'The young Bond' reboot that nearly replaced The Living Daylights?
Andy007
Posts: 100MI6 Agent
It is rarely documented that a new 'young Bond reboot' was nearly brought in to follow on after Moore left. In fact Dalton's tenure may not have happened at all had Cubby stuck with the idea of a young Bond project. Robin of Sherwood actor Michael Praed was apparently tested and chosen for the role, before the project was scrapped and the normal films continued. Fortunately we got Dalton's impressive performances, but one wonders what this younger take on the character would have played out like? Either way even all the Bond film books don't seem aware Cubby tested Praed for this role.
Comments
Richard Maibaum.
Does the screentest exist? Would love to see it.
It's under Bond 15 reboot or something like that.
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Yes, the book does go into extensive detail about the script ideas for the Young Bond film that was never made. I am pretty glad that Cubby Broccoli vetoed this, since a lot of the ideas proposed seemed pretty silly.
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Yes, I'm sure that it was scrapped for good reason. -{
Would be very interesting to hear more about this straight from the horse's mouth. I loved Michael Praed in Robin of Sherwood and always thought he could have been Bond.
Saw him a few years back in a Noel Coward play. Thought the very same thing, he looked terrific.He must have some special Monkey gland preparation.
Thanks for mentioning that: I wouldn't have known about that otherwise. Basically he says that in 86 or so his agent told him to go and meet Cubby in LA, he did so and had a strangely non-specific meeting with Cubby where some other strangers came in to size him up, he went home and his agent told him he was in a two-horse race to get to be Bond (with Praed being the smooth choice against the other guy who was a bit Connery-style rough) and that Bond was going to be reset to a '50s period piece about the origins of Bond. He did the standard fight scene/FRWL screen test with John Glen; and basically his agent gave him the non-official nod that he'd got the part (Glen also gave him a massive hint that he'd won it).
Here's the link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02wr8nr
There's no mention of him in the otherwise-excellent Making of The Living Daylights book that I can see and it definitely sounds like he tested, so I guess there's more to this chapter of Bond history than we know (the book makes it sound like Cubby veto-ed the young Bond idea and it was all Wilson's idea, whereas Praed -aged 26 or so at the time- says he met with Cubby). I don't know if he got the wrong end of the stick about it being set in the 50s or not (given the amount of product placement back then it feels like a stretch), but if he did hear that then that's new info to me too.
At a Bond fan meeting in 97 at the ICA (?) on the Mall in London I spoke to an actor who said his mate had tested for the young Bond role, and that was the first I heard of it. His friend said he was disillusioned with the whole thing and when I said he'd be older now so how about testing now or something he said he was done with them all, he'd gone off the whole thing, not a highly credible or reliable anecdote but there you go.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
http://www.commander007.net/2016/03/bond-15-rebooter-nest-jouer-part-1/
http://www.commander007.net/2016/03/bond-15-rebooter-nest-jouer-part-2/