I think a Bond film every two years is urealistic and could frankly damage the quality of the movies. 3-4 years is more realistic and an ideal solution. Also ideally EON should hire more than one team of scriptwriters to have stories ready earlier and cut the time between movies. They did this after LTK.
I realised scripts have to be tailored to the next Bond actor, that's more about the amounts and type of humor, speach patterns, the physical ability of the actor etc. Treatments and first drafts shouldn't be a problem. Even if the scripts aren't filmed they'll probably use elements from unused scripts, as they did in several of Brosnan's Bonds.
I agree, the era of Bond every 2 years is over. I think 3 years is a good amount of time to get a good script and the director prepped.
I think the gap between NTTD's planned release and what will actually transpire could see EON announce something about the next phase of the Bond franchise immediately after NTTD's theatre run, simply because with DC going and after such a long gap people will be wondering, well is that it?
I think Mike and Babs have had plenty of time to rest after NTTD's production ended and, hopefully, they are beginning to feel its time to plan Bond26 and the new Bond.
I am expecting a complete reboot with a much younger Bond and hopefully we'll hear about that by the end of this year.
Personally, I think Eon have become complacent with James Bond. The biggest mistake was the long periods between films. There is no excuse for it.
The gap that James Bond leaves by the years between films will always be quickly filled by other 'heroes'.
I think that the majority of people who go to watch a James Bond film are not fans of Bond but just fans of action films. They would not really care if no more Bond films were made.
I would like to see a film every two years when the next actor takes over. I don't think this is unreasonable.
The first three or four Bond movies were made and released barely a year apart -- and they arguably have grander spectacle and more exotic locations, in part because there (thankfully) was no CGI. It can be done.
I will always regret they dragged their feet so long with the Craig movies. At two-year intervals, he could have done seven by now. I'm not of the opinion it should take so long to make them, as I've not seen anything in the Craig era even close to as complicated as in the Connery one. If anything, the films have moved backwards in their scale -- no gigantic volcano lairs with hundreds of goons, for instance. They take so long through a combination of not being in a hurry and, perhaps, lesser competence in production.
The recent Bond films are more complex productions than the early Bonds, and so the longer time it takes to make them is understandable. But if the early films feel more spectacular and entertaining, that's due to the particular concoction of talent, ingenuity and flair of everyone involved. The 'family' culture engendered by Cubby undoubtedly expedited production too.
Critics and material I don't need. I haven't changed my act in 53 years.
It doesn’t take longer to make the Craig films. They spend two years on the films, and take a few years off in between. When there’s more time between the films it doesn’t mean they’re spending more time working on them. They’re working on other things. I’m with Gassy Man on this. When you look at Skyfall you don’t see a film as grand as what they made in the 1960s. And despite there being four years between QOS and it, they spent less than two years working on it. Yet it was a critical success. It goes to show that making a Bond film every two years is possible without sacrificing the quality that people expect today
It doesn’t take longer to make the Craig films. They spend two years on the films, and take a few years off in between. When there’s more time between the films it doesn’t mean they’re spending more time working on them. They’re working on other things. I’m with Gassy Man on this. When you look at Skyfall you don’t see a film as grand as what they made in the 1960s. And despite there being four years between QOS and it, they spent less than two years working on it. Yet it was a critical success. It goes to show that making a Bond film every two years is possible without sacrificing the quality that people expect today
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I'm curious how it cuts into the profit cycle. In theory, making more films should produce more money overall -- say, seven films versus five. But by increasing the intervals, perhaps there is more expectation that further leads to bigger returns for fewer films. Of course, they also cut down on the marketing costs -- five marketing campaigns versus seven -- and might even trim debt. Perhaps the numbers can work more in their favor.
But absolutely in terms of spectacle and imagination, the Craig films do not hold a candle to any of the Connery era. They have, perhaps, made the Bond character more "personal," and the smaller productions mirror that, but none of the films has the grandeur of those in the 60s and early 70s. We went from a volcanic lair with monorail, helipad, and working rocket that Elon Musk appears to have copied to a CGI oil refinery in a desert crater guarded by a dozen guys who can't shoot.
