I always thought Licence renewed would be a thrilling title, but I highly doubt it will happen considering what Michael G. Wilson thinks of John Gardner and the continuation novels...
Michael Wilson won’t have a lot to say about the future titles of Bond movies I think. I don't think the title is very good either, and it's completely wrong for Bond26.
I never really liked it, and I didn't like Licence Revoked either - just doesn't sound like a Bond title. Licence To Kill is kind of unartistic and blunt, but it does at least look like a Bond title (literally it has a nice shape: one long word, a short one, a mid-size one - it looks nice on the poster).
I wasn't talking about Bond 26. And if you think about it, the title is not that important. The story clearly is.
Concerning MGW, it depends whether he'll keep having an eye on the writing or not. Trigger Mortis and With A Mind To Kill are full of great ideas I'd love to see on screen. But it's not so obvious considering Wilson praises Fleming's material only. Back in the late 90s, he had harsh words for Gardner and Benson. Nevertheless, Colonel Sun and some of Gardner's novels have been used for AVTAK, TWINE, DAD and Sp. So who knows?
I like those books but I don't know if they've got much which stands out (maybe WAMTK stands out as one of the rare original Bond book stories, but so much of it depends on the setup from the Flemings, so it's tricky to put on screen). I tend to think if the recent film stories had been novels we'd be crying out to see them adapted as they've got much more in the way of eye-catching original ideas.
Sometimes, the title takes on its full meaning once you've seen the movie. LTK is one of those. I wasn't thrilled when SF was revealed back in November 2011, but after seeing the film, I thought: 'it's a good one'.
LTK is an unimaginative title, but it works. SPECTRE was the first time EON admited to using continuation novel material. I think there’s more good ideas there. A continuation title I hope EON will use is Devil May Care.
I'm not necessarily talking about the plot. For example, in Trigger Mortis, the villain Jason Sin asks his victims to draw a card on which the way they're going to die is written. And the dinner with Bond drawing the card and discovering he's about to be buried alive is incredibly intense. Sin is a sadistic man and the following part with Bond really being buried makes the dinner scene even more fantastic. I would love to see such a concept on screen. A good director could make it fantastic.
Yes I love the title Devil May Care, I also think Carte Blanche is superb too- it's extremely Fleming, describes Bond's approach and evokes a sense of style and even card gambling, all without being an obvious pastiche of previous Bond titles, I love it.
Firstly, someone pointed out that Fleming's titles were a spin on a well-worn phrase - so 'A Diamond is Forever' from an ad becomes 'Diamonds Are Forever', Live and Let Live is a phrase and becomes Live And Let Die, Sinatra's film The Man With The Golden Arm becomes Golden Gun and You Only Live Once is a phrase that Fleming inverts too.
So it might be an idea to take a similar well-worn phrase and do something similar.
Otherwise, you could work the name of a country of city into it - From Russia With Love sounds great, and Bullet to Beijing from the Harry Palmer sequels is a great title too.
Finally, just base it around the name of a villain or villain's operation - so Dr No, Goldfinger, Thunderball or maybe the home operation though that's less common - For Your Eyes Only and OHMSS are surely the only ones.
Oddly, Never Say Never Again does kind of stand out as a non-Fleming title that endures despite the movie not being great; it doesn't sound too derivative and it gets name checked by sub editors looking for Bond punning headlines.
The thing is though, if someone came up with the title to a Bond story You Only Live Twice now, I think most of us would say, well that's rubbish! 😁 You've just taken YOLO and changed 'once' to 'twice', it doesn't mean anything. You may as well call it 'Fear Of Missing In' 🤣
It sounds right because it is a Bond title, but in some ways the job is harder now. William Boyd's Solo was a title you could imagine Fleming using, it was a word he displayed a little bit of fascination with, but nowadays it's a bit of a disappointing 007 title, we want a bit more.
OHMSS is a subversion title too: you might not have had a tax letter recently Nap as it's all online and direct debit nowadays, but the envelopes always had On Her Majesty's Service written on the top.
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I always thought Licence renewed would be a thrilling title, but I highly doubt it will happen considering what Michael G. Wilson thinks of John Gardner and the continuation novels...
Michael Wilson won’t have a lot to say about the future titles of Bond movies I think. I don't think the title is very good either, and it's completely wrong for Bond26.
