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It would make sense, who would hire Bond after M died?
A shame someone didn't also intervene for the 'Brofeld' debacle...
From what I remember, some did express skepticism, but for whatever reason they decided to go ahead with it.
Ok. But I think Amy Pascal was against that. Or maybe I didn't read it correctly or can't fully remember.
All the leaks relating to Spectre from the time are on:
https://bleedingcool.com/movies/when-blofeld-was-a-woman-in-spectre-sony-leaks/
Makes for a super interesting read.
Nice. Thanks @Mallory
That was a fascinating read indeed. Thanks @Mallory
Reading the back and forth it's a surprise they didn't dump the entire thing and start from scratch. What a mess!
This was an interesting memo from Hannah Mingella:
"The revelation that Spectre is run by Stockmann – a man still thwarted by the feelings of jealousy he has harbored since he was a young boy desperate for the affection his father showed to Bond – makes Stockmann feel like a petulant kid and somewhat disturbingly links an incredible amount of death and destruction to Bond. Since the idea Bond shared a "father" with Stockmann is introduced so late in the story it doesn't carry the emotional weight desired. By making this a personal attack against Bond it somehow makes the overall threat and ambition of Spectre feel small. Did Stockmann only put all of this in place once Bond became a "00" as a way to taunt him? Was it really all in service of brotherly jealousy?"
This is right on the money
Putting the whole "Austin Powers did it already" aspect to one side for a moment (but only for a moment)
The actual "Brofeld" idea might have been fine, if only it had been treated as a secondary motivation for the villain. Treating it as Blofeld's primary motivation generates all the issues mentioned above.
But due to the huge success of CR and SF and the relative failure of QoS, everything always had to be personal for Craig-Bond and over shadow whatever else was going on
"(Saving) The World Is Not Enough"
More personal to him were following Dench M’s orders and protecting Madeline, and I’d say those bits work much better.
Or does he just pretend he doesn't care, as a front, to avoid giving Blofeld the gratification he seeks, or perhaps part of a strategy to anoy Blofeld, just as Blofeld is trying to irritate and manipulate Bond with his remarks, just as James Bond has always tried to play it cool during verbal confrontations with Arch villains?
Blofeld: Why did you come?
James Bond: I came here to kill you.
Blofeld: And I thought you came here to die.
James Bond: Well, it's all a matter of perspective.
Amy Pascal! Which may be why she's right for the new gig.
Yes I think that’s absolutely their intentions as the earlier script drafts that leaked showed that Bond was pretending not to remember a key moment in Franz’s childhood; but in the finished film I’d say that they missed putting in anything to tell us whether Bond cared or not. We don’t even get any clue about whether he was fond of Hans, let alone his previous feelings about Franz.
It’s tricky with Bond of course because it is very much in character for him to not let his armour slip, and yet in SF we were very effectively told this was a place of childhood trauma for him which has affected the rest of his life, even without Bond letting his guard down. It’s quite a clever bit of writing.
Good point, the relationship is never developed or explored in any meaningful way, it's merely used as a plot twist for shock value
Bond could have a conversation scene with someone other than Blofeld, where he reveals his thoughts on the matter, another person from his past perhaps.
He could, although as I mentioned, note that he never actually does that in Skyfall (about his childhood and the house) and yet it's still communicated to the audience exactly how he feels about it and what happened to him there -okay, I guess he does say, pretty much directly to the audience(!) "I always hated this place", but we've got the jist way before that! :)
It's mainly done through hints (the word association), other characters talking about him like M and Kincade, and conversations he avoids (like the Glencoe roadside one with M) which nevertheless are telling us more and more about him. It's all pretty deftly done in that it stays true to his stoic character and doesn't require him to spill his guts to anyone - because he wouldn't.
And yet we don't get any of that in Spectre, which ends up making Bond's feelings on the Oberhausers rather opaque, and in turn that makes the brother plot rather redundant: it is a source of no drama at all. It gives Blofeld motivation, yes, but Bond has already ruined his plans a couple of times apparently, he already had the Moriarty motivation.
I don't entirely hate the idea of the brother plot: going after Oberhauser's murderer comes from Fleming after all; and the cuckoo concept, and the idea of a villain bearing a grudge against Bond because he was always just so damned good at everything and more handsome etc. is quite a fun idea for an adversary for Bond. And yet they really didn't make it work here, and I think the film would probably be better without it.
Should have been Madeleine; that would also flesh their relationship, which IMO was better handled in NTTD.
That's really interesting, and suggests that Craig may have been playing a moment true to the character but from a previous draft that is nonsensical in the finished film.
I blame Mendes.
I disagree - yes Mendes is culpable to a large extent but ultimate responsibility for the project is with BB and MGW. Mendes could have (and I think he tried to) walk away but it will always be the producer's baby to deal with, so to speak. They should have intervened earlier and more forcefully to steady the ship - but the feeling I get is that they didn't want to rock Mendes and Logan too much and gave them more rope than they probably should've been given. The "they delivered the billion dollar Skyfall so it will all be fine" mentality didnt work out.
I get that Sony/MGM were having a lot of input but if you were going to spend £250m on a film and only get 25% of the box office back for it - surely you would want that input to make the film as good as possible. I think in this instance, Sony's execs were right to do what they did and they offered meaningful critique along with solid ideas as to how to fix it. EoN ultimately only partially listened.
"success has many fathers, failure is an orphan"
Firstly, to put things in perspective, SP was not a financial failure, which is the yardstick by which Sony and EON would largely judge it (cost 250 mill, global gross 880 mill according to Box Office Mojo). I doubt the Owners / Producers realistically expected it to match or surpass SF at the box office, as it's very rare for a followup to top the blockbuster that came before, and SF rates 2nd all time among Bond films.
But artistically many found it underwhelming (Rotten Tomato ratings in the 60% range, IMDb 6.7) so we are only discussing from that perspective.
Following the artistic aclaim and financial success of SF, and having retained the same Director, Sony should not have felt any need to interfere, unless either the production budget or filming schedule was over running.
Of course technically the Owners / Producers can be "blamed" because they are at the top of the pyramid, but IMO that is an overly simplistic view, they had every right to put their faith in the man who had already given them SF
"they delivered the billion dollar Skyfall so it will all be fine" is pretty much how the industry works and there few examples films being saved from disaster by the interference Owners / Producers. O/P may detect that things are going off the rails, but I can't think of many examples where O/P have actually been able to turn things around, generally it's the exact opposite and their interference makes it worse. (But interested to hear if anyone can identify some)
"Too many cooks spoils the broth"
Ultimately the success or failure of any movie is in the hands of the Director, because that is their area of expertise and Owners / Producers can't do it for them.
Maybe O/P can offer some helpful guidance to a novice Director, but not to an established one. They can either get rid of him or not (Danny Boyle?)
So the "blame", such as it is, lies squarely with Mendes and any interference by Sony is only likely to have had a negative effect on the outcome.
Just as Orson Wells, Francis Ford Coppola and Terry Gilliam were the main authors of their own well documented triumphs and disasters.
And he did walk away from PR for the film, which was an unprofessional move.
I think it would have been worse without the Sony execs' notes, who were doing their jobs and pointing out just how bad the script was.