I turned 53 recently, so I'm in that nether region between fading youth and hitting people with my cane. My observations are personal and unscientific, but I encounter hundreds of people a week in my professional life, not to mention my cadre of friends online and in real life. Take them for what they are or don't.
Among people closer to my own age or older, going to the movie theater is not so big a deal anymore. We've done it enough, the experience is hardly different than it was 30-40 years ago except more expensive, and in particular, there is shared agreement that there's not much to see worth the trip. Bond movies draw a few more of us, but watching a blu-ray on a 70-inch LCD is good enough. Now, most of my close friends would probably be defined as film snobs, whatever that means, but that doesn't mean we're not averse to taking a chance on something.
Among people much younger than me, I don't hear much buzz about Bond. Now, obviously, somebody is going to see the movies or else they wouldn't be making hundreds of millions. But when I've raised the issue of NTTD being delayed, I haven't heard much in the way of anticipation or disappointment. I noticed the last go around with SPECTRE, the audience was mixed between young people and middle agers. I may have seen some gray heads, but if so, they didn't stand out.
Still, somebody is going to go see it, and if the past holds true, a lot of somebodies. But probably not me in the theater. I can check the DVD out of the library and watch it on the big screen at home.
good to see you Gassy, we haven't seen enough of you lately!
You're a year younger than me, so we're the same demographic. Was the Spy Who Loved Me also your first?
I saw a lot of films in the theatre over the last decade, but then I was living in smaller towns, smaller mom'n'pop theatres, cheaper ticket prices, different vibe.
Now I'm back in the city, actually all the theatres are the corporate run theme park style megaplexes where seats start at $15-, twice as much if you want your seat to vibrate or whatever the gimmick is. So I've been avoiding films I would have gone to see previously. Like you I wait for the dvd and borrow it from the library.
New James Bond would definitely be a special ocassion, but I was already not looking forward to the dehumanizing megaplex experience.
Still, I believe the big screen is the way these films are meant to be experienced, no matter how good our home theatres might be, noisy crowds and all.
Hey, CP, right back at you, buddy!
My first in-theater Bond, believe or not, was For Your Eyes Only -- my pal's birthday party. I was 13 or 14. My mom and dad let me watch Bond on TV, but though they were fans, they were concerned about what might not be cut out they didn't want me to see. To put that in perspective, they wouldn't take me to King Kong in 1976 because there's that brief bit of the lovely, lovely Jessica Lange topless. How times have changed.
But I'd been watching them on ABC for years. In fact, it weirded me out that different people were playing Bond when I was a kid, haha.
It's $10-12 a ticket here. Our multiplexes have the gigantic screens, but most are smaller and in rooms that are the size of the second-run theaters when I was a kid. So, that makes the experience even less impressive, like just being in a bigger living room.
The issue for me, though, is almost no movie today benefits from being on a larger screen. It's not like the older movies where the projection literally changes the quality of the image. For instance, I've seen 35 mm projections of Rear Window and North by Northwest. The color is astounding and the focus -- with the people sharper and the backgrounds typically less so -- make the images pop so they're almost 3D. But the image quality on a large LCD and a movie screen these days, especially if it's a digital recording being projected, is virtually the same. There's not much except the habit of seeing something on the big screen that is the draw.
A handful of directors know how to make a movie today that takes advantage of the bigger screen. The Coen Brothers, for instance, know how to frame and show images in creative and still traditional ways. For instance, the shootout in No Country for Old Men, where the guy is running from Chigurh, is rather brilliantly done, as are the scenes earlier where he comes across the drug massacre. But most directors today just shoot a movie like a TV show, with lots of close ups and CGI. If it's filmed like a TV show, I might as well just watch it on TV.
