Movie Chronicles » James Bond 23
This is an unofficial news sources for the sequels in the James Bond movie franchise. It is expected that Daniel Craig shall reprise the role of James Bond in Bond's 23rd outing.

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MGM in financial straits, Bond and RoboCop futures uncertain September 27th, 2009

MGM are, and have been for many years, deal­ing with sig­nif­i­cant finan­cial debts, to the tune of almost $4bn. With con­cerns about the company’s sol­vency, a recent con­fer­ence call debated whether the stu­dio should file for bank­ruptcy in a bid to gain back some of the oth­er­wise lost money.

Should this hap­pen, MGM’s assets might be sold to cover the debts, includ­ing the rights to the James Bond fran­chise, the poten­tial Robo­Cop remake could never see the light of day. This would inevitably delay Bond 23, and who knows what else.

MGM’s cur­rent plan is to con­vince cred­i­tors to waiver inter­est pay­ments until Jan­u­ary 2010, with that money instead going to fund new movies. There’s a lot up in the air right now, but we’ll keep you posted.

Time Out write an open letter to Peter Morgan, Bond 23 writer June 24th, 2009

The team at Time Out have writ­ten an open let­ter to Bond 23 writer Peter Mor­gan, with a cou­ple of Dos and Don’ts. Included are — find inter­est­ing and excit­ing loca­tions, do not copy the Bourne series, make the Bond girl a piv­otal role, give char­ac­ters room to breathe.

The let­ter openly praises Casino Royale’s approach, but is quick to point out the flaws in Quan­tum of Solace.

Dear Peter,

While we at Time Out are thrilled that you, one of our country’s most tal­ented and inquir­ing screen­writ­ers, have accepted the chal­lenge of pen­ning the next James Bond movie, there are a few salient points we feel you might like to keep in mind while writ­ing what will inevitably become one of 2011’s most impor­tant and, we hope, enjoy­able movies. We trust you accept our advice in the friendly spirit with which it’s intended…

Please give the char­ac­ters room to breathe
Per­haps the great­est stride writ­ers Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and erst­while col­league Paul Hag­gis made with ‘Casino Royale’ was giv­ing Bond and his com­pan­ions a real sense of life, depth and emo­tional con­flict. We’re used to Bond the wise­crack­ing automa­ton, but with an actor like Daniel Craig in the role this approach is a ter­ri­ble waste. ‘Quan­tum of Solace’ reduced Bond to lit­tle more than grunts and sneers – a smart thug who faces off against a loqua­cious but rather pathetic vil­lain. You’ve already proved your worth as a mas­ter of ver­bal spar­ring in your pre­vi­ous scripts, so we’re sure you’ll have the mur­der­ous ban­ter down pat. The chal­lenge will be to make us care about Bond again.

Please respect your audi­ence
There’s no doubt that the best of Bond is revealed when there’s a strong sto­ry­line packed with twists, switch­backs and dou­ble crosses: just think of Sean Bean’s decep­tion in ‘Gold­en­eye’, or Vesper’s betrayal in ‘Casino’. As long as your action sequences are grip­ping and your char­ac­ters con­vinc­ingly moti­vated, there’s no crime in keep­ing the viewer guessing.

Please don’t waste your Bond girls
Another of the great plea­sures offered by ‘Casino Royale’ was the chance to see Bond con­fronted by female char­ac­ters who could hold their own: not just Eva Green’s schem­ing Ves­per, but Judi Dench’s frac­tious, com­mand­ing M. Dench was the best thing in ‘Quan­tum’, but she was let down by Olga Kurylenko’s fiery but under­used Camille. It’s a les­son the mak­ers of Bond have been long in learn­ing: these women can be more than just eye-candy. A strong female lead doesn’t just cen­tre the film, she allows writ­ers and audi­ences a chance to get to the core of Bond himself.

Please don’t remake the Bourne series
Both ‘Casino’ and ‘Quan­tum’ were clearly inspired by the down­beat real­ism of the Bourne tril­ogy, but while the for­mer bal­anced gritty action sequences with a wry streak of self-deprecating humour, the writ­ers and direc­tor of ‘Quan­tum’ seemed con­tent with an end­less parade of repet­i­tive shaky­cam punch-ups in grimy locales. So, while action is clearly the lifeblood of the series, remem­ber that Bond always ben­e­fits from a moment of lev­ity amid the mayhem.

Please show us some­thing we haven’t seen before
It’s hard to think of any­where Bond hasn’t been (Antarc­tica? Ever­est? Leam­ing­ton Spa?), but one of ‘Quan­tum’ direc­tor Marc Forster’s bet­ter accom­plish­ments was pick­ing some stun­ning inter­na­tional loca­tions, from the seedy streets of Panama and the bar­ren Ata­cama Desert in Chile to the grandiose opera house at Lake Con­stance in Aus­tria. While the old Bonds were increas­ingly con­fined to traips­ing between MI6 and Moscow bat­tling the same face­less, jab­ber­ing Russkies, the global nature of the new films’ mys­te­ri­ous con­spir­acy means that Bond can now head just about any­where, and beat up just about anyone.

