Thunderbird 2East of Cardiff, Wales.Posts: 2,818MI6 Agent
edited November 4
I have followed Nicholas Hoult on and off for years, hes a solid actor and would be a very credible Bond, if IF the House Of Eon decided to go old school.
By that I mean revisit the post war Forties or Fifties, put 007 back into the era he was created in. I say that in part because its getting tougher to keep Bond true to himself in the contemporary world.
This is Thunderbird 2, how can I be of assistance?
We already know from EON the reboot will be contemporary. Nevertheless, I think the current global context is proper to stakes involving MI6. It's precisely the producers' job to set those things up. I want to be optimistic and confident when I read lines from Broccoli herself like:
We always sit down with our writers, and we start by thinking about,'What's the world afraid of?' We start by thinking about, 'Who's the Bond villain?
It's exactly the kind of thinking I expect from EON, although they don't always apply it (NTTD is the perfect counterexample). It's something they did extremely well after Brosnan's leaving, and I hope they'll do so to start the new era.
We'll probably get a genuine spy thriller to introduce the next Bond, just like TLD and CR (two great movies imho). I'm looking forward to discovering how they handled this exercise.
I wouldn't be surprised if they start this time by thinking firstly 'what's the story we want to tell with this new Bond?'. And I hope they do to be honest.
It's obviously part of the discussion, and that's also why they felt the need to reboot the series after DAD. But considering the Craig era has set the bar very high in terms of character development, I just hope the personal items won't always interfere in the plot. This last point is the main reason why I have big issues with the last two movies (and from what I can hear/read, it doesn't seem unusual).
For example, I'd appreciate if they could stop repeating the 'shadow of the past' pattern with Bond or one of his relatives sharing a personal link with the baddy. It often looks an artificial way of justifying Bond's involvement in what is to come. I think it works in SF whereas in GE, Sp and NTTD, I never succeeded to buy it.
CR is the perfect balance because they deal with Bond's weaknesses without preventing the audience from enjoying a thrilling and exciting story with modern espionage stakes. It works wonderfully well, not forgetting the result is faithful to Fleming's material.
Another element I'm calling for is the use of the continuation novels. They did it with Colonel Sun, but there are so many other novels to draw upon. The last Horowitz, With A Mind to Kill, is absolutely (forgive my pathetic pun) mind-blowing. The way Bond's psyche is explored here is just fantastic (even Fleming didn't go so far with his own character). I'd love to see that on screen and how a good director would deal with it.
With A Mind to Kill does though, to a very large extent, have Bond's personal story interfacing with the plot. It's kind of all about that. I don't think it 'interferes' at all.
I take your point about relatives having a personal link with the baddie, yeah that's a bit played out (to be fair it was the same group of characters so I think it's not unreasonable that came up in the most recent movies); but I think these films are stronger when there's a personal story and emotional core to it. OHMSS and CR don't come out at the top of fan polls so often for nothing.
I agree With A Mind to Kill is one of the better continuation novels I've read, and the most memorable of Horowitz's three. and @TwoFour once sugested a good film could be made by combining the final chapters of You Only Live Twice (amnesia in the Japanese fishing village), the opening chapters of Man with the Golden Gun, then the entirety of With A Mind to Kill.
maybe do the fishing village scenes as the precredits (though thisd be a precredits lacking in the expected action), brainwashed Bond arrives unannounced in London following the credits, attempted assassination, etc. Maybe even a transitional scene showing Bond being given the electroshock therapy from his own team that Fleming implied, before sending him back to Moscow for the main body of the film.
That could be a genuinely epic BondFilm
thing is, its also a final BondFilm. its not the start of new series, what Horowitz wrote was the logical culmination of Flemings saga
if he survives the ambiguous final page, Bond is planning to retire after this last mission
and, loathe as I am to say so out loud, would really only work if Craig returned. We would see that he somehow survived the missile attack, and went on to have a true final adventure more satisfying than NTtD.
For any new actor I dont think itd work as we wouldnt connect him to the seeming death of Bond in the previous film. and I dont think theres any second film possible for a new actor after telling this story.