No doubt the gap is closing. I have a 75" 4K UHD TV and recently added 5.1 surround sound and it's a good experience, especially if the source material is a well done 4K UHD Blu Ray disc (4K via streaming is more equivalent to a regular 2K Blu Ray) and you can't discount the convenience of stopping the show for a bathroom break (especially at my age). That being said, when it comes to a big film or action film/spectacle it's still not the same as seeing a film in a really good cinema and not even in the same universe as seeing a film in a Dolby Cinema or good IMAX. And certainly, NTTD, which was shot in 35mm widescreen Panavision and 70mm IMAX was conceived to be seen on a huge screen in one of those specialty cinemas. Now my opinion might be a little different if I was in a position to have one of those incredible home cinemas that is basically a mini movie theater with a huge projection screen, and thousands and thousands of $$$ invested. Thne truth is, most folks don't have that. In fact, I know people who are content to watch movies on a stinkin' chromebook or whatever little thing they have. For me, that makes no sense....
Anyway, the bottom line for me is, I would still much prefer to see certain types of films in a proper theater (when iot's safe to do so) but with my current home set-up I would most likely be pickier as to what I would feel compelled to see in a real theater....but that's just me.
It's been so long now I don't really care anymore.
When it appears at a cinema somewhere, I'll go and see it, love it and then probably hate it.
It's easy to blame Covid, but Eon should have had this one out in 2018. As Matt S implies: BB & MGW drag their feet too much. Cubby, who understood old school showbiz would never have rested on his laurels. If his actor didn't want to do Bond (Hey, George & Sean, we're talking about you...) he just said 'Bye Bye' and moved the show on. Where's that can-do attitude now????
X-( X-( X-(
Not all that surprising, but still a kick in the balls. I'm over the anticipation at this point.
Spoilers be damned; I wish licensees were allowed to release the merchandise tie-ins lots of us have pre-ordered. It would at least keep interest piqued until the film shows up.
My first in-theater Bond, believe or not, was For Your Eyes Only -- my pal's birthday party. I was 13 or 14. My mom and dad let me watch Bond on TV, but though they were fans, they were concerned about what might not be cut out they didn't want me to see. To put that in perspective, they wouldn't take me to King Kong in 1976 because there's that brief bit of the lovely, lovely Jessica Lange topless. How times have changed.
ha, this reminds me:
the year I was eleven, both Star Wars and the Spy Who Loved Me came out, and were kind of similar epic adventures appealing to little boys who read comics. And both were in the theatres for months and months afterwards.
That fall all my friends had birthday parties, and all the other other kids moms took all the kids to see Star Wars yet again, so we all musta seen it at least a dozen times, mostly cause of birthday parties.
When it was my turn, I suggested my mom take all the kids to see the Spy Who Loved Me, which I thought was even better and most of them hadnt seen yet. But my mom wouldnt do that, afraid of what the other kids moms would think, I guess .
So we all went to see Close Encounters instead, which had just come out and none of us had seen yet. That was supposed to be scifi like Star Wars, but turned out to be not the same kind of epic comic book adventure at all, a lot more slowmoving and dialog heavy and about ideas, actually the most adult film of the three.
But that choice actually gave me an early reputation as the filmbuff in the gang, and me and my pintsize school chums got into the habit of talking about genres (how could both these films be scifi) and directors (someone called Speilberg!) and actors (someone called Dreyfuss, and the same actress who was in Young Frankenstein) at a young age.
(At least one of those little kids was my filmbuddy for decades to come: I remember seeing both Pulp Fiction and the Big Lebowski for the first time with this connoisseur of fine cinema by my side!)
I think a Bond film every two years is urealistic and could frankly damage the quality of the movies. 3-4 years is more realistic and an ideal solution. Also ideally EON should hire more than one team of scriptwriters to have stories ready earlier and cut the time between movies. They did this after LTK.
I realised scripts have to be tailored to the next Bond actor, that's more about the amounts and type of humor, speach patterns, the physical ability of the actor etc. Treatments and first drafts shouldn't be a problem. Even if the scripts aren't filmed they'll probably use elements from unused scripts, as they did in several of Brosnan's Bonds.
I disagree. War's have been fought and won quicker than it takes BB to make a Bond film.
IF the long time between films produced masterpieces each time then I could understand your argument. But they have not.
