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Would Bond have survived & thrived into the 21st Century without Brosnan?
chrisisall
Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
As of '94 Dalton was out. A new Bond HAD to be chosen. Fleming purists like me & casual but seriously-inclined fans might have embraced Clive Owen or Jason Isaacs, but really, as far as the general movie-going public was concerned, it was a time for star power to save Bond from being drowned in a sea of hard-R action oblivion.
I think Brosnan was the only man who could carry Bond through to the new millennium successfully.
Thoughts?
I think Brosnan was the only man who could carry Bond through to the new millennium successfully.
Thoughts?
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Comments
;)
In my opinion audiences were so starved for a Bond film by 1995 that any number of actors could've been cast and GE would've been a hit.
Starved? The GP?? They were all prepared to forget about Bond by then. They had Swarzenegger's True Lies to keep them spy-happy. And Mission: Impossible.
Okay, I'm gonna get in trouble here... ce est une blague , mon homme. :))
I think 1986 was actually Brosnan's moment and it passed him by. He was perfectly positioned (due to his looks and demeanor) to take over from Roger Moore, and particularly after Moore's long run, where he had firmly established himself and his smoother rendition of Bond in the public's mind.
I also agree that by 1995 they could have probably cast a number of actors for the role. Brosnan hadn't really done much interesting with his career from 1986 to 1995 apart from some forgettable tv movies and a few miniseries. He was definitely on the way down from a career point of view compared to the 80's.
Furthermore, by 1995 we already had True Lies, Patriot Games, a number of decent spy movie, Die Hard 3 etc. So I think a more gritty Daniel Craig type character would have been more accepted then if EON had been brave enough and doubled down on what they started in 1989, but instead they played it safe when they cast Brosnan and in a way lost an opportunity to move the Bond franchise further forward at that critical time.
GE was very successful because it was a great little movie with excellent performances, but also because of the pent up demand for James Bond - and because it was a sort of throwback to the cold war Bonds of old but modernized. It could have been successful regardless of the actor - the demand for Bond after 6 long years was that strong.
I really think EON lost confidence after LTK's poor box office reception, and also after the long wait. I think they themselves weren't sure whether Bond was relevant in the 90s (he was more relevant than ever) and did not really know what direction to go in after LTK. They were also reorganizing and finding themselves after Cubby's illness/death and after so many of the familiar old hands from the 60's-80's had left/passed on. They therefore decided to retread (in an inferior way) the Moore era (since it had been successful for so long) with Connery'esque elements, rather than take risks with the character.
I also think (and have always thought) in a way that Brosnan's limitations as an actor also restricted the direction EON could go with Bond in the late 90's / early 00's. I think over time EON themselves realized this (particularly after his performance in TWINE), and that is precisely why we thankfully got the reboot and Daniel Craig. Austin Powers and Jason Bourne definitely facilitated this, but so did Brosnan the actor too. Some claim it was because they finally got the rights to Casino Royale - and so Brosnan had to go because he could not fit into a reboot scenario - maybe, but I've always thought there was more to it than that. If they really wanted him, he would have stayed. They didn't.
So no, I don't think he was the only man who could have carried Bond safely into the new millennium. I actually think his period will be remembered as a sort of creative gestation period between Dalton and Craig. A sort of inferior greatest hits package while EON sorted things out.
I have no 'seething' dislike of Brosnan at all. As I've said before, I was a big proponent of his and actually wanted him for Bond in 1995. I loved GE and thought he was serviceable (but surprisingly unsure) in it.
I do think he was not comfortable in the role and that discomfort betrayed his performances - to me at least.
Undoubtedly, he did not live up to his promise as James Bond (irrespective of the scripts and direction). That was his fault more than anyone else's imho.
It's not that easy a role to play well - even though many think it is.
I believe you are quite right on that, from what I've read elsewhere.
These two statements seem somewhat contradictory to me... can you expand just a tiny bit?
True Lies was always intended to be a one-off so you can't count that as a franchise substitute. And Mission: Impossible was still 7 months away from being released and hadn't so much as had a trailer out yet so that certainly doesn't count as a franchise replacement either. In fact one can make the arguement that the first Mission: Impossible was greenlit in part because of all the press the announcement of the return of James Bond was getting. I'm sure it didn't hurt.
At 26 years old I obviously didn't have a huge grasp of the pop culture landscape back in 1994 when I was 5 but having spoken to film buffs who were my age now back then, they basically all said that yes by the mid-nineties there was a big demand for James Bond again. Absence indeed makes the heart grow fonder. Or "Bonder" in this case. Sorry I couldn't help myself. ;)
^This pretty sums up alot of my feelings about the subject.
:)>-
The point I'm making is James Bond is not that easy a role to play. To the casual observer it does not require a highly skilled actor who understands nuance, subtlety, consistency and context. It requires all of this and more.