Finally, we await the Bond pro­duc­ers’ choice of direc­tor with bated breath. Some inter­est­ing names have been rumoured, though we under­stand Danny Boyle has offi­cially denied all knowl­edge and Christo­pher Nolan is busy with all that Bat­man busi­ness. But the Bond films have never been about the big-name direc­tors; in fact, with names like Ian Flem­ing, Roald Dahl and Paul Hag­gis, you could say it’s one of the few major film series where the choice of writer actu­ally mat­ters more than the choice of direc­tor. Which is where you come in, Mr Morgan.

Good luck!

Yours in anticipation,

Tom

Michael Sheen to play Blofeld as next Bond villain? June 19th, 2009

MTV are report­ing, via an anony­mous source, that British born actor Michael Sheen will play Blofeld in Bond 23. The cre­ative process for Bond 23 only started very recently, pos­si­bly just this month. Any cast­ing rumors should be taken with a grain of salt, although this spec­u­la­tive cast­ing is both excit­ing and encour­ag­ing and would pre­sum­ably offer a new look for the arche­typal Ernst Stavro Blofeld villain.

Mul­ti­ple Oscar win­ner Peter Mor­gan is co-scripting the Bond movie — he and Sheen have worked together on numer­ous occa­sions, includ­ing “The Queen” and “Frost/Nixon”. This long stand­ing writer-actor rela­tion­ship gives some sig­nif­i­cant weight to the rumor; and we already know Mor­gan has the Midas touch when writ­ing for Sheen — this could be good, very good.

Blofeld por­tray­als

Work on James Bond 23 begins June 2nd, 2009

A very brief quote from James Bond pro­ducer Michael Wil­son, in an inter­view with The Sun, tells us that work on the 23rd Bond film is now underway.

“We have started work on the new film, which I can’t say any­thing about. Daniel Craig is very keen to get going.”

Wil­son also sug­gested that con­tenders for the next Bond theme tune could be Duffy or Amy Wine­house. I don’t think we can really take any­thing from that though:

‘I would love to get Duffy to sing the next tune,’ he said. ‘I think she is won­der­ful. Amy Wine­house would be good too.’

Marc Forster was asked to direct Bond 23, would prefer a lighter sequel March 27th, 2009

MTV caught up with Quan­tum of Solace direc­tor Marc Forster to ask him about Bond 23:

“They asked me if I wanted to […] I’ll never say never again, but at this point I would say no.”

As for what he would like to see in the next Bond movie, Forster added:

“It really depends on what direc­tion they want to take it. […] For me, I wanted to take it to a harder and darker place, but now that that jour­ney I’ve gone on has suc­ceeded, I feel like the next one can take it to a bit more humor­ous place again.”

“I feel like next time you should take it in a lighter and more humor­ous way, maybe add a few more girls and a bit more sex – all that kind of stuff […] I think that would be inter­est­ing.”

Rolling again in 2010 March 27th, 2009

Speak­ing in the UK’s Metro news­pa­per, Daniel Craig briefly com­mented on the sched­ule for Bond 23:

‘[Dame Judi] is great. I’m sure she will be back when we get rolling again next year.’

When in 2010 we don’t know, not really help­ing us guess the next release date. Mean­while Michael G Wil­son com­mented at the Brad­ford Inter­na­tional Film Fes­ti­val that no fur­ther, sig­nif­i­cant work on Bond 23 has yet taken place:

The only news Wil­son broke about the next Bond film is that there is no news at all. He said there had been no sig­nif­i­cant work done on the next entry.

Freida Pinto next Bond girl? Unlikely March 17th, 2009

I think we can almost cer­tainly cast these as fake in the cat­e­gory of rumor mon­ger­ing for the sake of jump­ing on the back of another movie’s suc­cess to sell news­pa­per copies. The Sun report that Slum­dog Mil­lion­aire star Freida Pinto has been invited to screen test for James Bond 23 — pro­duc­ers were sup­pos­edly impressed by her dur­ing cast­ing for Quan­tum of Solace, but at that time she was too young to play a ‘secret agent’s lover’.

The Sun are con­tin­u­ing with their already debunked Danny Boyle to direct rumor. Maybe Dev Patel will be the next Bond?

Danny Boyle not directing Bond 23 March 7th, 2009

This was a short lived rumor, and as our instincts told us, it was best not to trust the Sun’s news story how­ever plau­si­ble it seemed. Last week The Sun broke the news, amidst a flurry of Slum­dog Mil­lion­aire atten­tion, that Boyle was inline to take the helm of James Bond 23. In response, a spokesper­son for Boyle recently announced to WENN:

‘While Danny says he always has and always will enjoy the Bond movies he has no plans to direct one. Danny is nat­u­rally flat­tered to be thought of!’

Before speak­ing directly with Enter­tain­ment Weekly:

‘I enjoy the Bond movies, always have and always will, but I have no plans to direct one. I don’t know who came up with the story, but please tell them I’m very flat­tered to be thought of!’

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