The quality of the films have not been made any better by this stupidly long times between films so it is difficult for me to believe they would be any worse.
Bond films in the past 25 years that adhered to a "two years later" schedule:
Tomorrow Never Dies
World Is Not Enough
Quantum of Solace
Not exactly a ringing endorsement. And Spectre probably could've stood to spend another year in the incubator.
Bond films that have been produced in less than two years.
Dr No (1962)
From Russia with Love (1963)
Goldfinger (1964)
There is no reason why the right team of people could not produce a good series of films within two years each. It has been done before so can be done again.
Yes, the early films were 'different' films, but perhaps it would be good to get back to the basic of Bond in the classic style with the new actor instead of him having a step brother who was so jealous that he went away to start SPECTRE?!
Again I say the quality of the films have not improved enough to justify the time spent making them. If they had it would be a different thing.
Bond films that have been produced in less than two years.
Dr No (1962)
From Russia with Love (1963)
Goldfinger (1964)
There is no reason why the right team of people could not produce a good series of films within two years each. It has been done before so can be done again.
Yes, the early films were 'different' films, but perhaps it would be good to get back to the basic of Bond in the classic style with the new actor instead of him having a step brother who was so jealous that he went away to start SPECTRE?!
Again I say the quality of the films have not improved enough to justify the time spent making them. If they had it would be a different thing.
What you have to bear in mind is that at the start they had all of Fleming’s novels to adapt and making them was relatively cheap...so producing one every two years was far easier. Now you need to recoup as much money back as you can (hopefully with a good profit) before you can go into production with the next one...
My first in-theater Bond, believe or not, was For Your Eyes Only -- my pal's birthday party. I was 13 or 14. My mom and dad let me watch Bond on TV, but though they were fans, they were concerned about what might not be cut out they didn't want me to see. To put that in perspective, they wouldn't take me to King Kong in 1976 because there's that brief bit of the lovely, lovely Jessica Lange topless. How times have changed.
ha, this reminds me:
the year I was eleven, both Star Wars and the Spy Who Loved Me came out, and were kind of similar epic adventures appealing to little boys who read comics. And both were in the theatres for months and months afterwards.
That fall all my friends had birthday parties, and all the other other kids moms took all the kids to see Star Wars yet again, so we all musta seen it at least a dozen times, mostly cause of birthday parties.
When it was my turn, I suggested my mom take all the kids to see the Spy Who Loved Me, which I thought was even better and most of them hadnt seen yet. But my mom wouldnt do that, afraid of what the other kids moms would think, I guess .
So we all went to see Close Encounters instead, which had just come out and none of us had seen yet. That was supposed to be scifi like Star Wars, but turned out to be not the same kind of epic comic book adventure at all, a lot more slowmoving and dialog heavy and about ideas, actually the most adult film of the three.
But that choice actually gave me an early reputation as the filmbuff in the gang, and me and my pintsize school chums got into the habit of talking about genres (how could both these films be scifi) and directors (someone called Speilberg!) and actors (someone called Dreyfuss, and the same actress who was in Young Frankenstein) at a young age.
(At least one of those little kids was my filmbuddy for decades to come: I remember seeing both Pulp Fiction and the Big Lebowski for the first time with this connoisseur of fine cinema by my side!)
It was such a different time than now in terms of what people typically wanted kids to see.
Bond films in the past 25 years that adhered to a "two years later" schedule:
Tomorrow Never Dies
World Is Not Enough
Quantum of Solace
Not exactly a ringing endorsement. And Spectre probably could've stood to spend another year in the incubator.
Bond films that have been produced in less than two years.
Dr No (1962)
From Russia with Love (1963)
Goldfinger (1964)
There is no reason why the right team of people could not produce a good series of films within two years each. It has been done before so can be done again.
Yes, the early films were 'different' films, but perhaps it would be good to get back to the basic of Bond in the classic style with the new actor instead of him having a step brother who was so jealous that he went away to start SPECTRE?!