The problem is all of the previous actors did it so well - in their own way - they made it look easy. They were so sure of themselves, and consistent in their portrayal. Even Dalton, who could appear a little uncomfortable with some of the casual elements of the role, delivered a consistent performance.
Brosnan appeared to be finding his way through it for 3 odd films imho. I felt we got different versions of his Bond each time - like he was on a training exercise. Only by the 4th did he project and present the character of James Bond convincingly (to me) on screen - the way I expected him to have done from the beginning. That movie is considered to be by far his worst, but to me his performance in it was his best. However, by that time, the world had moved on, and his time was about to pass.
I am not criticizing his acting skills - just for the most part his portrayal/characterization - even George Clooney (who I love) screwed up Wayne.
Really? I consider Martin Campbell to be one of the best directors in the Bond series. And Michael Apted has a pretty impressive filmography. On the contrary I think Brosnan was given some very strong directors to work with. If any Bond got screwed in that area it was Timothy Dalton.
Dalton is a different kind of actor altogether. Like a wolf, he seizes his role, rips it apart to understand it, and will fight to the death to make his vision of the character ring true. Hence his not getting along well with Glen, who simply wanted to direct a simple movie.
But back to the main topic here, a relative unknown would have put EON back where they started with Dalton without the startling difference from Moore, a big star was either American with a bad accent, or unreachable financially at that point. Brosnan was known, and remembrance of him from Steele was still in the public's (American, at least- the biggest market back then) psyche, hence my opinion that he was THE only man for the job.
:)) ).
*props to anyone knowing the TV reference*
Given the somewhat directionless and unsure EON that we had in the 90's (mainly due to the changeover from old hand Cubby and all the newbies on the staff) and the incompetent, desperate MGM (always teetering on the verge of bankruptcy every other year and having to rely on Bond to pull them back from the brink), I think Brosnan was the only choice we could have had. So circumstances dictated Brosnan to some degree.
He was a throwback to better times (since nearly the whole world knew by 1995 that he was the chosen one who was robbed at the last moment due to NBC's greed - so there was an immediate acceptance of him in the role unlike what happened with Dalton) and that may have been what EON/MGM in their sorry state needed to relaunch the franchise successfully and quickly after the detour they took with LTK and the long wait for Bond.
I still think, as I mentioned in my first post above, that EON/MGM, if they really wanted to, could have built very quickly on the Dalton era by taking what they did in LTK to another level in GE - it would have been easier to accept a harder/more violent Bond in the 90's - more so than in the 80's when everyone still remembered Roger Moore's long shadow - the long gap was a perfect time to reimagine Bond for a new age - a missed opportunity.
However, EON/MGM in 1995 was not the same EON/MGM as 1989 - they were a weakened force, creatively and financially. They played it safe, and Brosnan was a safe pair of hands since his drama with Bond was well known by then - the two were somewhat joined at the hip before they even started - so it was easier to transition him in.
Having said that, as I mentioned above, he is also to blame for not capitalizing on the commercial success of GE to take the role to new and interesting places, and for not establishing a convincingly consistent Bond persona early in his run. It's telling that he is the Bond who has done the best both during and post-Bond career wise - he established his production company Irish-Dreamtime during his Bond run, and definitely experienced a career resurgence post-1995 compared to his early 1990's work. He is the one who may in fact be least well remembered in time for his James Bond run, but rather for his other work. Daniel Craig in contrast has only made a handful of movies since QoS and none since SF - certainly none so memorable or successful as his Bond work
We will never know the goings on behind the scenes at EON and what really happened there during the 90's (i.e. EON may in fact have had the vision but not the means to execute that vision due to MGM interference), but I suspect that the Brosnan/EON relationship was never as good as the Moore/EON, Dalton/EON or Craig/EON ones. There appeared to be a businesslike level of detachment in it - not genuine affection, warmth and comradery. When MGM was out and Sony came in, EON appeared to go back to pushing their vision (first established in LTK) forward.
So in a way, even though he may in fact have been the only choice in 1995, both the direction they took with him and additionally his performances in the role ensured that his run would be a short and critically unsuccessful one when it was all over and done with.
Great post @bondjames. =D>
According to IMDB (take with a grain of salt)
Before Pierce Brosnan was cast as James Bond, Liam Neeson, Mel Gibson, Sam Neill, Hugh Grant and Lambert Wilson were all rumoured to be in the running for the role.
All of those except Brosnan are wrong for Bond. Apparently Ralph Fiennes also auditioned for the part. Not sure if these are the only actors to try for the role in Goldeneye, but as far as studios were concerned, Dalton was a turkey.(Wrong) They needed a safe bet that would appeal to a world audience. They got that with Pierce.