The stakes of WAMTK are amazingly exciting, and I think the twist definitely is this kind of moment one must experience as a Bond fan and a reader. Bond's personal is not an issue at all considering the plot remains focused on espionage, something I found neither in the last third of Sp nor in the whole second half of NTTD, leading to climax I never succeeded to feel involved in.
@emtiem I agree on CR and OHMSS, and I think these movies work so well precisely because the balance I was talking about in my previous post is just perfect. The romance doesn't prevent the audience from enjoying a good story, and neither Tracy nor Vesper are burdensome plotwise, whereas Madeleine clearly is (just my opinion of course).
@emtiem I agree on CR and OHMSS, and I think these movies work so well precisely because the balance I was talking about in my previous post is just perfect. The romance doesn't prevent the audience from enjoying a good story, and neither Tracy nor Vesper are burdensome plotwise, whereas Madeleine clearly is (just my opinion of course).
I don't know what that means. I can't see how any characters are 'burdensome' to the plot when the story is literally about them and the other main characters. You speak about romance as if it gets in the way of the story, but both Vesper and Tracy are essential parts of the story those films are telling.
Thunderbird 2East of Cardiff, Wales.Posts: 2,818MI6 Agent
I do! - I agree that TLD and CR-06 are great films CR-06 is my outright favourite. (Its a tough call.)
BUT... - the subsiquent Craig films have steadily gone downhill! QoS was a seauel but the editting and executiin was a mess.
SF suffered from making out Bond was over thr hill before he really did anything.
SP made the cardinal sin of taking a parody idea and making it canon. It was full of arty farty crap and lacked a proper story. But, it could have concluded the Craig era.
NTTD - Everything Bond isn't, is written into this film! All the loose ends and hanging threads are stomped.on and as with SP there is heavy retread on CR and QoS territory.
New Bond needs new ideas and writing.
Something that draws on Fleming history, but keeps it fresh and thrilling... That has been lacking since CR-06., as we have been dragged through Bond's family tragedies, medical and addiction problems, Mummy issues, Daddy issues and severely under par baddies.
We can't go through all that crap again!
Neither can a new Bond.
This is Thunderbird 2, how can I be of assistance?
As far as I can remember my suggestion was to use the begining av TMWTGG, but let the memory loss happen to another 00-agent. It may work with Bond as the Manchurian candidate, but I think it would be a mistake to use it in Bond26. In Bond26 this will be seen as a confirmation that Bond survived the events of NTTD, and in my opinion that would weaken that movie. I even have a theory (without a shred of evidence) that Craig had as a part of his contract for NTTD that EON can't let Bond survive NTTD in later movies. To make it clear: I mean such a (non-existing?) contract could may exlude Bond from surviving NTTD. Bond has to be alive in future movies of course, but not the Bond of CR to NTTD.
In OHMSS, Blofeld's hunting is the crucial part of the plot, and it's even more obvious in the novel, Fleming's pinnacle with FRWL imho (funny to notice the literary version of Tracy is even less developed than Diana Rigg's). Concerning CR, the first three quarters of the plot deal with Bond's mission.
In both cases, the romance doesn't interfere in the global stakes, whereas in NTTD, you have almost one hour and forty-five minutes where the story mainly focuses on Madeleine. I remember my frustration when I discovered the PTS. I immediately thought: 'Madeleine is going to be the key of the stakes/climax, and that's something I'm not interested in' (burdensome in that way). OHMSS and CR use a quite different structure, and it's something I widely prefer to what NTTD deals with. After all, each to his own.
I think most people would remember OHMSS as 'the one where Bond falls in love and gets married' over 'the one where Blofeld has a scheme about a virus or something... something to do with foot and mouth I think?'😁
Well, I reread it last month and I really don't have the same feeling. Bond is obsessed with Blofeld's hunting and all his investigation represents more than three quarters of the plot. Tracy is not even present in the climax, not forgetting she's clearly not the most interesting female character within Fleming's universe. Tiffany Case and Domino are much more interesting and developed imho.
