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Indeed, I'd also rather have that one, it's the film I'd have paid to see, my dream Bond film!
But alas, it would be just only in my dream 😟
Yes! George in DAF and him killing Blofeld (Savalas' version, of course) in a brutal and violent manner (the same for Irma Bunt, already replaced by a different actress), once and for all.
With him visiting Tracy's grave at the end, that's my dream!
Please, I want to see this now, even just a CGI remake! 😁 Please!
We're both having the same feeling! @Venutius
2060? :(
I wonder if EON have a screentest or any photos of John Gavin in character.
Annoyingly it doesn't seem like it. I suppose they might be a bit reluctant to release screen tests and that sort of thing.
The only screen test that I know exists from DAF is Roger Green's. It's pretty awful if you ask me.
I hope he wasn’t seriously considered, he was terrible.
I think it was shortly after this that they admitted defeat and brought back Connery. It's also interesting that from this point onwards no other inexperienced actors are considered as candidates for the role (I think they learned their lesson between this guy and Lazenby).
But he lacked the Bondian qualities (even looking to his physical features, still not Bond), but he could've been a decent henchman though (that's where I see him more).
And as @Venutius said, he even lacked Lazenby's natural physicality and structure.
Even Roger Moore (whom personally I'm not convinced as Bond) had more Bondian qualities than him (looks wise).
I can see what you mean about him making a better henchman than a Bond.
As others said there's simply nothing about him that stands out (except maybe how flat he is) acting or looks wise. Even the fact that he was a rugby player doesn't translate to his on-screen physicality. Again, I think the producers around this time were trying to find someone with that 'x-factor' that Connery had, that certain 'something' that could carry even actors with limited experience through the part. Unfortunately it's most often a case where experience (in this case acting experience) tends to play a big role in these sorts of situations. It's a good thing next time round they brought in Moore who was a relatively well established and experienced actor, even if he didn't quite have Connery/Lazenby's look or physicality.
In the snippet of Daniel's test, I like the little pause then nod he gives before the quip. It shows that Bond is thinking of something witty to say, not just reading lines. In Casino, they did similar with the "every penny of it" rather than the Vesper line in the screentest.
Yeah. Craig absolutley nailed that screentest. We just need to see more of it. When he holds the gun too.
There's actually photographs of Dalton's screen-test, so we know he did them. I actually don't know about Moore. I know he didn't have much competition for the part and he was friends with Cubby anyway so might have just been hired based on that. Connery supposedly impressed the producers at a lunch meeting and instead of screen-testing him they taught him what clothes to wear/how to behave 'Bondian'.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/film/73152526/the-kiwi-sheep-farmer-who-couldve-been-james-bond
I honestly think this movie would have destroyed the franchise. They needed Connery for DAF, as much as I hate the final product, it was what Bond needed.
Some podcast once discussed the Maibaum drafts for a Lazenby DAF and they apparently included a depressed Bond mourning Tracy and living an isolated life on the Scottish moors when he's found by Irma Bunt, a chase with Bond on a motorcycle and Bunt in a Land Rover that ends in her death, Tiffany Case skydiving in, Bond and Tiffany attacked in London, a chase on the London Underground, the return of Draco, sequences in Barcelona and Bangkok, Bond infiltrating Spectre, a fistfight between Bond and Blofeld, and Bond abseiling down the outside of the ship and in through the porthole to save Tiffany from Wint and Kidd. What's not to like? Mind you, in one version Maibaum apparently had Bond train some white kittens to attack Blofeld - and yeh, true, that might well have killed the series! :-O
Thanks for sharing @George_Kaplan that was a good read.
https://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/articles/bonds-finlay-light-interview
https://venetianvase.co.uk/2023/07/05/finlay-light-an-interview-with-the-australian-james-bond/
Quite interesting stuff here.
But then LALD was also not that big compared to DAF either, and it's not until TSWLM that people learned to accept Moore in the role.
I think LALD just made money as much as OHMSS does, then by TMWTGG, it became a box office failure, and still a wonder how the series strived back to life after that (TMWTGG is still one of the lowest grossing Bond films along with LTK).
And think of it, had not Moore continued, we're all thinking the same that had he continued, he would destroy the franchise, because he's no Connery, and in order for the franchise to survive is to have him return.
So that's the same for Lazenby, it's a matter of acceptance, had he continued, people would've likely to accept him in the role, until he would grow into it and become successful.
At the time, people had this belief of Connery being irreplaceable, that no one could've played the character other than him, and if there's one, it would've failed.
From what I can gather LALD actually made the most money. DAF made about £116 million at the box office, OHMSS £82 million, and LALD over £160 million. TMWTGG made about £92 million. I've seen a couple of different gross figures adjusted for inflation, but both TMWTGG and OHMSS are amongst the lowest grossing Bond films and not far off each other. Whatever way TMWTGG was a massive drop from LALD, which is why they 'course corrected'. All seemed to have budgets of roughly £7 million.
For what it's worth, while it seems as though it took critics until TSWLM to really warm to Moore as Bond (it doesn't help that he was compared a lot to Connery, which I suspect didn't help Lazenby either), the numbers for LALD speak for itself. It helps that he was somewhat known from his television work and I suspect more viewers were endeared to him as Bond than Lazenby. It was a very successful film. Also, no Bond film has ever been a 'box office bomb' or failure in the strictest sense (they all earn money, it's just a case of how much). It's one of the main reasons why the franchise is still going.
It's interesting learning about those early Maibaum treatments (and yes, the cat thing is pretty daft, but it's worth saying that a lot of early ideas for Bond films are pretty stupid and tend to get ironed out - in later drafts for this film alone Maibaum seemed to include Goldfinger's twin brother, something that had apparently been recycled from an early draft for OHMSS). That said from what I can gather Broccoli and Saltzman weren't ever sold on these early versions of the story, and while eventually Lazenby's exit coincided with Broccoli's request for rewrites, I suspect this would have been done at some point regardless of the actor. Heck, the main premise of Willard Whyte being a recluse came about because of a dream Broccoli had, so we simply don't know how different a DAF with Lazenby would have been.
I disagree about OHMSS being one of the lowest, sure it's not as high compared to YOLT or DAF, but it's one of the highest grossing films of 1969 (maybe just being edged out by Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, or Easy Rider), but it's among the highest grossing films of 1969.
Sure it's not as high as the other Bond films, but it's not the lowest either, if compared to the other Bond films, it's probably average in the box office.
If there's another Bond film that could be with TMWTGG in lowest grossing Bond films, it's LTK (it did put franchise to sleep for 5 years!), It's not even in the Top Ten of Highest Grossing Films of 1989, even got edged out by Batman!
Man, maybe LTK is possibly the one that nearly killed the Franchise at the time 😅, it's low box office along the legal battles, thankfully, Goldeneye brought back the Franchise into life!
Thank you for posting that @ToTheRight. It's a very strange story. I find it difficult to believe they would just hire someone with hardly any screen acting credits and without even testing him. Has anyone seen him in anything?