Premiere Royale
What
a night! The Royal Premiere of ‘Skyfall’, the 23 rd James Bond movie,
saw one of London’s most glamorous film premieres in recent times. There
was extensive national and international media coverage of the
glittering evening and an evident sense of relief from the director Sam
Mendes who, together with his James Bond star Daniel Craig and other key
members of the cast and crew, expressed their sheer pleasure that James
Bond was at last back on the screen after four years. Moreover, Craig,
who was one of the first of the main stars to arrive, was clearly amazed
at the atmosphere of the premiere. He said at one point: ‘I’ve never
been to a premiere like this in my life. I feel like a kid in a candy
shop tonight. It’s a pleasure and an honour. I’m immensely proud – it
couldn’t be a better setting’. He continued: ‘This is my third premiere
now and I’ve never been excited like this before’. The special premiere
evening was a truly fitting tribute to 50 years of 007 on screen, and
was perhaps exemplified in the Aston Martin DB5 that was parked
prominently on display outside the Royal Albert Hall, as guests followed
the long red carpet into the premiere. And just above Bond’s famous
car, the waiting crowds could see a large reproduction of the iconic
‘007 gun’ emblem that has arguably become a universal symbol, recognised
everywhere around the world.
Bond Fever
As
various members of the cast were interviewed live on stage just outside
the premiere entrance at the back of the famous Albert Hall, the
patient and eager onlookers were entertained to all the memorable songs
from the previous James Bond movies, and for a few hours the Kensington
area of Britain’s capital was dominated by Bond fever, with all the
roads and pavements leading to the Albert Hall packed with spectators,
autograph hunters, dedicated Bond fans, and curious people who were just
simply passing by. All the main ‘crowd control’ metal barriers that
lined the streets were adorned with large ‘Skyfall’ posters, while a
special ‘media’ area had been created for TV news crews and official
newspaper photographers to get the best shots of the main stars as they
arrived. Nearby buildings also saw faces at every window, straining to
catch a glimpse of the stars and guests, and some balconies overlooking
the premiere site had groups of people chanting ‘Daniel! Daniel!’ in
unison. This rose to a crecendo when the 007 star himself arrived. When
Craig looked up and waved at the balcony crowds, there was a massive
cheer from them. Later that evening, at the lavish ‘Skyfall’
post-premiere party held at the Tate Modern on London’s south bank,
overlooking the River Thames, Daniel Craig summed up the euphoria.
Sipping a Martini (what else?!), he told the London Evening Standard newspaper:
‘How could I not enjoy this? The whole night has been incredible. We
had an amazing team working on the film and we’ve created something we
are all proud of’. Craig added: ‘We’ve been at the Royal Albert Hall in
the presence of royalty and then on to Tate Modern – this is probably
the most memorable night of my career. I just feel honoured, and it
shows you what Bond means to everyone’.
Windfall: 007 at the Box Office
The next day, the London Evening Standard devoted
part of its editorial comment page to the high-profile impact of the
007 premiere in Britain, confirming that the new Bond film was ‘a
vintage production’, and telling its readers: ‘At 50, Bond is no mere
action hero: he is an institution’. Within days, the public’s love of
this ‘institution’ soon became very apparent again. When ‘Skyfall’ went
on general release in Britain on Friday October 26, it was clear that
Daniel Craig had also been spot-on in his comments on premiere night, as
the subsequent fantastic box office success of the new Bond movie
strongly demonstrated that there remains a tremendous thirst for all the
thrills and sheer escapism of each new 007 adventure. In Britain, and
in many other countries and key markets around the globe, enthusiastic
cinemagoers have rewarded ‘Skyfall’ with massive attendance figures, and
there can be no doubt that 007 has returned to the screen in triumph.
In Britain, the movie easily became the biggest film at the British box
office in 2012, and by the weekend of November 10-11 had made over £57m.
In response, EON producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson
stated to the press: ‘We are thrilled and proud to reach this box office
landmark in record time, and are delighted that UK audiences continue
to enjoy Skyfall’.
Bond is a Universal Export
It
is no exaggeration to say that James Bond 007 has become a cultural
phenomenon in many parts of the world, and is certainly a major export
for everything ‘British’. The movie has generated record-breaking
attendance figures throughout Europe and, when it went on general
release in Canada and the USA on November 9, ‘Skyfall’ broke opening
weekend records, quickly taking in £55m ($87.8m) in its first weekend
alone. By November 23, the Hollywood Reporter had reported that
‘Skyfall’ had made a massive $669m globally. As we write, the movie has
only just been toppled from its no.1 position in the USA and other key
markets by the latest and final entry in the ‘Twilight’ movie series.