Again I say the quality of the films have not improved enough to justify the time spent making them. If they had it would be a different thing.
Agree 100%. Creativity is not a function of time but of talent and determination. It's not even necessary to strip a film like a Bond one down to achieve any sort of creative success. It's always about the people involved and the choices they make.
With the exception of Casino Royale - and even then, it's scale was not the same as that of the 60s Bonds -- none of Craig's Bonds have struck me as requiring years to make. They simply took that long. Visually and otherwise, there's not so much filling the screen that the sets and set ups look like they require enormous amounts of time.
Of course, there are other issues, such as legal or financial ones that might dictate taking time. They're doing so many tie-in and product placement deals that negotiations may take months and months. But that has almost nothing to do with the creative process of producing a script except how they're going to work in the Aston Martin or whatever.
There's a lot of emptiness in modern films -- so many scenes where it's just two people in a room, or if there are others, they're reduced to blurry images in the background. Lots of close ups of faces. A single car driving down a lonely road. It's not much like when there might be a dozen or more actors in a scene, who had to be blocked very carefully and the cameras and film stocks required very bright, precise lighting to work. Today, high def video cameras alone are by comparison small and can work in low light levels. The duration of shots is half or a quarter of what they were before, and editors slap together a series of images in an almost random way without much geography. So, even the technical hurdles of actual filming aren't nearly as complicated as the old days.
Today, high def video cameras alone are by comparison small and can work in low light levels. The duration of shots is half or a quarter of what they were before, and editors slap together a series of images in an almost random way without much geography. So, even the technical hurdles of actual filming aren't nearly as complicated as the old days.
I mean, I GUESS I would be curious to see what a Bond film shot on an iPhone X might look like, but not sure it's my first choice.
Bond films in the past 25 years that adhered to a "two years later" schedule:
Tomorrow Never Dies
World Is Not Enough
Quantum of Solace
Not exactly a ringing endorsement. And Spectre probably could've stood to spend another year in the incubator.
Bond films that have been produced in less than two years.
Dr No (1962)
From Russia with Love (1963)
Goldfinger (1964)
Given the scale and budgets involved in your examples, you might as well be comparing the modern films to episodes of The Love Boat.
You did cut my post before I mention they were different films?
I have no issue with any one who is happy to wait for years for no real return in terms of quality. But I feel the films are being slowly strangled as a result. The whole franchise with die away as people become more and more not interested. After all this time of waiting, if it is released in October. More years of waiting will begin for a process which should have begun as soon as NTTD was finished.
I am pretty sure that if another company took the Bond franchise on, there would be a dramatic cut in waiting times (with no loss of quality).
Waiting for this that and the other is what it is. Excuses. Eon have no excuses as far as I'm concerned.
Asp9mmOver the Hills and Far Away.Posts: 7,541MI6 Agent
Waiting for this that and the other is what it is. Excuses. Eon have no excuses as far as I'm concerned.
They don’t need to offer excuses as they don’t care what people think. They operate to their own schedule and have no interest in putting out more films at shorter intervals. I’d get used to it. It’s not going to get any better in the future until they sell the rights. And then you may look back on these times with fondness.
The Mission: Impossible franchise made 6 films over 22 years and no one's holding them to this standard. The only reason folks are grouchy about Bond films taking a while now is because fans are selfish, and holding Eon to a production model from 50-60 years ago is a silly way of acting like the frustration is not pure selfishness. They literally don't make movies like that anymore. No one does. (They're making two Mission: Impossible movies back to back - announced in Jan 2019 for release 30 and 42 months later, respectively - and the jury is out on how that's gonna work out.)
Eon don't need to crank out product every 24 months to stay afloat, so why would they? That lack of desperation, not needing to have product on the shelf, has in fact probably saved their asses in 2020. They've inured themselves to an absolute industry-wide financial crisis and can sit on their product until they're able to make every last dollar from it. Why on earth would they do anything but that? In context, "just drop it on streaming" sounds like a five-year-old who doesn't know how the world works. The loudest complainers are day one purchases anyway, so indeed who cares what they think?
