Rebooting the Bond films instead of new ones?
Dovy
Posts: 206MI6 Agent
Have the producers ever given thought to rebooting or remaking all the films rather than try to come up with new ones? For instance, a new Dr. No or Goldfinger? After all it's been 60 years since they were made. Many films are remade or rebooted in a far shorter period.
So they could hire a new James Bond actor who would stay with the same number as Sean Connery had. I think attempting a reboot or remake would be very interesting, with everyone comparing its quality to the first ones 60 years ago. Although changes in career goals might make it harder for a good actor to commit to doing that many films. But it's an interesting idea, and I wonder if BB and MW have considered that alternative. The remake of these early films might be even better than the originals. Who knows?
Comments
I'm pretty sure that they've said that they're not interested in remaking the old ones. For what it's worth, I don't think they should either. What would they have to gain?
New generations, new flavors, actors..... but that might wait until after BB and MW have left the Bond world to new people.
I dont like remakes as a general rule, I think they are unnecessary if the originals worth remembering all these years later. And I think the risk of a remake is exactly the type of filmmaking you say you dislike, all that "video game style violence", never-ending action sequences, maybe gratuitous CGI.
The ones that "need" to be remade are the Fleming titles that never got properly adapted, there's actually about half of what he wrote that never made it into the films even when the title was used. No Time to Die for example used elements from Fleming's You Only live Twice that didnt make it into the proper film, so in a sense thats a remake, and Die Another Day is a remake of Moonraker in the same sense. And neither of those, I gotta say, were improvements on the originals despite more Fleming content.
Plus they end up remaking themselves in a way: in terms of the villain's plot Spy Who Loved Me is a remake of You Only Live Twice blended with Thunderball (what's bigger than your villain stealing three nuclear missiles? Stealing the submarines that the missiles come in!); Moonraker is then a remake of Spy Who Loved Me itself; View To A Kill is a remake of Goldfinger, and even lifts scenes like the villains' briefing complete with little model of some buildings etc.
And of course we've had a proper bona fide remake (or I guess you could say a re-adaptation) in Never Say Never Again being Thunderball Again. And that had its pros and cons to be fair.
I don't want remakes too, I'm strongly against it.
To be honest in the world of films (especially today), not just in Bond, the remakes has been done to death many times, and some of them looked inferior to the original, because let's admit it, the Hollywood is now running out of ideas so they just tend to remake old films, for example, Ghostbusters, Robocop or Carrie, they're just looked inferior to the original to be honest.
Now, when it comes to the world of Bond, I might agree with all of the respondents here like @Barbel @caractacus potts @emtiem but for me, when this franchise starting remaking those old films means they're now running out of ideas, they're now starting recycling some old films, which they've been doing in the past with like @emtiem said, and still now of course, with the newest one, NTTD being a remake of OHMSS.
Especially when it comes to the 60's Bond films, they're nearly a perfection to me, so every remakes of it would look inferior to the original, and they're also stuck close to the novels so there's no reason for remaking them, what remakes would they do of these? Imagining of them straying far from their book counterparts?
But when it comes to those films that's never been justified or given justice, let's say strayed far from the source material, they could do those again with adapting them closer to the source material like what @caractacus potts said, especially those 70's Bond films, but of course the cons here is some of the books might not be applicable for today, particularly Live And Let Die (given the racism) for example, and the film was somewhat lighter in that regard, but yes, others like Moonraker or You Only Live Twice might work (though I'm still not sure about YOLT, given it's racial stereotypes and prejudices too, regarding the Japanese people, and so was also the sexism presented in the book).
There's so many things that we have to consider before doing this, and I, for one who's also against of those remakes, and never quite see the advantages of it.
The main problem with remaking the early Bond films is that the casting was so damn near perfect that it would be impossible to replicate. CR06 showed that an up to date adaption of the books could be done excellently and I would have loved to have seen them follow it on with LALD, MR etc etc instead of the mishmash that we got. So, if it was done in CR06 style I think it would be an interesting project, but it won’t be happening whilst BB is still on board, that’s for sure.
True, like Gert Frobe as Goldfinger for example, or don't go further, Diana Rigg as Tracy or Lotte Lenya as Rosa Klebb, or Robert Shaw as Red Grant.
I couldn't imagine anything those in the role.
The films themselves were damn near perfect! Don't want get remade.
Good point. I was hoping for the series to take that direction, too, and while I mostly enjoy what followed, I am disappointed they didn't give us more faithful remakes and updates like CR06.
8. TMwtGG 9. AVtaK 10. TSWLM 11. SF 12. LtK 13. TND 14. YOLT
15. NTtD 16. MR 17. LaLD 18. GF 19. SP 20. DN 21. TB
22. TWiNE 23. DAD 24. QoS 25. DaF
The problem is the casting (who would have played those characters?), and those films in the 60's like FRWL, TB and OHMSS filmed closely and faithfully adapted to the books.
It would just be a repetition of those.
coolhand said:
The main problem with remaking the early Bond films is that the casting was so damn near perfect that it would be impossible to replicate.
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watching Never Say Never Again, most of the casting was quite good. Only the actress playing Moneypenny failed to make an impression, and she was benign enough. Largo, Blush, Blofeld, M, Algernon, Leiter, even BasingerDomino gave great original performances that added to the film, making it more than a shot-by-shot replication of the original. Not necessarily better than the original actors, but different enough to make the exercise of reimagining a familiar story worthwhile.
I happen to think Thunderball was one of the films that was perfect in the first place and definitely not needing any remake, but NSNA proves old characters can be recast and made interesting.
I don't need any repetitions of old Bond films.
I'm for a new, original stories, just hire fresh writers, the screenwriting unit of James Bond obviously needs a new blood.
There's so many possible plots that could made a great Bond film.
There's so many things left unexplored.
Had EON done remakes instead.
No, no, no! If they have run out of ideas use some from John Gardner's books.