But Bond’s staying power is legendary. The new Bond movie has just
opened very strongly in Australia and New Zealand, and moves to Japan in
December. All the indications are that ‘Skyfall’ could become the most
successful Bond movie in the history of the franchise.
Purvis and Wade Explain the ‘Skyfall’ Title
The
veteran 007 screenwriting duo Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, two of the
writers behind the story for ‘Skyfall’, were interviewed in the UK’s Sunday Express newspaper
on October 14, and gave some interesting background on the origins of
the new James Bond movie. In an interview with showbiz columnist York
Membery, the talented pair spoke about the plot for the new Bond movie
and about their film writing careers generally. The interview opened
with a discussion of how, at one stage, Purvis and wade faced their own
007-style race against the clock to deliver the screenplay of the new
007 movie to the producers in Los Angeles. It was 2.00am in the morning
UK time, and they had to deliver the screenplay by first light. Neal
Purvis said there is nothing like a deadline ‘for concentrating the
mind’. However, not only did the duo deliver the untitled script on
time, but inadvertently created the eventual title. Wade explained: ‘We
needed a haunting place name. I just plucked it out of the air, and it
turned out to be something that struck a chord with the filmmakers’.
The Shaping of ‘Skyfall’
The Sunday Express interview
also revealed that work on the film that would become ‘Skyfall’
actually began in early 2010, when the two writers travelled to New York
to discuss the movie with the director Sam Mendes and Bond star Daniel
Craig. Purvis said: ‘Everyone agreed that we wanted to pitch Bond
against a villain who was a similar age and possessed the same strength
of character, making it a battle of equals’. The screenwriting pair also
said that Craig and Mendes had strong views on the direction the new
Bond film should take. According to Purvis: ‘Daniel wanted a bit more
humour in this film. While Sam made it clear that he didn’t want it to
be too introspective. He wanted a traditional big Bond film, but with a
cracking story. Above all, he wanted it to be entertaining’. A decision
was also taken to include some of the more traditional Bond elements and
characters, such as gadgets man ‘Q’. Robert Wade said: ‘the result is
that there has been a deliberate swinging back to the classic Bond we
all know and love’. The two writers also revealed to the Express that their next screenwriting project is Corsica ’72, a gangster crime drama.
Logan Licensed to Thrill Again
No
sooner had Bond 23 been released in the UK than some (unofficial) news
emerged about Bond movie no.24! According to press reports on Friday
October 26 in both Britain and America, ‘Skyfall’ co-writer John Logan
has already been hired as the solo screenwriter for the next James Bond
movie (‘Bond 24’), which will be ready to hit the cinema screen in the
autumn of 2014 (or possibly in 2015). The showbiz writer Baz Bamigboye,
whose track record on Bond news has been fairly accurate in the past
(and who was a guest at the ‘Skyfall’ premiere in London), writing in
his regular column in the UK’s Daily Mail newspaper, claimed
that plans are well under way for Daniel Craig’s next 007 thriller.
Bamigboye asserted that Bond 24 ‘is already in pre-pre-production’ (as
he put it), the plan being to start shooting the movie at Pinewood
Studios ‘around this time next year’, so that it would be ready for
cinema release in the autumn of 2014. Moreover, Bamigboye added that
screenwriter Logan, who was brought in to re-write and polish the
existing ‘Skyfall’ screenplay created by Bond regulars Neal Purvis and
Robert Wade, will pen the Bond 24 script on his own. Bamigboye revealed
that Purvis and Wade, who have worked on every Bond film since the ‘The
World Is Not Enough’ in 1999, had decided it was time to move on. An
unnamed executive associated with the two writers apparently told
Bamigboye: ‘They’ve had a tremendous run’.