Funny how the same book can lead to various feelings and interpretations.
I agree that the book does underdevelop her, that's why I prefer the film. Not least they just tidy things up, like having the opening of the film open in chronological order, where Fleming has the same events in the same order but has some as flashbacks happening before others, where the film shows that was unnecessary and adds little.
After seeing GLADIIATOR, I'm definitely in the 'not Paul Mescal for Bond' camp. He was completely miscast for GLADIIATOR and didn't display anything to make me think that he'd be right for Bond. He's a decent enough actor but he completely lacks that 'it' factor.
If we learn later there was absolutely nothing with ATJ, how will the man's behaviour (his mysterious silence) be construed? Unless there's really something with EON and they explicitly asked him not to comment any rumour, he will just remain the guy on top of the bookies' list. If his 'strategy' only consists in keeping the suspense while he perfectly knows there's nothing, it could be double-edged.
Mescal has been in a gay love film too, All of us strangers, with Bond alumni Andrew Scott for Searchlight Pictures, a well known Indy film producer. He did a BBC Film called Aftersun where he does quite a good Scots accent, a plus for Barbel. His A24 film was God's creatures, also made with BBC Films, set in Ireland about a woman's son accused of assaulting a local woman. His film before Gladiator was "Foe" for Amazon Studios.
Barbara Broccoli's indy film work, usually as an executive producer, has included films made with BBC Films and unsurprisingly MGM, which was her most recently released film, Till. That was after Amazon bought MGM. So, assuming the indy film industry is a small world, like every other industry, and everyone knows everyone, Mescal worked for two film production companies, BBC Films and Amazon/MGM who Barbara has worked with. And he's worked for A24, who have worked with Daniel Craig.
Yes, I know she's worked with MGM for decades, but clearly Amazon-MGM has a new managerial team she would interact with. They would have an opinion.
I know people here are not going to like this but thinking about BB's interests of late and the ongoing relationship between BB and DC through Macbeth, Othello and a movie version of their Othello, I wonder if Mescal is perhaps exactly what BB and DC want for the new reinvented Bond.
I say DC because I wonder if BB's comment to him during her Irving Thalberg acceptance speech was actually her thanking him for continuing to be involved. Co-producer credit for DC for Bond26? Right at the start of her speech she immediately thanked DC: "Daniel, I cannot put into words how much I value you and boy am I glad you said yes."
Paul Mescal has been interviewed by Josh Horowitz on the Happy sad Confused Youtube channel. At 17 minutes, Josh asks Mescal about actor's performances and asks: "Are there examples you can think of in films of this type, I mean, where you've seen performances that have cut through and have felt authentic and grounded whether you had it in your mind or not."
Mescal replies: "I was going to mention Indiana Jones, makes sense, that's, that's a big one, some of the Star Wars, you've got some like, like, you know, those kind of, Daniel Craig and James Bond, like he's like that, that stuff really feels like, but again..."
Weirdly, Horowitz does not touch the Bond topic again despite the Mescal rumours.
I don't know why but I have the feeling Mescal could get the gig indeed. It's something I absolutely didn't believe in a few weeks ago (see the thread about the chairman of Omega), but now, I think it's plausible.
Who knows about these things, but if I were Eon it would give me pause to read the reviews of GLADIATOR II. Even the best ones have consistently said that Mescal lacks the masculine charisma of Washington and Pascal (let alone Crowe in the original) and that he can’t carry his parts of the picture on his own.
Well, GLADIIATOR is doing well worldwide and is on the path to probably being profitable, no easy task considering the budget. This may give Mescal some heat.
I still don't think he's right for the gig after seeing him in GLADIIATOR but what do I know.
Comments
I have followed Nicholas Hoult on and off for years, hes a solid actor and would be a very credible Bond, if IF the House Of Eon decided to go old school.
By that I mean revisit the post war Forties or Fifties, put 007 back into the era he was created in. I say that in part because its getting tougher to keep Bond true to himself in the contemporary world.
