It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
Exactly.
I agree. There are less creative risks when Bond goes period. Look at Devil May Care as a main example. While Solo and the Anthony Horowitz trilogy worked for the books, it's like spinoffs: it should be left in the literary world of Bond.
Interesting point, I guess by the time Holmes came to the screen he was forever trapped in his era. There was no TV or movies in Conan-Doyle's time, so he was never "contemporary" in that medium. Book Bond began in the 1950s, Movie Bond began in the 1960s, but was never set in the 1950s to match with the books, and Movie Bond continued to remain in the present.
On the other hand there have been verisons of Sherlock Holmes in recent times set in the present, Benedict Cumberbatch's "Sherlock" and "Elementary" which seemed to be quite popular.
Personally I don't think an entire period piece Bond would be a positive move at this point, however a reboot might be an appropriate time to use the flashback as a storytelling device.
I guess that's what the black and white opening to CR was about, except they didn't follow through with it. It was only the veneer of flashback, which served as a brief intro gimmick, rather than being used to reveal insights on how the character came to be who he is in any depth, over the course of the entire film.
The nostalgia market moves on in time, in order to cater to the highest spending demographic (a theory)
E.g. In the 1970s "American Graffiti", "Happy Days" and "Sha-Na-Na" catered to the nostalgia of the 1950s teens who had become the wage and salary earners that were the engine of consumer culture.
The 60s generation don't count any more financially
70s nostalgia should be phasing out, and 90s nostalgia phasing in, about now
That effect may be distorted by the Boomers being a more numerous generation, and therefore still retaining some infuence by sheer weight of numbers. Also there are still a few powerful movie execs out there who were young adults in the 1970s, to green light projects relating to that era.
If they did reboot it in the 60's I'd fear the creatives behind the scenes had well and truly run out of ideas
They made movies about Holmes fighting Nazis, but that doesn't make much sense from a modern-day perspective.
I think Bond is a product of his time too and I think filmmakers see it that way.
Anyway, a modern Bond film set in the 60s will still be a modern film. I’m not sure it’ll give fans what they want in practice. Like I said though I can see it working fine enough in a video game. But that’d be more because it could heighten things stylistically. It wouldn’t be about preserving Bond’s character.
It's the only way this would work. They don't have Connery either.
Exactly. I can imagine it being very weird and actually not feeling very ‘James Bond’.
Anyway, I don’t think it’ll happen in the short term.
Me neither. Rather than a relative novelty such as a retro setting, I suspect that Amazon will view this as the time to establish 'their' Bond by going the high octane, all-guns-blazing, greatest hits route. What do most people want from a Bond movie? Turn that up to 10. Etc. Period pieces, experimentation and auteur projects probably won't be part of it for the foreseeable. There probably won't even be too many risks, tbh. I'm expecting the first two or three films to re-establish and consolidate before there's any thought given to pushing the boundaries a bit.
I’m of the same mind. They want to steer away from anything remotely controversial and deliver the biggest and best international crowd pleaser that they can.
They didn’t spend the GDP of a medium sized country to court backlash and anger. They will color inside the lines of what they feel James Bond is, and leave any experimentation when they’ve won over old and new fans alike (and when they feel they’re going stale or repeating themselves)…
They’d love a Holland-like-Spider-Man smash where they nail the four quadrants (hello Pascal and Heyman). Fun, exciting, “scary” but fun for the whole family.
Ultimately I think it's trickier knowing at the moment what this new creative team will do exactly. It would be a shame if Bond lost its harder edge due to playing it safe.
The thing is, I liked Bond to last and to be introduced to the younger audience and generations, for them to experience what is it like to be introduced to Bond like some of us fans felt when we're just new to the franchise, and how would they feel it if they have lost interest and possibly as of now, Bond may be fading in memory (people often declared him as a "thing of the past").
The thing is, I've come across to some comment in Facebook when there are some there asked "Does anyone still watch Bond films?", and it's my fear of Bond getting lost in relevance, and it's been 4 years now since NTTD was released.
With more years to come and without any news or updates in Bond 26 or the release of a new film, I'm afraid for the possibility of lesser people interested to see the new Bond in theatre (with the new generation saying "who cares anymore?"), if Bond 26 would be released to say, in 2027, do you think people would still care? (Not us fans, but the younger, general audience, or not even the young ones, but the general audiences, both young and adult).
Until it would be like just a cult franchise (meaning to say, a film franchise just for us, fans), that broader audience appeal would be missing.
I hope we would get some news and updates now, or we could get Bond on screen before LA 2028 😅.
Good for Star Wars at least, they have different mediums, so people could still remember them by (they have the Mandalorian series, for example), but there's nothing like that in Bond, except for a video game, which I'm afraid is not enough to draw a wider crowd (what about those who don't play video games?)
Amazon needs to keep Bond moving.
Bond, we need you back!
It's sad because we all thought that one of the up sides of Amazon coming in was they would get something off the ground quickly. 3 months later all we have is a shortlist of director that we don't even know is real or another media fabrication. Deadline Variety or Hollywood Reporter is still yet to run with that story, meaning something fishy is going on, after a while you get sick of all the blind alleys.