I would just prefer if fans had a bit more self-awareness about their anger and admitted it's purely selfish reasons, instead of pretending to know how film production works and insisting that Eon is doing it wrong. Just be honest and say that all you care about is getting the thing you want sooner.
WRT streaming. It was explained on a BBC news report that NTTD would not be able to be streamed because of 'product placement' in the film. I think I mentioned this earlier in another post.
I guess the contracts with the product people may mean that NTTD has to be released in the cinema. anyway.
Personally I am not wanting it to be released on streaming or DVD or anything else before the cinema because we all know the circumstances for the delay.
Today, high def video cameras alone are by comparison small and can work in low light levels. The duration of shots is half or a quarter of what they were before, and editors slap together a series of images in an almost random way without much geography. So, even the technical hurdles of actual filming aren't nearly as complicated as the old days.
I mean, I GUESS I would be curious to see what a Bond film shot on an iPhone X might look like, but not sure it's my first choice.
Only Skyfall was shot digitally, all the other Craig films have been shot on film.
Some DP's and directors still swear by film (Roger Deakins is not one of them).
I will say, it is amazing what can be done with something like an iPhone these days.
With computers and digital I would think post production could be quicker but on the other hand, just the amount of post production effects work on a current Bond film must be staggering along with the fact that on Bond films there are still a big amount of real time, in camera effects and stunts unlike many films today which use an incredible amount of "green screen" to accomplish everything from huge set pieces and effects to even the most simple location substitutions.
The truth is, while modern Bond films are huge productions that are time consuming, it's really the time between films, not so much the time it takes to actually film that create these long delays between films.
Comments
I agree, the era of Bond every 2 years is over. I think 3 years is a good amount of time to get a good script and the director prepped.
I think the gap between NTTD's planned release and what will actually transpire could see EON announce something about the next phase of the Bond franchise immediately after NTTD's theatre run, simply because with DC going and after such a long gap people will be wondering, well is that it?
I think Mike and Babs have had plenty of time to rest after NTTD's production ended and, hopefully, they are beginning to feel its time to plan Bond26 and the new Bond.
I am expecting a complete reboot with a much younger Bond and hopefully we'll hear about that by the end of this year.
I will always regret they dragged their feet so long with the Craig movies. At two-year intervals, he could have done seven by now. I'm not of the opinion it should take so long to make them, as I've not seen anything in the Craig era even close to as complicated as in the Connery one. If anything, the films have moved backwards in their scale -- no gigantic volcano lairs with hundreds of goons, for instance. They take so long through a combination of not being in a hurry and, perhaps, lesser competence in production.
I'm curious how it cuts into the profit cycle. In theory, making more films should produce more money overall -- say, seven films versus five. But by increasing the intervals, perhaps there is more expectation that further leads to bigger returns for fewer films. Of course, they also cut down on the marketing costs -- five marketing campaigns versus seven -- and might even trim debt. Perhaps the numbers can work more in their favor.
But absolutely in terms of spectacle and imagination, the Craig films do not hold a candle to any of the Connery era. They have, perhaps, made the Bond character more "personal," and the smaller productions mirror that, but none of the films has the grandeur of those in the 60s and early 70s. We went from a volcanic lair with monorail, helipad, and working rocket that Elon Musk appears to have copied to a CGI oil refinery in a desert crater guarded by a dozen guys who can't shoot.
No doubt the gap is closing. I have a 75" 4K UHD TV and recently added 5.1 surround sound and it's a good experience, especially if the source material is a well done 4K UHD Blu Ray disc (4K via streaming is more equivalent to a regular 2K Blu Ray) and you can't discount the convenience of stopping the show for a bathroom break (especially at my age). That being said, when it comes to a big film or action film/spectacle it's still not the same as seeing a film in a really good cinema and not even in the same universe as seeing a film in a Dolby Cinema or good IMAX. And certainly, NTTD, which was shot in 35mm widescreen Panavision and 70mm IMAX was conceived to be seen on a huge screen in one of those specialty cinemas. Now my opinion might be a little different if I was in a position to have one of those incredible home cinemas that is basically a mini movie theater with a huge projection screen, and thousands and thousands of $$$ invested. Thne truth is, most folks don't have that. In fact, I know people who are content to watch movies on a stinkin' chromebook or whatever little thing they have. For me, that makes no sense....
