No Bond 21 in 2005

[Ace]

Kind of looks like ... what's that word yeah... 'paralysis'. It's embarrassing and inexplicable that they can't find a director, especially looking at the following article and who they were actually thinking of signing! The director of Wicker Park? Oh come on!

From Reuters/Hollywood Reporter:

By Liza Foreman

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - MGM, which is in the process of being sold to a group headed by Sony Corp., has insisted on a business-as-usual stance, but that business no longer involves the immediate production of a new James Bond movie.

The studio confirmed Wednesday that it has put the development of a new installment of its most important franchise on hold.

As a result, the movie, which had been billed simply as "Bond 21" and was scheduled for release Nov. 21, 2005, will not be hitting theaters in its traditional November slot as originally planned.

According to an MGM spokesperson, the studio made the decision because it has not yet found a director for the film. Sources familiar with the situation said that the producers plan to meet next month to decide whether to aim for a summer 2006 or November 2006 release date.

The five months of negotiations that preceded the Sony deal also are said to have affected the development of the film because during that period, executives were unable to move forward on the project.

Typically, the studio's Bond films go into production in January or February of the year in which a November release is planned, but to do that, a director has to be on board by the end of the previous summer.

A steady flow of directors' names has been associated with the assignment, with Paul McGuigan, who directed MGM's recent "Wicker Park," understood to be the first choice of producers.

There also has been speculation that Pierce Brosnan will not resume the role of James Bond, which would necessitate recasting. MGM was unable to confirm that possibility.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

[sparklingblue]

::snort:: Now they are really being pathetic.

[Yuliya]

Look on the bright side, though - at least now there's at least a chance they'll make a decent Bond movie whereas if they rushed as planned...

[Ace]

Yuliya, their first choice is the director if Wicker Park... Wicker freakin Park. Abandon all hope they know what the bleep they're doing.

EON has been in bizarro land for the last year plus. First it was the Jinx film they wanted to give everyone that no one but they wanted. Then it was treatment of PB, the "leaks" to the press and the general jerking around for a year. And now the stated reason they haven't begin production yet is because in over a year they haven't found a director (though they had Stephen Frears for Jinx!) but not bacause they were waiting for Speilberg, Soderbergh, Raimi or Hitchcock back from the dead... but because they haven't been able to sign the likes of the director from Wicker freakin' Park!

Nothing here convinces me this film is going to be good, and even less that PB will be back for a fulm that doesn't know when it will begin and if it does might not be until 2006.

Ace

[Yuliya]

Convince you the film is going to be good? Both you and I know it won't because they won't take a step back from DAD and they can't go forward, either. I didn't need PB to tell me that, I've been thinking it since DAD came out, maybe even before, I don't remember. But at least they now have time to improve on the disaster they're about to commit. Not to say they'll put this time to good use but they do have it.

[Ace]

Sorry, more time means nothing if you have the same producers intent on a not even a hack director and probably some no name Bond actor. It's like 100 chimps in front of 100 typewriters, give them 100 years and it still won't be Shakepeare, won't even be Curious George.

The only chance I give this film is if Sony put their foot down on all this MGM/EON crap, demanded a REAL director, maybe even writers who could polish a script and write dialogue, and PB back as Bond. We'll see.

Ace

[Yuliya]

If we assume they've reached the apex of their monkey IQ, you're right. I kind of suspect they did. Still, since I don't entirely believe they want to hire a crappy director and a crappy lead actor, I think they might come to their senses. Like, you know, one more Lazenby, and they'll call PB for one more Bond movie...

Listen, I have a leaking oil tank, a broken bathroom wall, a roof that leaked into the ceiling lamp right when I was sitting underneath, a grill that burned the day we invited friends for barbeque, a dentist's bill most of which our insurance company won't cover, a few other unpleasant odds and ends, we've just wrote a check to pay for our new windows, and I have a feeling my contract is perilously close to the end. What am I supposed to do - cry over spilled Bond? When the rumors started, I told myself I'd read them as a side observer and laugh or cry when there is something to laugh at or cry over. I think I'm just tired of Bond rumors. It doesn't mean I won't read them or discuss them, but I can't afford to let them ruin my mood anymore, at least not every time something is printed. Actually, it doesn't even mean I won't stop hoping for a good Bond movies, although, alas, realistically speaking... I'm with PB - smaller, darker, less spectacular, and more character-oriented...

[guest]

Does anyone have the original Variety article? Is it more detailed than the HR one?

[Ace]

From E!Online

MGM Delays Bond, James Bond

by Josh Grossberg
Sep 30, 2004, 11:10 AM PT


James Bond's next mission will have to wait another day.

MGM has decided to push back the release date for the 21st 007 film from Nov. 18, 2005 until sometime in 2006, the studio confirmed Thursday.

