36 replies to this topic

[Loomis]

The Star Trek series is incapable of trying new things, and it hit the bottom of the barrel (And I love Star Trek!) I don't want the Bond series to suffer the same fate.

All well and good, but Eon won't hand BOND 21 over to Tarantino, because it would go from being a James Bond film to being a Tarantino film, and Eon is in the business of making James Bond films, not Tarantino films.

Broccoli and Wilson can try new things without signing up superstar directors. There's all manner of things they could do: get new writers and push for more intelligent scripts; up the amount of location shooting; hire talented young directors who aren't as powerful as Tarantino; go back to the young Bond's first mission; make BOND 21 a three-hour epic.... I mean, all this is off the top of my head, and I'm not necessarily claiming that all or indeed any of these ideas are good, but all I'm trying to say is that Eon doesn't need Tarantino or someone like him to innovate/succeed.

BTW, allow me to state that I'm a huge Tarantino fan (rushed out to buy the just-released-today KILL BILL VOL 1 DVD on my way to work this morning) who'd love to see him do a Bond film.... but I just think it's enormously unlikely to happen, and I get the impression that several young Bond fans (not referring to you here, Jimmy, or to anyone in particular on CBn) are convinced that Tarantino's next project will be CASINO ROYALE/BOND 21.

[SnakeEyes]

it would go from being a James Bond film to being a Tarantino film

Well, that is a little 'risico' they could take. It certainly wouldn't do badly either way - It would be a Bond and Tarantino film - big draw power.

Eon is in the business of making James Bond films

Well, you could have fooled me...

Hate to take digs at you Loomis, but, well i'm still me
I agree with what you basically say throughout.

[Loomis]

it would go from being a James Bond film to being a Tarantino film

Well, that is a little 'risico' they could take. It certainly wouldn't do badly either way - It would be a Bond and Tarantino film - big draw power.

Well, actually, it would be neither one thing nor the other, but a strange collision between a Tarantino cult trash-meets-arthouse film and an Eon Bond film. It would be the weirdest and most unhappy union in screen history since Steven Spielberg tried to mate E.T. with A CLOCKWORK ORANGE and came up with AI: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, described by Leonard Maltin as "a curious and uncomfortable hybrid of Kubrick and Spielberg sensibilities" (personally, I like AI, but that's by-the-by).

And say (as this thread asks) