109 replies to this topic

[JimmyBond]

I don't remember what he said about TWINE. But I distinctly remember him calling the Monaco scenes in Goldeneye confusing. He then ridiculed TND for having too much action I think.

[Professor Pi]

I'm gonna side with Brosnan on this one.  The franchise was dead and his casting revitalized it.  While his films don't stand up well artistically, they were huge commercial successes, each one breaking $100 million in the U.S., and making more than each predecessor.

 

Barbara Broccoli was never a huge Pierce fan (she had wanted Sean Bean to play 007), but Albert Broccoli had wanted Brosnan since 1986.  When her father died in 97, Pierce still had two more films on his contract. They got the rights to Casino Royale in 1999, and Brosnan was excited about possibly doing it.  But they had the 40th anniversary coming up, so we had the bloat of Die Another Day instead. Afterward, I remember his negotiations with the producers in 2004 just dragging on forever.  Some of it was carried out in public with Brosnan commenting. But if Casino Royale was to be the next film, it was a perfect opportunity to cast a new actor and shed the franchise of its Cold War trappings for a post 9/11 world.  Barbara had seen Layercake to see if its director was suitable for a Bond movie, and that's when she thought Daniel Craig should be the next Bond.

 

I prefer Dalton, but he lacked the box office mojo Brosnan brought to Bond.  Pierce was the only actor to be 'fired' from the role.  In th end, the producers made the right choice, but the transition could have been handled better by both parties.

Edited by Professor Pi, 10 February 2013 - 03:27 AM.

[graric]

I'm gonna side with Brosnan on this one.  The franchise was dead and his casting revitalized it.  While his films don't stand up well artistically, they were huge commercial successes, each one breaking $100 million in the U.S., and making more than each predecessor.

 

Barbara Broccoli was never a huge Pierce fan (she had wanted Sean Bean to play 007), but Albert Broccoli had wanted Brosnan since 1986.  When her father died in 97, Pierce still had two more films on his contract. They got the rights to Casino Royale in 1999, and Brosnan was excited about possibly doing it.  But they had the 40th anniversary coming up, so we had the bloat of Die Another Day instead. Afterward, I remember his negotiations with the producers in 2004 just dragging on forever.  Some of it was carried out in public with Brosnan commenting. But if Casino Royale was to be the next film, it was a perfect opportunity to cast a new actor and shed the franchise of its Cold War trappings for a post 9/11 world.  Barbara had seen Layercake to see if its director was suitable for a Bond movie, and that's when she thought Daniel Craig should be the next Bond.

 

I prefer Dalton, but he lacked the box office mojo Brosnan brought to Bond.  Pierce was the only actor to be 'fired' from the role.  In th end, the producers made the right choice, but the transition could have been handled better by both parties.

 

 

I'm gonna side with Brosnan on this one.  The franchise was dead and his casting revitalized it.  While his films don't stand up well artistically, they were huge commercial successes, each one breaking $100 million in the U.S., and making more than each predecessor.

 

Barbara Broccoli was never a huge Pierce fan (she had wanted Sean Bean to play 007), but Albert Broccoli had wanted Brosnan since 1986.  When her father died in 97, Pierce still had two more films on his contract. They got the rights to Casino Royale in 1999, and Brosnan was excited about possibly doing it.  But they had the 40th anniversary coming up, so we had the bloat of Die Another Day instead. Afterward, I remember his negotiations with the producers in 2004 just dragging on forever.  Some of it was carried out in public with Brosnan commenting. But if Casino Royale was to be the next film, it was a perfect opportunity to cast a new actor and shed the franchise of its Cold War trappings for a post 9/11 world.  Barbara had seen Layercake to see if its director was suitable for a Bond movie, and that's when she thought Daniel Craig should be the next Bond.

 

I prefer Dalton, but he lacked the box office mojo Brosnan brought to Bond.  Pierce was the only actor to be 'fired' from the role.  In th end, the producers made the right choice, but the transition could have been handled better by both parties.

I've heard a couple of times on this forum that Barbara Broccoli wanted Sean Bean for Bond but have never seen this elsewhere, is there any interview out there that suggests this has some basis in fact?
As for Cubby wanting Brosnan since 1986, from what I've seen Michael Wilson and the studio appeared more invested in Brosnan as Bond than Cubby, whose first choice for the role always seemed to be Dalton (Cubby could have very easily negotiated a deal with NBC to keep Brosnan doing both but refused to 'share him' as Cubby's dream pick Timothy Dalton was finally available for the role.)

And Brosnan being 'the only Bond to get fired' isn't strictly true, his contract had run out and after some negotiations Eon chose not to renew his contract for another film. It was not as if they terminated his contract with two films left...having said that they certainly could have ended things better than they did with Pierce (promising him that they would do a 5th then going back on the verbal agreement) but thats the kinda business Hollywood is.

