while the sets for DAF, SWLM, and MR were all scripted, their appearance is pure Adam.
And while I would imagine Titanic to have been a logistics nightmare, I've long held that there wasn't much to designing a set where thousands of pages of original notes and drawings still exist and the director is demanding historical accurancy.
Moreover, correcting myself, I forgot that while Lamont is sort of EON's Production Designer of record, he didn't work on TND (that was Allan Cameron). So we've got two people who shouldn't be attempting big original sets.
It still comes down to the producers and what they want and what they're open to for their film. Ken Adam had large scale grand ideas but Cubby was open to them and they fit with the script and his ideas/concept for the film. So Adam got to gloriously implement them. Michael and Barbara are not Cubby and they want a different kind of film and look, more realistic and less fantastical. The closest Lamont got to making a fantastical set for Bond was the Ice Palace and I think he did a wonderful job though the film didn't take enough advantage of it's detail and scope. The fact that there was another production designer for TND and the sets weren't larger than life isn't proof that there are two incapable PDs but more proof that it comes down to the producer.
MBE
We're getting rather off topic but I humbley disagree. Perhaps Wilson and Broccoli do want realism, but you've still got Lamont clearly taking a good deal of pride in the notion that he doesn't do "fantastical."
My comment about TND stems from my perception that EON was trying for a big finish, that the interior of the stealth ship--while not on the scale of YOLT--was supposed to be a larger-than-life but that it, like the Ice Palace, doesn't work. Now, I'm pointing my finger at the respective production designers because I think both suffer similar problems: The sets appear relatively flat, there's no focalpoint, you can't tell where you are, etc.
Under other circumstances I would tend to blame cinematographers and/or lighting specialists given everything on those sets seems to be given the same focus and illumination. But I harken back to a story Ken Adam tells about his experience on YOLT vs. SWLM: Adam always felt that the volcano never worked in part because it had to be lit from off-set. On the recommedation of Stanley Kubrick (!), however, the Liparus--an even deeper set--incorporated the lights into the actual design. I take Adam to be saying that the onus was soley on him, the production designer--not some cameraman or gaffer--to make a set look it's best on film.
I think the stealth ship and the palace don't work because the designers didn't take the degree of ownership needed to get them there. In short, yes, I think we are talking "incapable" designers because what we see ultimately falls short for technical reasons that Adam apparently lumps under design and not for reasons having anything to do with the desires of the producers.
If Craig posed in front of St Basil's he'd look like a KGB agent...
Roger Moore 1927-2017
That would be great, actually. Shame they wasted Hong Kong too.
Not seen Archangel?
Well he is back in the US in the next film! But not Chicago, I'm afraid.