"At the moment it doesn't look like we're going to make our start date just based on the fact that we haven't found a director yet," said an MGM spokesman.

According to the MGM rep, Bond's London-based producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson of Eon Productions were having trouble landing a director for the latest installment. It did not have anything to do with MGM's recent sale to Sony, as trade reports indicated, or with the previously rumored search for a new actor to play the titular agent.

With Bond 21, as it's been tentatively dubbed, set to start shooting in mid-January to make the targeted release date (Bond films traditionally are released during the holiday season), the studio says the producers decided to delay rather than rush into a directorial choice.

"We want to get the elements right and not be shoe-horned into a release date," the MGM rep said. "It just depends on when we find the next director and settle on him and how quickly we can ramp it up and go."

To meet a November release date, Broccoli and Wilson would have usually had a deal done by summertime to give the new helmer several months of prep time. But the this time around wasn't so easy, thanks to some adjustments in the direction of the 41-year-old franchise, which has grossed nearly $4 billion.

The Bond producers gave screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, who wrote the last two installments, a license to skip the increasingly outlandish special effects and gadgetry that marked recent adventures (can you say invisible car?) in favor of returning the superspy back to his Ian Fleming-inspired, character-driven origins.

Several filmmakers had been mentioned as possible candidates, including Snatch producer Matthew Vaughn, who recently made his feature directing debut on the British crime thriller Layer Cake, and Paul McGuigan, the man behind MGM's recent thriller Wicker Park who's next picture is the nourish gangster drama Lucky Number Seven.

One name apparently not in the running is Quentin Tarantino--even though the Kill Bill director has publicly lobbied for the job.

Tarantino even garnered the support of current 007 Pierce Brosnan. But that might not be worth much, considering the increasingly louder speculation that the four-time Bond may be on the outs with the franchise.

With no decision on a new director--or who will play the lead--Brosnan described Bond 21 as a project in "paralysis" in a July interview with Entertainment Weekly, adding, "I've said all I've got to say on the world of James Bond."

Of course, a Bond should never say never again. London's Sunday Mail suggested such talk was merely a negotiating ploy to secure a hefty pay raise above the $20 million he was already making, mainly gross points on the back end.

On Thursday, MGM declined to say whether Brosnan would return.

"Currently he's not under contract to play James Bond," the studio spokesman said. "Once we get a director then I think we can get into casting."

The 51-year-old Brosnan is the fifth actor to get the license to kill. He is also credited with rejuvenating what was a moribund franchise; his last entry, 2002's Die Another Day, was the highest grossing in the series, with $432 million in international ticket sales.

Despite that success, producers have hinted that they might roll back the clock on the secret agent and tap a more youthful star to appeal to younger audiences. Ewan McGregor, Jude Law, Heath Ledger, Orlando Bloom, Clive Owen, Eric Bana and Gerard Butler have all been mentioned as possible candidates for Her Majesty's Secret Service.

By the time a director is signed and a decision made on casting, Bond 21 isn't likely to hit theaters until at least summer 2006

[curious george]

Ace said:

It's like 100 chimps in front of 100 typewriters, give them 100 years and it still won't be Shakepeare, won't even be Curious George.

Ace

Hey ~ watch it!

cg

[Yuliya]

Ace said:

The Bond producers gave screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, who wrote the last two installments, a license to skip the increasingly outlandish special effects and gadgetry that marked recent adventures (can you say invisible car?) in favor of returning the superspy back to his Ian Fleming-inspired, character-driven origins.

The absolute nadir will be if they follow the suit of OHMSS - find Mr. Lazenby Jr. to play Bond in this one and then invite PB for another version of DAF.

[Ace]

LA Times: Sony to Find '007' Heirs Have a License to Kill

October 4, 2004

By Claudia Eller, Times Staff Writer

It's easy to name the crown jewel in the thousands of movies Sony Corp. will inherit when it takes control of legendary film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

That name is Bond . James Bond.

For four decades, studio chiefs and movie directors have craved the opportunity to put their imprint on the $1-billion franchise that is Hollywood's most successful film series ever. Already, months before they officially acquire MGM, Sony's top movie executives are mulling over ways to refresh the vodka-martini-sipping secret agent.

The prospective new owners, according to sources familiar with Sony's thinking, hope to broaden Bond's appeal beyond older males enamored with the
fiery explosions, careening Aston Martins and buxom models. They're aiming for the kind of global audiences that flocked to Sony's "Spider-Man" blockbusters, believing there should be more to Bond's character than
machismo.

But Sony will soon learn that many a studio executive has been shaken and stirred when pitted against Agent 007's off-camera bodyguards. Shielding Bond from the minefields of Hollywood pitches are producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, her half brother.

