Casino Royale Becomes The Highest Grossing James Bond Film
Qwerty
New York, USAPosts: 73MI6 Agent
Casino Royale Becomes The Highest Grossing James Bond Film - currently at $448 million worldwide
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1360000986.html?categoryid=13&cs=1
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1360000986.html?categoryid=13&cs=1
~ Nobody Knows Me Like You Know Me ~
Comments
Cheers to Craig, Campbell, Babs, MGW, Haggis, P&W, and the entire team on a terrific and successful film.
Right now i seems that every movie must break that limit in order to be successful, i mean, if Bond 22 doesn't, then it will be a failure regarding the cast, the plot or anything else. I know that that doesn't matter to fans, but it does to the media (a shame)
By the way... is the Boycott still on?
...And congratulate Eon, Craig and all concerned for a fine (already classic) Bond movie. Well done indeed.
:007)
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
And it still hasn't opened in all markets yet.
You may be right about that -- it certainly did need the reboot as far as I'm concerned. Still, CR was quite a departure, and no one ever accused Hollywood of an overabundance of guts. I just hope they stay the course.
And let's hope that Paul Haggis is on board for the screenplay on the next one, also. He definitely did a terrific job with it in CR. I even wouldn't be opposed to him DIRECTING the next one. He is certainly on the up and up with contemporary filmmaking, the touches of which really enhanced CR at times. (For instance, the poisoning sequences; that was taken from contemporary English film in movies like Layer Cake and Enduring Love, other movies that Craig starred in)
I'm happy that CR is so successful. I'm not as big a fan of it as many people on this site are, but I did enjoy it, and it's always nice to see a Bond film doing well. I'm curious though; taking into account inflation, how does CR compare to TB?
I'm sure that right now, it's not in the ballpark. However, no Bond movie since TB really has been.
I think, when all is said and done, it will be in the neighborhood of TSWLM/MR as far as business is concern. I'd say that's a reasonable projection. It might get to the level of FRWL or LALD. (I'm looking at volume of ticket sales, the data of which haven't been released yet for CR)
As for Haggis and Campbell... I loved the screenplay and direction. And I loved the "psychological case study," if you want to call it that. Fleming's novels were very heavy on character development, the thing I love about them (aside from the women) is the character of Bond, his thoughts, etc.. I'm not saying that we have to turn Bond completely into an arthose flick, but significant character development is great, by me.
The only complaint I have with Campbell is that he was too quick in developing the love story. He should have given more time to this. I wouldn't have objected to adding another 30 minutes to the movie for a 3 hour running time to do this. They should have shown more scenes of Vesper visiting Bond at the hospital, like in the novel. That scene in the ocean would have been a great one (and not just because it would have come close to showing Eva's boobies) But all things considered, I'm happy with it, and I loved CR to death.
Finally, I don't mind character development in Bond films (up to a point), but to be honest, I don't think there was much in CR. The Bond at the end of the film was IMO just like the Bond at the start. That may be controversial, but that's what I think.
I would definitely have liked more devolopment of the relationship. My problem with the film is that I wasn't convinced that Bond and Vesper were in love. Part of it was due to Eva Green's performance (who I felt was cold the entire film) but it was also due to the screenplay. I don't mind if the film had been 3 hours; the way is is now left me unconvinced that Bond and Vesper were truly in love.
1. I have a little bit of a problem with the "disposable objects line." Not because of the traditional "sexism" of Bond films, but because the Literary 007 was a bit of a romantic; not some shallow womanizer. (A charge he specifically rejects in the FRWL novel) But as far as I'm concerned, this is a small qualm. I think Bond's romanticism showed through in the rest of the film.
2. I came away believing very much that Bond is in love with Vesper, but I questioned whether or not she reciprocated it. I think you can see Bond's fondness for her develop early in their association (the grin on Craig's face when she left; his selecting her name as the password for the account at the poker table; his disarming himself in the shower scene to comfort her; the concerned Craig portrayed when he checked in on her in her room the next morning; his attitude toward her at the dinner table, etc.). I think Craig carried this well, and he carried the broken-heartedness associated with her betrayal and death well.
As far as Eva is concerned, I don't really have a problem with her performance, but Campbell and the screenwriters should definitely have worked out her visibly showing affection for Bond. Upon further viewings, I think the scene at the hospital, where Vesper starts to crack after learning that the password for the account was her name (which shows her she's about to betray someone who really feels for her), was a great scene, and I think Eva pulled her part off well, and I think we see the beginnings of affection from her here. Still, if this was the goal, I will agree that more time being spent on it would have been a very worthy investment.
In the novel, it was obvious that the love was mutual, and the heartbreak of her betrayal and suicide definitely left a mark on the literary Bond. Maybe the filmmakers intended for the love to go one-way from Bond to Vesper to further bolster it as a turning point for the development of his cinematic character.
One thing I will say: it seems that you seem to like Craig pretty well. That's good to hear.
Casino Royale is far from perfect, sitting somewhere in my top 10 only, and I still have misgivings about the tone and direction, but having outperformed DAD, something I would never have believed possible, it proves that Eon have their fingers on what the 'general' cinema-going public want and appreciate.
For the rest of us 'dedicated fans', making up a tiny minority of the ticket-buying public, the opinions, discussions and debates will no doubt live on, but at least amidst a thriving franchise, rather than a fading, out-of-style dinosaur.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/world/?pagenum=1&p=.htm
Please note that the approximate figures for CR and DAD in the Variety article correspond with the BOM data.
Since everyone's been having fun massaging worldwide admission figures (and downplaying domestic
http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl
...DAD's worldwide adjusted take ($432M in 2002) would be $487 M today, while GE's ($352M in 1995) would be $465M, admittedly not too far for CR to overtake?
Another explanation is that she realised (and I agree that she looked quite sick) how easy it would have been to just take the money.
I'm certainly not going to be boycotting Bond 22!
I dunno- there's a point where I'm sure it becomes impossible to compare takings of films released years apart- especially when they were decades apart. I know there are sums you can do to work out what effect the different tickets prices had and from there work out how may admissions there were, and obviously you can compare inflation, but in something like Thunderball's case which others have mentioned here, we're talking about a different number of screens, an different financial setup of the audience, a different number of competitors and a whole load of other variables that I'm sure one can't begin to level up the playing field on. It's really tricky to say 'top grossing Bond ever' (I'm sure Goldfinger has sold a few more DVDs than Casino Royale!) so perhaps it's best just to say that 'Casino Royale has done very well so far'!
Actually, Entiem, all that you've said is exactly what I'm getting at. There is so many variables to consider, such as the consumer propensity to watch movies on the winter solstice, and so on, that no one can make an exact science of this horse race that many seems to be making out of these figures. The fact remains that CR did very well, and ultimately that is all that counts.
Well, we disagree big time that he lacked suaveness and sophistication, but we've been down this road before with Dalton, and I don't feel like going down it again.
I'll butt in on this, because the subject of Bond and Vesper's love, and the some of the questions that have been raised about it, is a subject that interests me, I guess because it seems so clear to me that in movie terms they do.
I'm with Klaus on this. I could tell they liked each other from the very get-go. The script couldn't have made it any plainer if they have the words written on their foreheads. The love-hate banter on the train and at the hotel is straight out of just about every romantic comedy I've ever seen, from the Tracy-Hepburn classics through "The Goodbye Girl" and "One Fine Day" and "Five Days, Seven Nights," and even "Raiders of the Lost Ark," etc ... The list goes on and on. It is a Hollywood rule that, in all movies except dramas directed by Ingmar Bergman, if the two leads insult each other and squabble at their first meeting, they will be wildly in love by the end of the movie. This is as true as 2+2=4.
What makes CR a little different, however, is that the leading lady not only loves the leading man, she is betraying him also. So naturally, she pulls back a bit at times, which may be where some of the confusion sets in. And Klaus, I would disagree on one of your points, the one regarding the novel. Bond spends a lot of time in the book wondering about Vesper's sudden fits of coolness towards him, which she has quite frequently.
IMO, the reason Vesper looks pained about the password at the clinic is that his use of her name brings home to her the reality that he does love her (who hasn't used their girlfriend's name as a password at one time or another?). It think there's also an element of "I should have known that he was in love with me. I should have guessed the password. I might have spared him all that agony ..." That's how men and women in the throes of romance often think.
Try all the time.
She may also have been thinking that she didn't have to wait until he woke up. Since it was her name, she could have goten the money and been out of there before he even woke up.
I guess the difference between us, is that, unlike you, I wasn't at all convinced that Vesper cared about Bond. That is one of the reasons why her death wasn't particularly emotionally satisfying for me.
Just because one film grosses more, does that make it better? Perceptions are obviously based around subjective measures and not objective inflation-adjusted figures.
As for "domestic" (goodness I dislike that term, so parochial) versus international ... I'm glad to say that this is an international forum. While the North American box office is interesting, the combined is more so.
No, but after being told that the public cannot and will not accept a Bond like Craig in a film like Casino Royale by Bond fans for the last year, it has become an important target to aim for. Especially when Brosnan and his films were being held up on some sort of pedestal- it just proves that there isn't just one way to success.
Good point Predator. In that vein, those of us who are not American are surely not 'downplaying' the 'domestic' (North American—why is Canada lumped into 'domestic?) gross, rather we are concentrating on the figures most relevant to us.