In any-case I don't think either side really let each other down as Brosnan's films could have spelled the end of Bond, instead they made the films an event again. Whether or not Brosnan would have liked more character development in Bond, I'm not sure if he would have been capable of pulling it, but the scripts do seem to me be tailored to try and play with Brosnan's strengths. (And as we've seen with Moore, Dalton and Craig the producers are willing to adapt the scripts/ character to suit a particular actor so surely if Brosnan wanted less jokes in the scripts and abit more character he could've asked?)

[DavidJones]

Wouldn't Casino Royale have made a better 40th anniversary film than Die Another Day? As the first Bond book, it would have been perfect.

 

Ever since the Goldeneye press conference, Pierce said he wanted to go "peel back the layers", but hadn't Dalton tried to do that and it didn't go down very well with the audience? I thought that was why Pierce's films were slightly less ambitious in that regard. If true, it seems Pierce and Broccoli and Wilson wanted different things from the character, something it seems he will get in 'Last Man Out'.

[Professor Pi]

Maybe 'fired' isn't the right word, but Brosnan was the only actor to be 'uninvited' back.  Dalton exercised an out option of his four picture contract in 1994, and Lazenby said in an interview that he sent back the check for Diamonds Are Forever.  Moore had been willing to leave after four pictures, but they kept inviting him back for various reasons (couldn't sign Dalton for FYEO, needed to compete with Connery's NSNA in 1983.)

 

However, after I saw Craig's performance in Casino Royale, I thought Brosnan couldn't have pulled that off.

[Turn]

Maybe 'fired' isn't the right word, but Brosnan was the only actor to be 'uninvited' back.  Dalton exercised an out option of his four picture contract in 1994, and Lazenby said in an interview that he sent back the check for Diamonds Are Forever.  Moore had been willing to leave after four pictures, but they kept inviting him back for various reasons (couldn't sign Dalton for FYEO, needed to compete with Connery's NSNA in 1983.)

 

However, after I saw Craig's performance in Casino Royale, I thought Brosnan couldn't have pulled that off.

No, fired isn't the right word if you've fulfilled a contract or were basically working without one. Some of the other cases are debateable.

 

The "official" story is Dalton exercised out, but the word was also that MGM's chairman in the early-mid '90s said he wouldn't back a Bond film unless Brosnan replaced Dalton as Bond. Notice how within a few weeks of Dalton's "official" annoucement of his stepping down that Brosnan was announced.

 

You could say Moore was uninvited back after a meeting with Cubby in December of '85 in which he supposedly retired by mutual agreement. I've seen sources say Moore was still wanting to continue in the role. Who knows? Add to that Cubby's testing of other actors such as James Brolin during Moore's tenure, of which there's actual proof. And there's a 1981 interview in Starlog with Connery in which he claims FYEO marked the first time he wasn't asked to come back to play Bond.

 

Lazenby has had to deal with the perception he was fired from the role because he only made one film. That comes from the general public and the uninformed.

The big difference between Brosnan's case and the others' is he happened to be Bond in the Internet age, when mass media was wider than ever and more gossip and rumor sites could communicate such things faster than ever was at play here.

[plankattack]

No, fired isn't the right word if you've fulfilled a contract or were basically working without one. Some of the other cases are debateable.

Exactly. It's misconception/misperception, that Brozza was fired. He wasn't fired, he just wasn't resigned. His contract was the EON standard - 3 with an option for a 4th. Either side could've opted out after 3 - that both didn't says a lot about rumours that Babs didn't want Brozza or that Brozza was unhappy with the scripts that were put in front of him.

The truth is no doubt somewhere in the middle, but one thing seems clear (at least to me ) - Brozza wasn't fired.

[DavidJones]

Why didn't Barbara Broccoli like Pierce, then? I've heard that she didn't but don't know why.

[Dustin]

Why didn't Barbara Broccoli like Pierce, then? I've heard that she didn't but don't know why.

 

The only person able to answer this one is Barbara Broccoli herself. Everything else is just BS. Besides, as a producer neither she nor her brother are required to 'like' their lead actor - they are required to be confident of his abilities and support their product, nothing more, nothing less. And Brosnan  delivered just what Eon - and most everybody else on the planet, with few exceptions - wanted and expected from their Bond experience. It used to be shallow times and nobody can seriously expect Bond - of all franchises - to run against the trend. At the tip, yes, but never against.  

[graric]

Why didn't Barbara Broccoli like Pierce, then? I've heard that she didn't but don't know why.