They are the intensely private and fiercely protective heirs guarding the legacy of their late father, Albert R. "Cubby" Broccoli, a Long Island vegetable farmer-turned-Hollywood showman who almost single-handedly built author Ian Fleming's secret agent into a global star and pop culture icon.

"The Sony executives may have stars in their eyes right now as they dream of what James Bond can be now that he's theirs," said Lindsay Doran, who headed
MGM's United Artists unit during the making of two Bond films. "But they might get their hearts broken, like so many executives before them, if they look at the deal and realize he's not theirs, he's the Broccolis'."

The Broccolis possess a unique license to kill ideas they don't like. Among the casualties: giving Bond a son, exploring his darker side as a paid assassin and even one top actor's take that the misogynous womanizer is
latently homosexual. So protective are Broccoli's heirs that they once commissioned a confidential 60-page Bond "character bible" that continues to serve as something of an owners' manual. What kind of woman does 007 seduce? What does he wear? How nasty are the villains he battles?

"Every decision they make starts with the question: 'Is this in the tradition of Bond? Is this the right thing for the franchise?' " MGM Vice Chairman Chris McGurk said. "They know Bond better than anyone else."

No creative decision is made without the blessing of Broccoli's daughter, Barbara, 44, and stepson Wilson, 62. Their late mother was Broccoli's third wife, Dana. The two split time between their London production base where Bond is filmed and Los Angeles.

Working as a team, the producers pore over every script. They decide where in the movie Bond's signature guitar-twanging theme song plays. They sign off on the director, star, even some of the actors playing minor characters. They are on the set every day of filming, and sit in on editing sessions. Movie trailers, posters and TV spots need their OK.

"Barbara and Michael have infinitely more to do with it than any studio," said Roger Spottiswoode, who directed 1997's "Tomorrow Never Dies." "MGM would come up with some new idea and Barbara would say, 'That's not right for Bond.' "

The producers' far-reaching creative rights were first granted to Cubby Broccoli when he and a partner forged the Bond production deal in 1961 with United Artists, acquired 20 years later by MGM. Broccoli's heirs inherited those rights when Cubby died of heart failure in 1996.

The Broccolis and MGM technically have equal say on creative matters. But, MGM's McGurk acknowledged, "while everything is equal, they take the lead in all creative choices."

Broccoli and Wilson declined to be interviewed, as did Sony executives. But speaking about her father for a documentary included in the "Diamonds Are Forever" DVD, Barbara Broccoli said: "I remember one time he said to me, 'You know, the most important thing is don't let 'em screw it up.' "

Lately, Broccoli and Wilson have flexed their muscle on who will next slip into Bond's tuxedo. The producers nixed actor Pierce Brosnan even though the four films in which he starred were the highest-grossing of the 20-film series. Broccoli and Wilson have let Hollywood agents know they want to replace the 51-year-old Brosnan with a Bond who is 28 to 32 years old.

"We've shared weddings and funerals and the births of children," Brosnan said. "We've had a lot of success together. But as to the fate of the franchise, you have to remember that at the end of the day, it's the Broccolis' family business."

The producers also postponed the next Bond film, which sources identified as based on Fleming's novel "Casino Royale," until they can find a director and star. That pushes its release from next year into 2006.

With that film, Sony will begin reaping the riches from Hollywood's longest-running franchise, which has amassed $3.7 billion in global ticket sales, most from overseas. The last film, 2002's "Die Another Day" grossed $430 million worldwide, the most for any Bond installment.

Since "Dr. No's" debut in 1962, profits have gushed in from virtually all of the Bond films produced by the Broccoli family, regardless of whether Agent 007 was played by such stalwarts as Sean Connery, Roger Moore and Brosnan or the less memorable Timothy Dalton and George Lazenby.

Each time a new film hits theaters, old Bond movies generate millions of dollars in DVD sales and TV airings. The Broccoli family takes home 20% to 35% of the profit on each film. (Because of murky underlying rights, the
only two Bond films not produced by the Broccoli family were Columbia Pictures' 1967 spoof of "Casino Royale" and Warner Bros.' 1983 release "Never Say Never Again.")

[Ace]

Continued


The gold Cubby Broccoli struck came amid a chorus of naysayers, including author Fleming, who believed that Bond had limited cinema appeal. But Broccoli was an accomplished salesman of big action movies, having honed his skills early in life hawking caskets and jewelry.

The son of Italian immigrant farmers, Broccoli moved to Hollywood in the 1930s. Before long, he was making large-scale adventure films for Columbia Pictures and became one of Hollywood's most colorful impresarios, trucking snow to his Beverly Hills mansion for a Christmas party.

A fan of Fleming's books, Broccoli always wanted to make Bond films but didn't own the rights. A mutual friend introduced him to the man who did, Harry Saltzman, who was broke with 28 days left before his option expired. The two paid a visit to United Artists Chairman Arthur Krim's Manhattan office.