Anyway, the bottom line for me is, I would still much prefer to see certain types of films in a proper theater (when iot's safe to do so) but with my current home set-up I would most likely be pickier as to what I would feel compelled to see in a real theater....but that's just me.
IG: @thebondarchives
Check it out, you won’t be disappointed
The problem is more that Barbara Broccoli allows this. She treats him like he's not replaceable. Even Cubby was able to let himself replace Roger.
When it appears at a cinema somewhere, I'll go and see it, love it and then probably hate it.
It's easy to blame Covid, but Eon should have had this one out in 2018. As Matt S implies: BB & MGW drag their feet too much. Cubby, who understood old school showbiz would never have rested on his laurels. If his actor didn't want to do Bond (Hey, George & Sean, we're talking about you...) he just said 'Bye Bye' and moved the show on. Where's that can-do attitude now????
X-( X-( X-(
Spoilers be damned; I wish licensees were allowed to release the merchandise tie-ins lots of us have pre-ordered. It would at least keep interest piqued until the film shows up.
the year I was eleven, both Star Wars and the Spy Who Loved Me came out, and were kind of similar epic adventures appealing to little boys who read comics. And both were in the theatres for months and months afterwards.
That fall all my friends had birthday parties, and all the other other kids moms took all the kids to see Star Wars yet again, so we all musta seen it at least a dozen times, mostly cause of birthday parties.
When it was my turn, I suggested my mom take all the kids to see the Spy Who Loved Me, which I thought was even better and most of them hadnt seen yet. But my mom wouldnt do that, afraid of what the other kids moms would think, I guess .
So we all went to see Close Encounters instead, which had just come out and none of us had seen yet. That was supposed to be scifi like Star Wars, but turned out to be not the same kind of epic comic book adventure at all, a lot more slowmoving and dialog heavy and about ideas, actually the most adult film of the three.
But that choice actually gave me an early reputation as the filmbuff in the gang, and me and my pintsize school chums got into the habit of talking about genres (how could both these films be scifi) and directors (someone called Speilberg!) and actors (someone called Dreyfuss, and the same actress who was in Young Frankenstein) at a young age.
(At least one of those little kids was my filmbuddy for decades to come: I remember seeing both Pulp Fiction and the Big Lebowski for the first time with this connoisseur of fine cinema by my side!)
I disagree. War's have been fought and won quicker than it takes BB to make a Bond film.
IF the long time between films produced masterpieces each time then I could understand your argument. But they have not.
The quality of the films have not been made any better by this stupidly long times between films so it is difficult for me to believe they would be any worse.
This, of course, is only my opinion.
August 16, 2017. Under two years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNr9xdc6cVA&feature=emb_title
Bond films in the past 25 years that adhered to a "two years later" schedule:
Tomorrow Never Dies
World Is Not Enough
Quantum of Solace
Not exactly a ringing endorsement. And Spectre probably could've stood to spend another year in the incubator.
My bad, thought the show was from 2018.
IG: @thebondarchives
Check it out, you won’t be disappointed
Bond films that have been produced in less than two years.
Dr No (1962)
From Russia with Love (1963)
Goldfinger (1964)
There is no reason why the right team of people could not produce a good series of films within two years each. It has been done before so can be done again.
Yes, the early films were 'different' films, but perhaps it would be good to get back to the basic of Bond in the classic style with the new actor instead of him having a step brother who was so jealous that he went away to start SPECTRE?!
Again I say the quality of the films have not improved enough to justify the time spent making them. If they had it would be a different thing.
I thought that was a very interesting statement.
What you have to bear in mind is that at the start they had all of Fleming’s novels to adapt and making them was relatively cheap...so producing one every two years was far easier. Now you need to recoup as much money back as you can (hopefully with a good profit) before you can go into production with the next one...