Yeah. I don't see any reason to worry about Bond's relevance at the moment.
It's true, the name still carries big interest. It's easy to get too close as a fan.
I agree.
And it's been 4 years, the thing is, yes, while we have the 6 years hiatus with LTK - Goldeneye but it was a different time back then and if my memory serves, we have James Bond Jr. Cartoons from 1991-1992, so the people back then have still something to remember Bond by as they're waiting for the new Bond film, just like again, with the multiple Star Wars series, there may have been no new films as of now, but they have series and spin offs, Bond at this point has none, or at least, I may be initially against of it, but even just a mini series about Bond or a spin off (just do it right) may be fine now for me, I guess, just to keep it moving while we wait for a new Bond film.
Sure, The First Light may spark some talks, but until when? I mean, I know it caused quite a stir in public, but not as explosive, anticipating and long lasting as the news regarding Bond 26, with wider public coverage.
And now, with too many distractions like Netflix, social media and internet, the longer the hiatus, the faster or quicker the relevance is fading away.
I'm just looking at what the public thought of Bond at this point (Facebook and Twitter), and some of them have been losing interest, actually they've enjoyed the recent Mission Impossible film, and John Wick has Ballerina with Ana De Armas, it pains me to see as a fan to see a comment asking if there are still people who cares about Bond.
As a fan, the hiatus have no problem for me as I could wait, it's my sign of loyalty to the series, but if looking at Bond's impact towards the general public (non fans), would that still be there once the new Bond film is out?
So if, very hypothetically, in a parallel universe something had happened at EON and the next Bond film from NTTD had a gap of 10 years, you think the general public would completely have lost interest when a new Bond film was announced?
I'm not saying Bond is infallible (although it's a very strong brand people get excited for) but I don't see the panic here. Maybe it's as @mtm said, we get too attached to this stuff as fans and become a bit blind.
I'm not sure how reliable social media is (I'm sceptical how in line this site alone is when it comes to the general consensus of certain Bond films frankly) but just going from my personal life I don't anyone who wouldn't be happy to see a trailer drop for a new Bond movie and go see it.
Yeah and honestly, what if somehow they have? And I don't buy that they have: look at all the other films which have gaps between sequels: the next Star Wars film is coming next year, which is a gap of, what, seven years since the last one? Have people forgotten SW?
But if they have, why worry about it? There's nothing you or I can do about it; just let the very well-paid MGM people worry about it.
There's not much in the way of evidence cited in that article: I hope the writer isn't just basing it on the chart on the Netflix app on their TV! :D
Not very positive news if it is true though as it means Netflix will keep pumping out yet more bland spy movies.
Yes, Bond's a big property, akin to Star Wars when it had its new films (from TFA onwards anyway). We're not talking about properties like Sherlock Holmes, Mission Impossible etc. Even if you have no interest in Bond (I mean no ideological or fan-based opinion) it's like when a new Batman or Superman movie is released. We've seen this character, we know them, and most likely have consumed media from them in our past. Even a casual fan would be interested. And honestly, I think a gap would make that connection with audiences more apparent.
I love the comparison, and I think you’re right. But in my reading of Fleming, there is purpose in beaching anachronisms upon modernity’s shore. Bond, like Fleming, was a man whose tastes were on the razor’s edge of effete, but for whom morality was harsh and unforgiving like their shared Scottish forebears . Fleming loved modernity. He loved trinkets and new ideas. But he indulged in some of modernity’s most hedonistic delights far too deeply, like many Edwardians would, and died before his time.
The Bond novels worked because they, in their day, were documenting not so modern minds endangering the potential wonders that modernity could innovate in the sciences and in businesses and in governing and in sexual liberation. We’re reading Fleming’s legacy in hindsight. It’s a vantage point that has its own particular advantages, but it’s interpreting Fleming’s work for its time, not in his time as the Bond novels were released.
While it may be getting harder to reconfigure Bond’s brand of espionage in an arms race of AI supremacy, the Bond films are able to capture Fleming’s motif by continually updating Bond’s time, if not Bond himself. I think we would lose that important connection to Fleming’s commentary. But, more importantly, what’s the point of putting Bond back in the 60’s if there’s not going to be some meaningful storytelling that speaks to the upheavals of the day? He’s a spy for a major Western power. His profession puts him in close proximity to people that bombed nations and put a man on the moon. Bond in hindsight is an idea rich in storytelling possibilities but can anyone really pay up?
Not very positive? SPECTRE, which opened the same year as U.N.C.L.E., was the lesser of the two films.
To be honest, I thought it was ok...
I don't think it was. What I mean is that Netflix already produce loads of incredibly bland and forgettable spy films (either semi serious Bond ripoffs or quite often they're comedies where someone discovers that someone in their family is secretly a superspy with hilarious results), and if what the article says were true about UNCLE being a hit on Netflix right now then Netflix would likely take that as proof that people want more spy films and keep pumping out the trashy ones they make. Thankfully it doesn't appear to be true at all and based on absolutely nothing, so nothing to worry about. It's not even on Netflix here.
I did quite enjoy UNCLE, incidentally.