Bond 24 ‘Secret’
In a statement of the blindingly obvious, Bamigboye also told his Mail readers
that the outline for Bond 24 is ‘a closely held secret’ and, so far,
only the Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, together
with Bond star Daniel Craig and some ‘trusted aides’, know the new
storyline. Bamigboye also claimed that Naomie Harris (Miss Moneypenny),
Ben Whishaw (the new ‘Q’), and Ralph Fiennes (the new ‘M’) will begin
negotiations over the next few months for their return in Bond 24. The
same day (Friday October 26), the American movie trade paper Variety also
ran a report, written by Dave McNary, which provided a bit more
background context to the plans for Bond 24. McNary also confirmed that
screenwriter John Logan will take on the full writing duties for the
next 007 film, and that Logan has developed a story arc that will
stretch into Bond 25. Logan, the report claimed, had pitched the story
for Bond 24 to the Bond producers during the summer of 2012. It is worth
noting, however, that while publicising ‘Skyfall’, James Bond star
Daniel Craig expressed surprise at the idea of a story arc, saying he
did not know where this had come from. Craig said that they only worked
on stand-alone ideas for the next movie, not two at the same time.
Perhaps inevitably, the news about Logan being given solo writing duties
on the next Bond movie quickly started some rather frenzied internet
speculation over what Logan might be planning. In the past, he has
raised the possibility of reviving Ernst Stavro Blofeld and SPECTRE (and
has even teased an audience about this on one occasion when he was a
speaker), while the Bond producers in recent statements (although very
cautious) have also not ruled out the possibility of re-using the
SPECTRE or Quantum organisations.
Write Another Way: Purvis and Wade Step Down
In
a press release issued from Dohar, Qatar, on November 19, 2012, where
Neal Purvis and Robert Wade were taking part in a master-class on
screenwriting at the Fourth Doha Tribeca Film Festival, the writing duo
officially confirmed the news that they were relinquishing their Bond
writing duties. Wade said: ‘We’re very happy to have done five Bond
movies, I think we’ve gotten it to a good place. I know that John Logan
and Sam Mendes have come up with a plot for another one, which takes the
pressure off because these films take up a lot of time’. His co-writer
Purvis added: ‘We were going to stop with Quantum of Solace, but it’s good to go out on a high with Skyfall’.
It is difficult to measure the enormous amount of work both Purvis and
Wade have contributed to British film-writing generally, and to the Bond
film franchise since 1998-99. After meeting when they were both aged
just 22, they spent a great deal of time trying to break in to the
highly competitive world of script-writing. Having been together for 28
years now, Purvis and Wade estimate that, since 1984, they have written a
total of 41 complete scripts, with just 10 made into full films. Such
is the tough world of film-making.
The Man with the Golden Touch
A
good insight into how the talented screenwriting duo work both together
and also individually came in an article in a leading British weekend
newspaper on November 18. In an interesting profile in the ‘property’
section of the UK’s Sunday Times, Robert Wade was interviewed
at length in his West Sussex home. Wade, now aged 50, purchased his home
three years ago and he and his wife have since renovated the house and
converted it into their dream family home. It includes a spacious
study-cum-library, and it was here where, shortly before submitting the
Bond 23 script, Wade thought of a title: ‘It was 2am, and I was looking
out of the window. It was raining outside and pretty grim... the name
just fell out of the sky’. He also revealed that moving his own family
from London to the Sussex countryside had exerted an influence on the
Bond film’s storyline: ‘Ultimately, it’s about getting back to nature,
and to basics’ (as we know, Bond returns to his childhood home in
Scotland). The newspaper profile also noted that Wade’s study is filled
from floor to ceiling with books which are a ‘who’s who’ of British
writers, including Sebastian Faulks, John Le Carre, John Gardner, and,
of course, a comprehensive number of Ian Fleming books. There was also a
range of travel books. One volume on display was The World’s Most Dangerous Places,
by the war reporter Robert Young Pelton. Wade said: ‘Travel books were
more useful before the internet. For instance, we found Hashima, the
abandoned Japanese island in Skyfall, online’. Interestingly, he said Hashima was also a nod to Blofeld’s cliff-top castle in the Fleming novel You Only Live Twice.
Live and Let Laugh
Former
007 Sir Roger Moore was the guest host on the BBC’s popular comedy
news-quiz show ‘Have I Got News For You’, which was screened on Friday,
November 23 in the UK. A longer, uncut version was also transmitted on
Monday, November 26. Sir Roger, as always, was in fine humorous form
and, very early on in the programme, even managed to get a direct plug
in for his new hardback book ‘Bond on Bond’! At one point, Roger also
told a rather racy story about the late Herve Villechaize (Nick-Nack),
who died in 1993, and who in 1974 had something of a ‘reputation’ for
his numerous visits to the clubs and massage parlours in Bangkok during
the making of ‘The Man With The Golden Gun’. At another point in the
programme, Sir Roger ‘accidently’ shot a member of the audience with a
bullet-firing biro pen. What would ‘Q’ say? The losing panel on the quiz
show were also threatened with a Stromberg-style shark pool!
Did You Know?
Roger Moore’s first-ever book was an entertaining paperback published in the UK in 1973 by Pan Books, called Roger Moore as James Bond.
It was an inside diary account of Roger’s day-to-day experiences while
making ‘Live and Let Die’, his debut film as 007. In his acknowledgments
at the beginning of the book, Roger’s thanks included Harry Saltzman,
Cubby Broccoli and other friends. He also added (tongue in cheek): ‘I
would also like to thank Sean Connery – with whom it would not have been possible’!
Bond Bits: Brief News Items You May Have Missed
Toby
Stephens, the evil villain Gustav Graves in ‘Die Another Day’, and now a
three-times James Bond on UK BBC radio, returned to the British radio
again on October 7. He took the role of Tom in a new BBC Radio-3 version
of ‘A Doll’s House’, the famous 1879 story written by Henrik Ibsen...
The
JBIFC has picked up interesting indications that Toby Stephens will once
again soon put on the Bond tuxedo for another radio adaptation of a
Fleming 007 adventure. There is no word yet on which Fleming story will
be used. Watch this space...
To help celebrate both ‘Skyfall’ and the 50 th anniversary of Bond on screen, the UK’s Sunday Times newspaper
(October 14) devoted a special article in its magazine to Ian Fleming
(the paper, of course, once employed the Bond author, who ran its
Foreign Desk). The article claimed to reveal some of the more ‘shadowy’
aspects of Fleming’s time at the newspaper...
A
keen observer of real-life news events, it was clear from the article
that Fleming based many aspects of the world of Bond on the extensive
knowledge he built up while managing a network of reporters across the
world. In fact, he was something of an ‘M’ figure to his reporters...
On the same day, the Sunday Times also
ran an article about Ian Fleming’s own Moneypenny, Una Trueblood, his
real-life secretary who typed many of his manuscripts and articles into a
more readable form. Her name was also ‘borrowed’ by Fleming for the
female character Mary Trueblood in ‘Dr. No’...
The
special ‘Sky 007’ channel, which ran for just over a month to help
celebrate the 50 th anniversary of Bond, came to an end on Sunday,
November 4. The last day of operation saw the channel concentrating on
the Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig 007 movies...
It
seemed Bond was everywhere just after the premiere in London. Many of
the capital’s famous London red buses had prominent ‘Skyfall’
advertising posters on their sides, while 007 posters appeared across
the underground rail network, taking full advantage of the exciting tube
sequences in the new Bond movie...
Some
enterprising Bond fans visiting London also made sure they took photos
of London buses adorned with the ‘Skyfall’ imagery right next to the
real-life HQ of MI6, near Vauxhall Bridge (which, of course, was
attacked by Silva in the new Bond movie)...
The
sky was full of Bond: the famous circle-shaped IMAX cinema, near
London’s Waterloo train-station, also featured giant eye-catching
‘Skyfall’ images on all its sides, which were visible to numerous
passers-by and to London’s busy commuter traffic...
On October 25, London’s commuters were also given numerous copies of the free listings magazine Shortlist at every tube station, and featured prominently on the front cover was (yes, you guessed it) Daniel Craig as James Bond...
The
first day of general release for ‘Skyfall’ in the UK (Friday, October
26) saw various TV and radio events related to the new 007 film. To help
celebrate the release, ‘Magic Radio’, for example, played the favourite
James Bond theme songs as chosen by their listeners throughout the
day...
Also
on the day ‘Skyfall’ went on general release in the UK, lucky British TV
viewers were able to see Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem and Judi Dench all
being interviewed together on the sofa on the late-night ‘The Graham
Norton Show’ on BBC-1. At one point, Javier’s translation services were
called upon when Norton was quizzing a Spanish member of the
audience!...
Gary
Barber, one of the new bosses at MGM, seemed very pleased with the
success of ‘Skyfall’ at a recent MGM investors meeting. He said: ‘Skyfall will
be the biggest Bond of all time’, and said he was hopeful that Bond 24
would be ready for release in 2014. He added: ‘If not in 14, then
certainly in 15’...
The
Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson have voiced more
caution. In one interview given in America while promoting ‘Skyfall’,
they pointed to the enormous challenges involved in developing a
suitable story for each new Bond film, and appeared to think the year
2015 is a more realistic date for Bond 24... |
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