All the talk I heard of Barbara Broccoli not liking Brosnan seemed to come about in forums after Daniel Craig was hired, and always seemed to me to be more fan speculation rather than any direct quotes from her or Pierce.

This is what she had to say at a Press Conference immediately after the premier of Goldeneye about Pierce (and why he is an appealing Bond):

Well I think he has all the qualities one would expect. He's handsome, he's a very good actor, he's witty, he's sophisticated, he's charming, I think he's appealing to both women and men. And I think he's great in the action stuff. He has enough of self-depricatory sense of humor that men will like him - and he's a romantic, sexy guy for the women. So I think we've hit it absolutely on the button with him.

To me (assuming she is being relatively honest) it shows that at the time she had no problems with Pierce and that particular direction for the franchise.

The talk of her and Brosnan not getting along seems like speculation that the decision to continue without Pierce was one of personal bias, rather than a business one based on the choice to make Casino Royale the next Bond film.

http://www.hmss.com/.../mgw/mgw95.html

 

[RazorBlade]

IMO, this is hindsight criticism.

The Brosnan era brought in big bucks, huge audiences and established "James Bond" for a new generation - at a time when almost nobody thought that this could be done again, with the Cold War ending and other action franchises stealing Bondian elements and mixing them with new things.

To say that Brosnan was not a good Bond depends only on personal preferences. To say EON was not interested in developing good scripts is absurd - they always have been very interested and tried to re-establish Bond (GOLDENEYE), to consolidate that success (TND), to experiment with the character´s inner life (TWINE) and to develop this further (first half of DAD) and still give the audience the outrageous Bond from earlier times (second half of DAD).

Nowadays, with every pop franchise having to be dark, gritty and grounded in some kind of reality (haha...) the Brosnan era might appear like playing it safe as a greatest hits-phase. But this is like criticizing your dad for wearing that kind of trousers or that kind of glasses - at the time it was exactly that kind of hip that you now think is the real deal. In a few years people will re-evaluate the Craig era and shake their heads why some of it had to be that serious. Or why it wasn´t made in "6 D interactional with sniffing cards".

So, IMO, nobody let anybody down during the Brosnan era creatively. EON might think that Brosnan let them down by asking for too much money - and Brosnan might think that EON let him down for not granting him more bucks (Connery had the same problem).

The more interesting question to me is this: what would have happened if CASINO ROYALE had flopped and Craig had not been accepted as Bond?

I just want to throw in my 2 cents and say I agree with this post. I love Brosnan and wish the films could stand up to the test of time. But that is the way it works sometimes. I am sorry he didn't get his OHMSS style film. That was the version of Bond he was born to play.

[PeteNeon]

Reading this thread, I decided to search for some old Brosnan inteviews on YouTube. The first one I picked was this one, it seems bizarre the way they go straight into talking about how many films he's done, whether he'll do more etc. Indicative of the mood at the time?

 

[nickjb007]

Well I've read through the entire thread and thought I would throw in my views.  

 

I would say the producers let Brosnan down because it's the producers who set the films up and pick the key creators. 

 

Brosnan is the first Bond to not ever really have a consistent creative team, if you look at the past Bond films they each had a director, writer, editor, that had some history with the film series.

 

GE is a good Bond film and they made the right choices with Campbell and I think the script is fairly solid.

With TND it’s a bad movie that fits the action films of the 90s.  It’s a little crazy that Bruce Feirstein was able to write an entire Bond movie after Goldeneye seem to be a collaboration. Next I don’t understand why Roger Spottiswoode was picked to direct TND, seems like there could have been somebody with a bigger name and better directorial history. I believe Campbell helped direct Brosnan in the role as Bond and he did again with Craig in CR.

Now TWINE, is going to be tough for me to provide a fair assessment since I am biased to this film and it’s a favorite of mine mainly for sentimental reasons. This film has a lot of flaws, So I am biased when it comes to TWINE. From the TWINE a Companion book it seemed like Brosnan complained that the script focused too much on Sophie Marcaeu's character and not enough on Bond. So it shows that Brosnan could have input on the script process. However, I think a big problem with  Brosnan's films was the fact that the scripts were rushed and never completely finished when

filming started. In the TND commentary Spottiswoode discusses the script not being complete when filming started. While I'm sure this was common with the older Bond films, the key creators were usually the same set of writers and directors. Having the same writers and director helped keep the films churning out every two years.

They got the rights to Casino Royale in early 1999 so TWINE was either wrapping up production or in post production. Yet they decided to push forward with DAD.  DAD is crap, I’ve only watched it once and that was when it came out in the theaters. I am sure I will watch it again within the next few months as I re-watch the series in order with my significant other.  This was the second Purvis and Wade film so this is the first time Brosnan had the same scriptwriters working on a film and lets face it this was bad.  The producers should have stepped in and been more proactive about the film and I

find it weird that it seems like Lee Tamohri (Spelling?) gets a lot of the blame (and he very well could be the reason but in the end who actually has the
final say in the film).

