32 replies to this topic

[Trident]

I've heard he was considered before Connery was available, but I can't remember the source and it probably wasn't 100% credible. It might have been somewhere like Wikipedia.

If McClory wanted to create a Bond film in 1983 and Connery just happened to want to do it, then I have to think there were two other alternative routes.

1) Sean doesn't want to do it, so let's get George and see what type of buzz we can get with him. Maybe do a legit "sequel" to OHMSS...as DAF was arguably the biggest missed opportunity in the series. Only 14 years after OHMSS, so add some good makeup and make it look like 4 years...it could work (in theory).

2) Get ahead of the game. Cast the "Most Likely to be the next Bond..." or the "Most Popular choice to be the next Bond..." and see if they bite. I think the equivalent recently would've been Clive Owen (like it or not). Then, with an aging Roger, you have a perceivable edge going into 1983 and maybe...just maybe...a chance at beating OP at the box office.

All theories...of course.

I think both of these are most unlikely. The McClory project was extremely limited from the very outset. Once McClory had his right to do his own Bond film confirmed by the courts there were also a number of limitations imposed upon this enterprise. McClory could only and exclusively use the material that was developed during the time of the original first project of Fleming, playwright Whittingham and McClory. Wheather for TV or cinema, this material to all intents and purposes concerned only a number of different treatments of the 'Thunderball' plot in varying degrees of screenability for either medium.

So, whatever McClory claimed, he really only had the right to remake this particular plotline with a very narrow margin of digress owned primarily to the number of different versions that was produced during that period between the men. So, while McClory had an enormous pagecount, the actual content of his material was relatively meagre. To alter the plot, adapt it as a kind of unofficial sequel to OHMSS, would have been immediately stopped by EON's lawyers. Likewise the use of any kind of trademarked and copyrighted images rightfully owned by EON (gun-logo symbol, gunbarrel-opening, 007-theme ect). While McClory over the years advertised a whole racetrack he really only had a one-trick-pony in his backyard. He could do just one single film, period.

Ok, he could do that film a thousand times but how often would anybody want to see how many different versions of the same film?

So from the outset it was pretty clear this would only ever be a one-off. It couldn't become its own series and whoever played Bond would do it just this once. Under those circumstances, casting a 'most popular choice for next Bond' actor would have been impossible because everbody in their right mind, who even had a slight chance of becoming EON's next Bond, would have stayed clear of anything connected to McClory, his favourite newspaper, his brand of car and especially his Bond project.

McClory's second problem was the financial side. He had rights, but what he needed was funds. And the people willing to make those funds available to him took a veritable risk. They'd be funding not a new Bond film but an old one updated. How well would this go down with the audiences? Nobody knew back then (the times when cinemas were crowded with rehashed roman numerals were still in the future and the suits didn't have a hunch yet how fantastic you could live in the business without ever coming close to a single original idea).

So what would casting Lazenby effectively have meant? It would have meant giving the role to the one actor who failed to convince audiences already, and that in the remake of a film that's been done less than 20 years previously. Does that really sound like a good idea? To me it sounds like climbing the Everest on a treck organized by a company calling itself 'Mountain Madness' (not that this would discourage people ; unfortunately ).

Of all the possible, perhaps unlikely but still thinkable, scenarios I really can see only Connery in the role for NSNA to take off in the first place. He was the one audiences wanted to see again and without him there'd most likely never have been another McClory project. What McClory brought to the party was only the right to call Connery 'Bond' in the film. But a film with Connery as an agent battling a villain would most likely have done just as well if Connery hadn't been called 'Bond'. Perhaps it would have done even better, used a better plot, freed itself from the restraints the 'Thunderball' project came with? Who knows?

[David Schofield]

Not entirely sure that the "no one would want the job because it would rule them out of the EON running" theory works.

Consider, Cubby was far more conservative in his view of Bond casting that Babs and Mickey now (hell, even they were ULTRA conservative as recently as 1994!). Cubby, apparently, knocked on the head Lewis Collins canditure because he turned up for the interview in casual clothing (horror) and was a tad under six feet tall! Cubby was so terrified of recasting Bond (and therefore making manny canditates too old to atke over the role as time past) by constantly re-heating, and almost bribing, Rog to return when he looked far too old and became increasingly implausible in the part.

Therefore, the option availabe to McClory would have been a former, now beyond it EON candidate from the 1970s (a Patrick Mower-style choice) or someone so different from the perceived six foot two and beautiful EON image as possible.

Sure, either of those casting routes would have been a huge gamble as an alternative to Connery. But as one who has been fascinated by the whole "what's McClory really contributed to Bond and what is he owed as a consequence saga" and one who grew up with persistent Warhead rumors of the 70s and early 80s, I'm pretty sure McClory would have got the film made even without Connery.

Hell, a fit and healthy young Brit, whether EON Bond prototype or not, would still, IMHO, have given an ageing Rog a run for his money in 1983.

[Trident]

Not entirely sure that the "no one would want the job because it would rule them out of the EON running" theory works.

Consider, Cubby was far more conservative in his view of Bond casting that Babs and Mickey now (hell, even they were ULTRA conservative as recently as 1994!). Cubby, apparently, knocked on the head Lewis Collins canditure because he turned up for the interview in casual clothing (horror) and was a tad under six feet tall! Cubby was so terrified of recasting Bond (and therefore making manny canditates too old to atke over the role as time past) by constantly re-heating, and almost bribing, Rog to return when he looked far too old and became increasingly implausible in the part.

Therefore, the option availabe to McClory would have been a former, now beyond it EON candidate from the 1970s (a Patrick Mower-style choice) or someone so different from the perceived six foot two and beautiful EON image as possible.

Sure, either of those casting routes would have been a huge gamble as an alternative to Connery. But as one who has been fascinated by the whole "what's McClory really contributed to Bond and what is he owed as a consequence saga" and one who grew up with persistent Warhead rumors of the 70s and early 80s, I'm pretty sure McClory would have got the film made even without Connery.

Hell, a fit and healthy young Brit, whether EON Bond prototype or not, would still, IMHO, have given an ageing Rog a run for his money in 1983.

Ugh, don't think so. I grew up with the same rumors and really was fascinated by them, as in my view there couldn't be enough Bond in the cinema for my liking back then.

But the general attraction of Bond had cooled off considerably by the 80's (and McClory couldn't get started earlier). I'm not saying another actor couldn't have done as well or even better and I'd have payed to see Collins as 007 (is he really not taller? how odd.) or Sam Neill. But the key factor would have been, do the money people believe in the potential of such a casting? And that's where I think they'd have played the safe bet (Connery) or not at all.

The only chance (in my view) for a NSNA without Connery would have been some completely left-hand choice, totally unexpected and unbelievable, a big star, no better, A BIG STAR. I can really only think of Richard Burton, who was by far too old by then to pull this thing, but with him the moneymen might have opened their purses.

Not that much younger and with less international potential (but still damn fit) would have been Jean-Paul Belmondo.

John Hurt was not that big a star then (was he ever?) and wouldn't have urged people to invest in the film.

And now I already can't think of much more names without going the wildly outlandish route, i.e. John Wayne, Gregory Peck, Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Robert Shaw, so on.

I even think (cannot confirm this, forgot where I've read it) that McClory had considerable funds to feed into his various lawsuits regarding the whole affair. A part of this money was financed in return for the specific prospect the film would feature Connery. If this is true, then NSNA wouldn't have reached any state of pre-production without Connery at all. Even a hint Connery might not be willing to do this would have buried the project there and then.