Bond 24 Production Date Announced

It was revealed this weekend that shooting of the latest James Bond movie was to commence on December 6 and a British release date of October 23, 2015, was still on schedule, with the U.S. release of the latest 007 picture to take place two weeks later.  Sam Mendes will return to the helm of Bond 24 and it has been rumored that the script, which is being fine-tuned in order to add some humor, will continue the themes that were explored in Skyfall.  With the Mendes-Daniel Craig team-up garnering Bond producers more than one billion dollars in ticket sales in 2012, it is no wonder they do not want to shake things up too much with the next film.

 

While scouring the Internet for information about this announcement, I began reading the comments section on a particular website (which is never a good idea) and the standard bickering in regard to the Bond series quickly got under way.  The two topics of disagreement among Bond fans that garner the most attention are whether Skyfall is overrated and how Bond movies should get back to its roots in gadgets and laughs.  The specific statement that sent me into research mode is below in its unedited version.  It was in response to a commenter stating that Skyfall was a terrible film and only did well financially because of critics’ response.  The commenter’s first paragraph, which is not included, was spot on about how critical analysis usually has no bearing on whether a movie is going to make money since critics have lambasted Michael Bay movies for years and they keep making billions at the box office but the award show darlings the reviewers love become flops.  However, it is the second part of his response that is very wrong.  Here it is:

 

“Lastly the old james bond you love and want to see is the reason the franchise was doing poorly before Daniel Craig re invented its success. Go ahead and look at the numbers for bond films pre craig, kept getting worse and worse numbers hence why we didn’t have any for a long time until Craig came along and rebooted it. I respect your a real bond fan but it seems like you just want the same thing over and over, which is exactly why it got stale and needed new life. If the old format was working and MOST OF ALL MAKING MONEY the nit wouldn’t have changed, fact!”

 

Ignoring the poor grammar, his idea that the series had become stale and needed a fresh look is absolutely correct.  However, the first part of that paragraph couldn’t be more wrong.  The pre-Craig era, specifically the Pierce Brosnan films, were doing just fine fiscally.  Brosnan’s four films started strong, with Goldeneye making $352 million internationally, but then Tomorrow Never Dies dipped slightly down to $333 million.  The next two films saw increases with each release, The World is not Enough making $361 million and Die Another Day $431 million.

 

Those numbers are quite formidable compared to Brosnan’s predecessor, Timothy Dalton, where License to Kill and The Living Daylights brought in $191 million and $156 million, respectively.  Even with higher production budgets than the Dalton films, and in some cases the budget increased by $100 million, and inflation being taken into consideration, the profits were still higher in the 1990s with Brosnan’s portrayal of the British superspy.

 

What does all this mean?  Why am I attempting to discredit an anonymous website commentator that I have no previous interaction with?  Is this all a waste of time and computer space?  The answers to those questions are probably “I don’t know,” “Just because,” and “Absolutely,” all in that order.  But I am bored at work and this has given me some sort of purpose for the past two hours.

Despite the fact Brosnan’s final outing as 007 was a gigantic success money-wise, the series needed to take a different direction.  The gadgets were running rampant and the set pieces had become so over the top that producers couldn’t bring things back down to reality with Brosnan still in the lead.  The Daniel Craig era, which has been grittier in tone and replicated the fast-paced action of the Jason Bourne film series, has been a massive triumph.  Audiences have embraced the blond Bond, resulting in two of the most financially successful movies of the series.