In the end I think Brosnan got a partial shaft by the producers (even though he got to play James Bond, make a good amount of money, and had fun while doing it). Let’s face It the last three Bond films of Brosnan's era were not critical darlings but they did bring in money. With Craig they brought in Paul Haggis a very fine screenwriter to work on the script. I believe this helped Craig. Where was Brosnan’s Oscar winning screenwriter?

 

The Bond films are collaborative pieces especially the old ones you had some director, writer, editor who had previous work in the series. I think this could be the problem with Brosnan's films in that it takes more than an actor to make Bond it takes an entire team to do it. I think the same could be said with Craig from CR to QOS. I'm not sure if the Bond films are meant to be thrown from one director to another director for each film, even with films today such as trilogies they try to keep the same directors lined up for the films.  Anyway those are my thoughts. 

 

[JimmyBond]

Despite Feirstein's name being the only credited writer on Tomorrow Never Dies, I believe more people had a hand in the script but they're just uncredited. Also Campbell was asked back but turned it down. I don't think Spottiswoode's direction is that bad, it's just the film had a very rushed schedule and the script was constantly being updated on set. Sometimes the actors would only get the pages a day or so before they were to film them. I think with all the problems, it's a miracle the film turned out as well as it did.

 

And as for DAD, the reason Tamahori gets a lot of the blame, is because it was his choice for a lot of the "additions" to the film. He pushed for the speed ramping, pushed for the film to be more reliant on CGI than traditional stunt work  And he also reworked the entire finale of the film, at one point it was to feature Bond and a group of Marines assaulting Graves Korean base on the beach.

[trevanian]

Nicholas Meyer definitely did a rewrite on TND (Edifice Complex HAS to be his, and the CITIZEN KANE refs too), evidence he had really lost it already. 

[ARLOO7]

Terri Hatcher was just well... baggage. The motorcycle/helicopter sequence just pi$$ed me off.

And, as far as villain's go, Jonathan Pryce was just plain NUTS!!! I loved that guy.

I was never sold on Terri Hatcher either, I think they could have done much better. I do like the motorcycle/helicopter chase, it's just mindless fun. Jonathan Pryce is definitely underrated in terms of Bond villains in my opinion.

I read somewhere a while ago that a lesser-known actress tested very well for that role, and Pierce wanted her cast, but the studio insisted on someone with name recognition. Anyone happen to know who that actress was?

[AMC Hornet]

It should have been Talisa Soto.

 

Although I preferred Carey Lowell in LTK, Soto is certainly more exotic that Teri Hatcher.

 

Lupe Lamora falling in with another rich crook, and still convinced that she's the one who got "too close for comfort" for Bond?

 

At least we would have known for sure that Bond was just playing along, for we'd be aware of their back story.

[Professor Pi]

I read somewhere a while ago that a lesser-known actress tested very well for that role, and Pierce wanted her cast, but the studio insisted on someone with name recognition. Anyone happen to know who that actress was?

 

It was Monica Belluci (who was later in Matrix Reloaded.)

 

 

It should have been Talisa Soto.

 

Although I preferred Carey Lowell in LTK, Soto is certainly more exotic that Teri Hatcher.

 

Lupe Lamora falling in with another rich crook, and still convinced that she's the one who got "too close for comfort" for Bond?

 

At least we would have known for sure that Bond was just playing along, for we'd be aware of their back story.

 

That would have been interesting, but her Bond girl was with a different actor.

 

 

[trevanian]

 

Terri Hatcher was just well... baggage. The motorcycle/helicopter sequence just pi$$ed me off.

And, as far as villain's go, Jonathan Pryce was just plain NUTS!!! I loved that guy.

I was never sold on Terri Hatcher either, I think they could have done much better. I do like the motorcycle/helicopter chase, it's just mindless fun. Jonathan Pryce is definitely underrated in terms of Bond villains in my opinion.

I read somewhere a while ago that a lesser-known actress tested very well for that role, and Pierce wanted her cast, but the studio insisted on someone with name recognition. Anyone happen to know who that actress was?

My understanding is that Sela Ward was actually cast, but then somebody lobbied for a younger actress, which is pretty crap, since Ward at ANY point in the 20th century was hotter than most Bond girls. Up until she started getting work done in the last decade, she was phenomenal looking, and she could act too. 

[Professor Pi]

Oh yeah, that was true too.  I like Teri Hatcher, but she didn't seem like a Bond girl.