Krim was no stranger to the Bond character. The UA chief had been introduced to the spy novels by his friend, President John F. Kennedy, whose enthusiasm
for the books helped popularize them.

Krim adhered to the philosophy of UA dating back to its founding in 1919 by Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Mark Pickford and director D. W. Griffith. They believed that filmmakers made better creative decisions than
executives.

UA's then-production chief David Picker was in the room when Broccoli and Saltzman asked for money to bring Bond to the screen. "They came in and said 'We control James Bond,' " said Picker, a Fleming fan who earlier had tried to land the movie rights. "We wouldn't let them out of the room before we had a deal."

Today, that deal has survived as one of the most unique, hands-off studio arrangements ever.

During the ensuing decades, the Broccoli family has gone through almost as many studio executives as Bond has bikini-clad girlfriends.

MGM and United Artists have been bought and sold at least a half-dozen times, with new executives bringing new ideas. Director Michael Apted said his 1999 Bond film "The World Is Not Enough" endured two studio regimes.

"You've got people who constantly want to reinvent the franchise," Apted said. "That has historically been the source of serious tensions between the ever-changing managements of MGM and the Broccolis."

Sometimes those differences reach a boiling point.

"I remember Barbara shouting at MGM, 'Don't tell me how Bond should be. I intend to still be making these Bond films in 10 years, and you may not even
be in business,' " director Spottiswoode said.

There is, however, give and take. On "Die Another Day," the Broccoli family relented to MGM's choice of female lead Halle Berry as girlfriend while the studio acquiesced to hiring director Lee Tamahori.

But the producers compromise only so much. They shot down MGM's idea for a TV show featuring a young James Bond. For years, they have resisted studio
research screenings.

"When anyone at the studio tries to force anything on them, that's when they get their backs up," former MGM distribution chief Larry Gleason said. "In reality, it comes down to MGM financing the movies and the Broccolis having creative control."

Still, those who have worked with the producers say they realize Bond needs to appeal to today's moviegoers, some of whom complain that the films have
become too formulaic and predictable. The trick in reworking Bond is not to alienate core fans, who know that Oddjob drove a 1964 Ranchero in "Goldfinger."

One radical departure that might have been sacrilegious to an earlier generation of Bond fans came in 1995's "GoldenEye." Oscar-winning British
actress Judi Dench was hired to begin playing his boss, "M." Earlier films showed the character as a crusty, authoritative man mostly played by the late actor Bernard Lee.

"Barbara and Michael acknowledge that Bond needs to change as the times change," said former UA production executive Jeff Kleeman. "But if you're going to change the classic Bond, you don't do it accidentally or out of
ignorance."

As eager as Sony executives are to get their hands on Bond, legal reasons prevent them from contacting the producers until MGM shareholders bless the pending $4.9-billion acquisition by Sony's investment group later this year.

But a pilgrimage to the producers' London headquarters is a top priority for Sony Pictures boss Michael Lynton and movie chief Amy Pascal.

When they finally capture the secret agent, Apottiswoode has some advice: Back off.

"Sony is incredibly lucky and would be very well-advised to leave the franchise alone," Spottiswoode said. "The Broccolis make it work."

[Barbara]

I hope Sony breaks those two clowns of their delusions of grandeur. They are ruining the series with their control issues and someone needs to knock them on their collective behinds and remind them this is about Bond, not them.

-- Barbara

[curious george]

Sorry, Babs - it's all about the money. And in Hollywood, money = young.

cg

[Ace]

Actually not really, the last film made $435m at the B.O., in the top 5 WorldWide. More than X-Men, Bourne , Van Helsing, XXX, et al. Right now it has nothing to do with PB's age, but more his salary (and their belief he's just a replaceable cog and should work for less than the going rate) and serious control and development issues that make it difficult for EON to get a decent director to work that hard under their thumb and a studio that's financing the films that would like an A list director and proven star if they're writing a check for $150m.

There's just so much idiotic stuff going on behind the scenes with EON who really have shown they don't know what they're doing right now. They wanted to make that Jinx film that MGM didn't want to pay for and sulked and sulked when the plug was pulled and dragged their feet on devloping Bond 21. The films were on a 2 year cycle, the last was pushed to 3 years to take advatange of the 40th year anniversary and now they're up to 4 a year gap, mimimum because in the last 2 years they couldn't sign a director, or their star. This will be the largest gap in the series since between License to Kill and Goldeneye, that was 6 years and that was because there were lawsuits going on and LTKwas a relative bomb at the B.O. None of that applies to what's happening now. It's embarassing and many of the trade papers have said so.

Ace

[sparklingblue]

I think they are screwing it up while trying not to "screw it up".