13 replies to this topic

[DamnCoffee]

Anyone seen this!?

 

Before 2012 Bond film Skyfall fell into place, Oscar-nominated Frost/Nixon screenwriter Peter Morgan was hired to work on a script with franchise regulars Neal Purvis and Robert Wade.

 

Little is know about Morgan's storyline, only that the writer plotted out "a shocking story" and "the central idea... the hook" was retained for Skyfall.

 

Morgan's lost 007 movie plot has finally been revealed thanks to new book Some King of Hero: The Remarkable Story of the James Bond Films by Matthew Field and Ajay Chowdhury.

 

His treatment, titled Once Upon a Spy, began during the Cold War with Judi Dench's M an MI6 agent stationed in Berlin.

 

Her affair with a KGB agent comes back to haunt her 30 years later after the Russian spy's death. His son, a corrupt oligarch, blackmails M leaving her career in jeopardy.

 

She dispatches Bond to make a payoff, but a dramatic turn of events forces 007 to kill M at the film's climax.

 

Wade revealed that Morgan's idea was eventually rejected by director Sam Mendes and franchise producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson.

 

"Neal and I are pretty well steeped in [Ian] Fleming. I think Peter was more interested in [John] Le Carré​. It just didn't work," he said.

 

After Morgan's departure, Purvis and Wade penned a first draft script for Skyfall, then titled Nothing is Forever.

 

In it, the death of M is retained but Javier Bardem's villain is known as Raoul Sousa and it's his bombing of a Barcelona subway that eventually steers M into a safe house where she's killed.

 

A bureaucrat named Mallender (eventually Ralph Fiennes's Mallory in Skyfall) then takes over as her successor.

 

Though the similarities with Skyfall are clear, it's fascinating to learn about the early development process for the most commercially-successful Bond movie of all time.

 

Particularly the Morgan version, which Wade admitted to having huge reservations about.

 

"We always found that really, really difficult to make credible or satisfying. It was very dark and frankly I don't think it really worked," he explained.

 

"The only thing that remained was M's past comes back to haunt her and she dies at the end."

Edited by DamnCoffee, 19 November 2015 - 04:57 PM.

[dlb007]

Wow, very interesting. It sounds like they might want to let Morgan have a crack at another script. Then, they can let Purvis, Wade, and Butterworth add some humour and lighter touches.

[plankattack]

Good find Coffee.

 

There were a lot of interviews to be found around SF's release where different people opined on how the finished script came about. Mendes was adamant that Morgan's claim of authorship of the original hook was retained, was incorrect; and I've always taken that as Morgan claiming that the death of M was always the climax of the film, and more vitally, Morgan's idea.

 

I confess, I tend to side with Mendes  - considering that P&W have been quoted as saying that they/EON toyed with killing M early in the QoS script process - who contends that none of Morgan's ideas survived. I'd be willing to conject that EON told Morgan "we're killing off M" before he went to work.

 

I guess it's just perspective - Morgan see's it as surviving from his treatment, yet for some it was an idea he was given from the off.

[terminus]

TBH - the Once Upon A Spy treatment sounds like it would have been quite interesting.

[David_M]

Personally, I wouldn't call the final script particularly "credible or satisfying," either, but this does give a fascinating insight into the behind-the-scenes creative tension between "breaking new ground" and "going too far."  The Craig era has shaken up the formula, but it seems some things are still considered sacrosanct; in this case, the basic notion that England must ultimately be on the side of the angels (the occasional bad egg politician or jerky bureaucrat notwithstanding) and that M, as more or less the symbol of England in these things, is likewise trustworthy, if a bit lacking in people skills. As Wade notes, this is pretty much the dividing line between the Fleming approach and the LeCarre approach to spy fiction: the notion that at the end of the day, there's still such a thing as "the good guys."

 

It's also a reminder that for all the hype about this or that film "pushing the envelope" or taking Bond in bold new directions, ultimately the character is on a bit of a leash.  It's only the length that varies from era to era.  In general, I don't think that's a bad thing, but I have to say that dramatically, the notion of Bond personally killing M on purpose carries a lot more impact than just contributing indirectly (if mightily) to her demise through poor planning.  For me it explains some of SF's problems to know that they started with a desire to shake us with M's death, then bent over backward to get us to that point.

 

Really looking forward to this book coming out in the US.

[tdalton]

I kind of wish that they had continued to develop that particular story as opposed to what we ultimately got with Skyfall. Granted, we don't know much about what would have happened between the part about Bond getting sent to pay off the blackmailer and the climax where Bond is forced to kill M, but I would imagine that it probably could have been worked out in a way to include some of what Skyfall ultimately contained.

[Matt_13]

I'm mostly in awe that the Once Upon a Spy title, which was rumored early in the Skyfall production process, turned out to be true. That's wild. I was always curious about what Morgan's exact contribution was, though I figured it was his idea initially to kill M. Very interesting stuff. I'm not totally in love with every idea put forth there, but with some work the project probably could have been interesting. I think the part I find most compelling is the idea of a Cold War PTS with M in the field. Very interesting.

[DavidJones]

I think the idea of killing off M is a fairly obvious one and it's plausible that both parties considered it. Judi Dench was 77, after all, and had been in the role for eighteen years. Mendes' response was sensible: the Writer's Guild of America may have been drafted in if Morgan demanded credit and his comment could have been used as evidence against him.

[Vauxhall]

Just read this. Fascinating insights.

Feel I've heard the titles ONCE UPON A SPY and NOTHING IS FOREVER circling before, but great to get mor detail.

[Major Tallon]

There was a made for TV movie in 1980 called "Once Upon A Spy."  It starred Ted Danson.  I never heard of "Nothing is Forever."

[Vauxhall]

Just had a quick dig for information.

 

NOTHING IS FOREVER is a Fleming reference. Chapter 24 of Diamonds Are Forever ends:

 

"Mister. Nothing is forever. Only death is permanent. Nothing is forever except what you did to me."

[tonyvenhuizen]

Robert Wade is right. That's too le Carre. 007 at its core needs to be good guys versus bad guys.

Thankfully someone at EON had the sense and good taste to nix ONCE UPON A SPY and NOTHING IS FOREVER as titles.

OUAS is not Bondian at all. It evokes a fairy tale.

NIF sounds like a poor pastiche of a Bond title. Not clever or original like the Fleming titles.

[Professor Pi]

Just had a quick dig for information.

 

NOTHING IS FOREVER is a Fleming reference. Chapter 24 of Diamonds Are Forever ends:

 

"Mister. Nothing is forever. Only death is permanent. Nothing is forever except what you did to me."

 

John Gardner had this opening for "Death is Forever" making explicit the metaphor from the DAF novel.  He also had a book called "Nobody Lives Forever."

 

Fleming's titles are genius.  Very difficult to duplicate (looking at you TND and DAD.)

[Odd Jobbies]

Personally, I wouldn't call the final script particularly "credible or satisfying," either...

My thoughts too. Frankly P&W are taking p**s saying that about someone else's work, when they haven't written anything credible for Bond, period.

 

And if they're indeed steeped in Fleming, why do their Bond scripts have more in common with Carry On movies than Fleming's novels?

 

They're hackneyed video game-esque title Nothing Lasts Forever  tells me everything i need to know about the tosh we'll get if they're ever again given the free reign they had in the Brossa era.

 

Whereas Once Upon a Spy  has some class.  I get the feeling that when they compare Morgan's script to Le Carre what they're really saying is that the audience would have to invest some thought into the plot and care about the characters, as opposed to bang-whizz-naughty innuendo routine of their 1-dimensional entries.