We already know from EON the reboot will be contemporary. Nevertheless, I think the current global context is proper to stakes involving MI6. It's precisely the producers' job to set those things up. I want to be optimistic and confident when I read lines from Broccoli herself like:
We always sit down with our writers, and we start by thinking about,'What's the world afraid of?' We start by thinking about, 'Who's the Bond villain?
It's exactly the kind of thinking I expect from EON, although they don't always apply it (NTTD is the perfect counterexample). It's something they did extremely well after Brosnan's leaving, and I hope they'll do so to start the new era.
We'll probably get a genuine spy thriller to introduce the next Bond, just like TLD and CR (two great movies imho). I'm looking forward to discovering how they handled this exercise.
I wouldn't be surprised if they start this time by thinking firstly 'what's the story we want to tell with this new Bond?'. And I hope they do to be honest.
It's obviously part of the discussion, and that's also why they felt the need to reboot the series after DAD. But considering the Craig era has set the bar very high in terms of character development, I just hope the personal items won't always interfere in the plot. This last point is the main reason why I have big issues with the last two movies (and from what I can hear/read, it doesn't seem unusual).
For example, I'd appreciate if they could stop repeating the 'shadow of the past' pattern with Bond or one of his relatives sharing a personal link with the baddy. It often looks an artificial way of justifying Bond's involvement in what is to come. I think it works in SF whereas in GE, Sp and NTTD, I never succeeded to buy it.
CR is the perfect balance because they deal with Bond's weaknesses without preventing the audience from enjoying a thrilling and exciting story with modern espionage stakes. It works wonderfully well, not forgetting the result is faithful to Fleming's material.
Another element I'm calling for is the use of the continuation novels. They did it with Colonel Sun, but there are so many other novels to draw upon. The last Horowitz, With A Mind to Kill, is absolutely (forgive my pathetic pun) mind-blowing. The way Bond's psyche is explored here is just fantastic (even Fleming didn't go so far with his own character). I'd love to see that on screen and how a good director would deal with it.
With A Mind to Kill does though, to a very large extent, have Bond's personal story interfacing with the plot. It's kind of all about that. I don't think it 'interferes' at all.
I take your point about relatives having a personal link with the baddie, yeah that's a bit played out (to be fair it was the same group of characters so I think it's not unreasonable that came up in the most recent movies); but I think these films are stronger when there's a personal story and emotional core to it. OHMSS and CR don't come out at the top of fan polls so often for nothing.
I agree With A Mind to Kill is one of the better continuation novels I've read, and the most memorable of Horowitz's three. and @TwoFour once sugested a good film could be made by combining the final chapters of You Only Live Twice (amnesia in the Japanese fishing village), the opening chapters of Man with the Golden Gun, then the entirety of With A Mind to Kill.
maybe do the fishing village scenes as the precredits (though thisd be a precredits lacking in the expected action), brainwashed Bond arrives unannounced in London following the credits, attempted assassination, etc. Maybe even a transitional scene showing Bond being given the electroshock therapy from his own team that Fleming implied, before sending him back to Moscow for the main body of the film.
That could be a genuinely epic BondFilm
thing is, its also a final BondFilm. its not the start of new series, what Horowitz wrote was the logical culmination of Flemings saga
if he survives the ambiguous final page, Bond is planning to retire after this last mission
and, loathe as I am to say so out loud, would really only work if Craig returned. We would see that he somehow survived the missile attack, and went on to have a true final adventure more satisfying than NTtD.
For any new actor I dont think itd work as we wouldnt connect him to the seeming death of Bond in the previous film. and I dont think theres any second film possible for a new actor after telling this story.
The stakes of WAMTK are amazingly exciting, and I think the twist definitely is this kind of moment one must experience as a Bond fan and a reader. Bond's personal is not an issue at all considering the plot remains focused on espionage, something I found neither in the last third of Sp nor in the whole second half of NTTD, leading to climax I never succeeded to feel involved in.