I never really liked it, and I didn't like Licence Revoked either - just doesn't sound like a Bond title. Licence To Kill is kind of unartistic and blunt, but it does at least look like a Bond title (literally it has a nice shape: one long word, a short one, a mid-size one - it looks nice on the poster).
I wasn't talking about Bond 26. And if you think about it, the title is not that important. The story clearly is.
Concerning MGW, it depends whether he'll keep having an eye on the writing or not. Trigger Mortis and With A Mind To Kill are full of great ideas I'd love to see on screen. But it's not so obvious considering Wilson praises Fleming's material only. Back in the late 90s, he had harsh words for Gardner and Benson. Nevertheless, Colonel Sun and some of Gardner's novels have been used for AVTAK, TWINE, DAD and Sp. So who knows?
I like those books but I don't know if they've got much which stands out (maybe WAMTK stands out as one of the rare original Bond book stories, but so much of it depends on the setup from the Flemings, so it's tricky to put on screen). I tend to think if the recent film stories had been novels we'd be crying out to see them adapted as they've got much more in the way of eye-catching original ideas.
Sometimes, the title takes on its full meaning once you've seen the movie. LTK is one of those. I wasn't thrilled when SF was revealed back in November 2011, but after seeing the film, I thought: 'it's a good one'.
LTK is an unimaginative title, but it works. SPECTRE was the first time EON admited to using continuation novel material. I think there’s more good ideas there. A continuation title I hope EON will use is Devil May Care.
I'm not necessarily talking about the plot. For example, in Trigger Mortis, the villain Jason Sin asks his victims to draw a card on which the way they're going to die is written. And the dinner with Bond drawing the card and discovering he's about to be buried alive is incredibly intense. Sin is a sadistic man and the following part with Bond really being buried makes the dinner scene even more fantastic. I would love to see such a concept on screen. A good director could make it fantastic.
Yes I love the title Devil May Care, I also think Carte Blanche is superb too- it's extremely Fleming, describes Bond's approach and evokes a sense of style and even card gambling, all without being an obvious pastiche of previous Bond titles, I love it.
If the card thing from Tigger Mortis is done as well as they did the coin scenes in No Country For All Men, it will be a new classic!
I think Icebreaker and For Special Services are among the best continuation titles.
Firstly, someone pointed out that Fleming's titles were a spin on a well-worn phrase - so 'A Diamond is Forever' from an ad becomes 'Diamonds Are Forever', Live and Let Live is a phrase and becomes Live And Let Die, Sinatra's film The Man With The Golden Arm becomes Golden Gun and You Only Live Once is a phrase that Fleming inverts too.
So it might be an idea to take a similar well-worn phrase and do something similar.
Otherwise, you could work the name of a country of city into it - From Russia With Love sounds great, and Bullet to Beijing from the Harry Palmer sequels is a great title too.
Finally, just base it around the name of a villain or villain's operation - so Dr No, Goldfinger, Thunderball or maybe the home operation though that's less common - For Your Eyes Only and OHMSS are surely the only ones.
Oddly, Never Say Never Again does kind of stand out as a non-Fleming title that endures despite the movie not being great; it doesn't sound too derivative and it gets name checked by sub editors looking for Bond punning headlines.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
The thing is though, if someone came up with the title to a Bond story You Only Live Twice now, I think most of us would say, well that's rubbish! 😁 You've just taken YOLO and changed 'once' to 'twice', it doesn't mean anything. You may as well call it 'Fear Of Missing In' 🤣
It sounds right because it is a Bond title, but in some ways the job is harder now. William Boyd's Solo was a title you could imagine Fleming using, it was a word he displayed a little bit of fascination with, but nowadays it's a bit of a disappointing 007 title, we want a bit more.
OHMSS is a subversion title too: you might not have had a tax letter recently Nap as it's all online and direct debit nowadays, but the envelopes always had On Her Majesty's Service written on the top.
This is why I like the title "Dark of day". Of course it's a spin of the expression "Light of day", but in northern areas days are dark in the winter.
Yes that's nice. I like a subversion one.
One that popped into my head today, mostly because it's close to a lyric in Licence To Kill(!), is To Your Dying Day.
I quite like that. A bit romantic and a bit threatening at the same time.
One I'm also very keen on is Now More Than Ever. I think that sounds nicely Bondy and would work for a sort of comeback of 007.