With the exception of Casino Royale - and even then, it's scale was not the same as that of the 60s Bonds -- none of Craig's Bonds have struck me as requiring years to make. They simply took that long. Visually and otherwise, there's not so much filling the screen that the sets and set ups look like they require enormous amounts of time.
Of course, there are other issues, such as legal or financial ones that might dictate taking time. They're doing so many tie-in and product placement deals that negotiations may take months and months. But that has almost nothing to do with the creative process of producing a script except how they're going to work in the Aston Martin or whatever.
There's a lot of emptiness in modern films -- so many scenes where it's just two people in a room, or if there are others, they're reduced to blurry images in the background. Lots of close ups of faces. A single car driving down a lonely road. It's not much like when there might be a dozen or more actors in a scene, who had to be blocked very carefully and the cameras and film stocks required very bright, precise lighting to work. Today, high def video cameras alone are by comparison small and can work in low light levels. The duration of shots is half or a quarter of what they were before, and editors slap together a series of images in an almost random way without much geography. So, even the technical hurdles of actual filming aren't nearly as complicated as the old days.
Given the scale and budgets involved in your examples, you might as well be comparing the modern films to episodes of The Love Boat.
I mean, I GUESS I would be curious to see what a Bond film shot on an iPhone X might look like, but not sure it's my first choice.
You did cut my post before I mention they were different films?
I have no issue with any one who is happy to wait for years for no real return in terms of quality. But I feel the films are being slowly strangled as a result. The whole franchise with die away as people become more and more not interested. After all this time of waiting, if it is released in October. More years of waiting will begin for a process which should have begun as soon as NTTD was finished.
I am pretty sure that if another company took the Bond franchise on, there would be a dramatic cut in waiting times (with no loss of quality).
Waiting for this that and the other is what it is. Excuses. Eon have no excuses as far as I'm concerned.
They don’t need to offer excuses as they don’t care what people think. They operate to their own schedule and have no interest in putting out more films at shorter intervals. I’d get used to it. It’s not going to get any better in the future until they sell the rights. And then you may look back on these times with fondness.
If what you say is correct, you just highlighted the problem with Eon. They should care what the audience think.
I hope so. We all know the reason for the delay of NTTD and no one can say anything against that.
Eon don't need to crank out product every 24 months to stay afloat, so why would they? That lack of desperation, not needing to have product on the shelf, has in fact probably saved their asses in 2020. They've inured themselves to an absolute industry-wide financial crisis and can sit on their product until they're able to make every last dollar from it. Why on earth would they do anything but that? In context, "just drop it on streaming" sounds like a five-year-old who doesn't know how the world works. The loudest complainers are day one purchases anyway, so indeed who cares what they think?
I would just prefer if fans had a bit more self-awareness about their anger and admitted it's purely selfish reasons, instead of pretending to know how film production works and insisting that Eon is doing it wrong. Just be honest and say that all you care about is getting the thing you want sooner.
There are some big accusations.
I was angered to be accused of such.
I responded.
I thought better of it.
I removed my post.
I will hold my tongue.
If indeed this was aimed at me I please hope I will not be accused of dishonesty again!
I guess the contracts with the product people may mean that NTTD has to be released in the cinema. anyway.
Personally I am not wanting it to be released on streaming or DVD or anything else before the cinema because we all know the circumstances for the delay.
Only Skyfall was shot digitally, all the other Craig films have been shot on film.
Some DP's and directors still swear by film (Roger Deakins is not one of them).
I will say, it is amazing what can be done with something like an iPhone these days.
With computers and digital I would think post production could be quicker but on the other hand, just the amount of post production effects work on a current Bond film must be staggering along with the fact that on Bond films there are still a big amount of real time, in camera effects and stunts unlike many films today which use an incredible amount of "green screen" to accomplish everything from huge set pieces and effects to even the most simple location substitutions.
The truth is, while modern Bond films are huge productions that are time consuming, it's really the time between films, not so much the time it takes to actually film that create these long delays between films.