@emtiem I agree on CR and OHMSS, and I think these movies work so well precisely because the balance I was talking about in my previous post is just perfect. The romance doesn't prevent the audience from enjoying a good story, and neither Tracy nor Vesper are burdensome plotwise, whereas Madeleine clearly is (just my opinion of course).
@emtiem I agree on CR and OHMSS, and I think these movies work so well precisely because the balance I was talking about in my previous post is just perfect. The romance doesn't prevent the audience from enjoying a good story, and neither Tracy nor Vesper are burdensome plotwise, whereas Madeleine clearly is (just my opinion of course).
I don't know what that means. I can't see how any characters are 'burdensome' to the plot when the story is literally about them and the other main characters. You speak about romance as if it gets in the way of the story, but both Vesper and Tracy are essential parts of the story those films are telling.
I do! - I agree that TLD and CR-06 are great films CR-06 is my outright favourite. (Its a tough call.)
BUT... - the subsiquent Craig films have steadily gone downhill! QoS was a seauel but the editting and executiin was a mess.
SF suffered from making out Bond was over thr hill before he really did anything.
SP made the cardinal sin of taking a parody idea and making it canon. It was full of arty farty crap and lacked a proper story. But, it could have concluded the Craig era.
NTTD - Everything Bond isn't, is written into this film! All the loose ends and hanging threads are stomped.on and as with SP there is heavy retread on CR and QoS territory.
New Bond needs new ideas and writing.
Something that draws on Fleming history, but keeps it fresh and thrilling... That has been lacking since CR-06., as we have been dragged through Bond's family tragedies, medical and addiction problems, Mummy issues, Daddy issues and severely under par baddies.
We can't go through all that crap again!
Neither can a new Bond.
As far as I can remember my suggestion was to use the begining av TMWTGG, but let the memory loss happen to another 00-agent. It may work with Bond as the Manchurian candidate, but I think it would be a mistake to use it in Bond26. In Bond26 this will be seen as a confirmation that Bond survived the events of NTTD, and in my opinion that would weaken that movie. I even have a theory (without a shred of evidence) that Craig had as a part of his contract for NTTD that EON can't let Bond survive NTTD in later movies. To make it clear: I mean such a (non-existing?) contract could may exlude Bond from surviving NTTD. Bond has to be alive in future movies of course, but not the Bond of CR to NTTD.
In OHMSS, Blofeld's hunting is the crucial part of the plot, and it's even more obvious in the novel, Fleming's pinnacle with FRWL imho (funny to notice the literary version of Tracy is even less developed than Diana Rigg's). Concerning CR, the first three quarters of the plot deal with Bond's mission.
In both cases, the romance doesn't interfere in the global stakes, whereas in NTTD, you have almost one hour and forty-five minutes where the story mainly focuses on Madeleine. I remember my frustration when I discovered the PTS. I immediately thought: 'Madeleine is going to be the key of the stakes/climax, and that's something I'm not interested in' (burdensome in that way). OHMSS and CR use a quite different structure, and it's something I widely prefer to what NTTD deals with. After all, each to his own.
I think most people would remember OHMSS as 'the one where Bond falls in love and gets married' over 'the one where Blofeld has a scheme about a virus or something... something to do with foot and mouth I think?' 😁
It's absolutely not exclusive for me. There are various items and it's the combination I find extraordinary. And I even think the novel is better.
You prefer the book where you say Tracy is less developed? I don't really get it: she is the story.
Well, I reread it last month and I really don't have the same feeling. Bond is obsessed with Blofeld's hunting and all his investigation represents more than three quarters of the plot. Tracy is not even present in the climax, not forgetting she's clearly not the most interesting female character within Fleming's universe. Tiffany Case and Domino are much more interesting and developed imho.
Funny how the same book can lead to various feelings and interpretations.
I agree that the book does underdevelop her, that's why I prefer the film. Not least they just tidy things up, like having the opening of the film open in chronological order, where Fleming has the same events in the same order but has some as flashbacks happening before others, where the film shows that was unnecessary and adds little.
ATJ has been asked about Bond at some recent Kraven publicity event, according to comicbook.com.
