Posted on 03/10/2006 2:56:59 PM PST by jmq
Yahoo! News New James Bond movie: fewer gadgets, more grit
By Michael ChristieFri Mar 10, 12:39 PM ET
Forget the gadgets, invisible cars and exploding space stations. The next James Bond movie is going to be pure grit, real stunts and a spy who fumbles a kill, falls in love and dislikes violence, the makers say.
"Casino Royale," the 21st movie featuring the debonair English superspy, takes Bond back to the start of Ian Fleming's series, when he carries out his initial two assassinations and first earns his license to kill.
There'll be no computer-generated imagery, the prologue is in black and white "to shake everybody up," and the MI6 agent, played for the first time by English actor Daniel Craig, will take a while to get into his trademark tuxedo.
"At the end of it he's sort of honed into the Bond, the emotionally shut-down beautiful machine that Bond's become," director Martin Campbell told reporters this week on a visit to the movie set in the Bahamas.
But on the way to being the smooth, unruffled, lady-killer 007 fans have grown accustomed to, Craig as the first blond Bond, will clearly show a more human side.
"The great thing about it is that he makes mistakes and screws up. Bond finds violence hard to take, he won't admit to that. He has to do two killings, one is very messy. He falls in love with a girl, genuinely falls in love," said Campbell.
There is no "Q," no "Moneypenny" and only "a little bit of gadgetry," in the movie due for release in November and being distributed by Columbia Pictures, a Sony Pictures Entertainment unit, he said.
Craig, 38, said the Bond he hopes to portray begins as "sort of fallible." The script doesn't shy away from the sexism that marked early Bond movies but which has since been diluted.
"But he's Bond, he's not always nice," Craig said.
"Edgy" and "gritty" are the adjectives most commonly flung around by those involved in the movie.
ACTION GALORE
"He's a hard guy, that's the difference I think," said special effects supervisor Chris Corbould.
There will be plenty of action.
In a chase scene set on the African island of Madagascar but filmed in the Bahamas, Bond tries to run down terrorist Mollaka in a bulldozer, and then follows him on foot through a construction site, jumping from a 140-foot (43-meter) crane to a 120-foot (37-meter) crane.
Mollaka is played by Sebastien Foucan, French co-founder of a popular urban sports trend called Freerunning, or Parkour, and his powerful running style makes Bond appear clumsy.
But Bond's relentless determination is supposed to shine through as he scrambles after Mollaka through a Madagascar shantytown and jungle.
The film will be a departure from the explosives- and gizmo-laden spectacles seen in 2002's "Die Another Day," or 1995's "GoldenEye," which was also directed by Campbell.
"Even after 'GoldenEye' I remember remarking, thinking, how many control rooms, how many madmen can take over the world?" Campbell said. "Where the hell do you go with it? Do you get another madman, do you blow up another control room? How many space stations can you take?"
Co-producer Michael Wilson of EON Productions said the invisible car in "Die Another Day" had begun to dip the hugely successful movie series into the realm of the unbelievable.
"Technology was beginning to overwhelm the story and the characters," Wilson said.
The latest movie in a 44-year franchise that has grossed almost $4 billion since "Dr. No," starring Sean Connery, was screened in 1962, "Casino Royale" will be a return to the roots, said co-producer Barbara Broccoli.
That was one reason why EON dumped Pierce Brosnan, the most successful of the five Bond actors to date, and is taking a gamble with a new, younger face, she said.
"If you don't grow and change you die and we felt this was the right time and the right story to tell, and Daniel was the right guy to do it," Broccoli said. "So here we are."
Reuters/VNU
Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Questions or Comments Privacy Policy -Term
OMG Dalton was a TOAD.
No Q + less gadgets = DVD
Agreed. Dalton was just awful.
this fag doesn't like guns.... gimme a break...the movie will bomb, james bomb)
Fleming's book, Casino Royale, is set in about 1953. Bond is tooling around France after the villainous Le Chiffre in a pre-WWII Bentley. When Bond gets a radio, he asks "How many tubes?"
And, no he isn't really his later self yet. When he orders breakfast, it's six scrambled eggs, bacon, and black coffee.
Doesn't work out, either. Miracle he's had such a long career.
Die Another Day was just awful.
Me too. Dalton was the truest to the books so far and my personal favorite Bond.
I'm disappointed there will be no Q and no Moneypenny. Die Another Day did overdo it on the CGI -- however there should be some gadgets; it should take some cleverness on the part of the spy to know how to use them though (like in From Russia With Love).
Agreed... And I'm guessing no Judy Densch as "M" either. Sucky.
This toad cannot drive stick, so they had to custom build an Aston Martin with an automatic transmission.
The queer also managed to show up for a press conference with the Special Boat Service. They drove in with a Zodiac assault raft, and the new 007 was wearing a life jacket!!!
"Goldeneye" rocked!!!
The tank drive through Saint Petersberg was excellent.
Brosnan's best 007 film by far.
I liked Dalton's Bond a lot, but this Bond doesn't appeal to me. I said it before and I'll say it again, they don't want a Bond that reminds people of Bush, so they are messing it up big time.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.