He dodges the question. I imagine as it gets closer to Kraven's final release date in mid-December we'll hear more like this.
After seeing GLADIIATOR, I'm definitely in the 'not Paul Mescal for Bond' camp. He was completely miscast for GLADIIATOR and didn't display anything to make me think that he'd be right for Bond. He's a decent enough actor but he completely lacks that 'it' factor.
If we learn later there was absolutely nothing with ATJ, how will the man's behaviour (his mysterious silence) be construed? Unless there's really something with EON and they explicitly asked him not to comment any rumour, he will just remain the guy on top of the bookies' list. If his 'strategy' only consists in keeping the suspense while he perfectly knows there's nothing, it could be double-edged.
Sadly I agree. There would have to be some amazing change for him to be a good Bond.
Looking at his filmography, he's done a lot of Indy films, one of which was distributed by A24 which has made Craig's latest film Queer.
Mescal has been in a gay love film too, All of us strangers, with Bond alumni Andrew Scott for Searchlight Pictures, a well known Indy film producer. He did a BBC Film called Aftersun where he does quite a good Scots accent, a plus for Barbel. His A24 film was God's creatures, also made with BBC Films, set in Ireland about a woman's son accused of assaulting a local woman. His film before Gladiator was "Foe" for Amazon Studios.
Barbara Broccoli's indy film work, usually as an executive producer, has included films made with BBC Films and unsurprisingly MGM, which was her most recently released film, Till. That was after Amazon bought MGM. So, assuming the indy film industry is a small world, like every other industry, and everyone knows everyone, Mescal worked for two film production companies, BBC Films and Amazon/MGM who Barbara has worked with. And he's worked for A24, who have worked with Daniel Craig.
Yes, I know she's worked with MGM for decades, but clearly Amazon-MGM has a new managerial team she would interact with. They would have an opinion.
I know people here are not going to like this but thinking about BB's interests of late and the ongoing relationship between BB and DC through Macbeth, Othello and a movie version of their Othello, I wonder if Mescal is perhaps exactly what BB and DC want for the new reinvented Bond.
I say DC because I wonder if BB's comment to him during her Irving Thalberg acceptance speech was actually her thanking him for continuing to be involved. Co-producer credit for DC for Bond26? Right at the start of her speech she immediately thanked DC: "Daniel, I cannot put into words how much I value you and boy am I glad you said yes."
She's thanking him for saying yes to Bond...?
Since the answer to both questions is Donald Trump, I don't expect to be seeing a Bond film very soon.
I think there are plenty of other villains people worry about and many other issues too. A question can have many answers.
Paul Mescal has been interviewed by Josh Horowitz on the Happy sad Confused Youtube channel. At 17 minutes, Josh asks Mescal about actor's performances and asks: "Are there examples you can think of in films of this type, I mean, where you've seen performances that have cut through and have felt authentic and grounded whether you had it in your mind or not."
Mescal replies: "I was going to mention Indiana Jones, makes sense, that's, that's a big one, some of the Star Wars, you've got some like, like, you know, those kind of, Daniel Craig and James Bond, like he's like that, that stuff really feels like, but again..."
Weirdly, Horowitz does not touch the Bond topic again despite the Mescal rumours.
Watch the interview here:
I don't know why but I have the feeling Mescal could get the gig indeed. It's something I absolutely didn't believe in a few weeks ago (see the thread about the chairman of Omega), but now, I think it's plausible.
Who knows about these things, but if I were Eon it would give me pause to read the reviews of GLADIATOR II. Even the best ones have consistently said that Mescal lacks the masculine charisma of Washington and Pascal (let alone Crowe in the original) and that he can’t carry his parts of the picture on his own.
Well, GLADIIATOR is doing well worldwide and is on the path to probably being profitable, no easy task considering the budget. This may give Mescal some heat.
I still don't think he's right for the gig after seeing him in GLADIIATOR but what do I know.
Finally, a Bond adventure this year!
The AJB Christmas Special 2024 is coming Sunday December the 8th
It's the peak of silliness!
Good. We need some silliness.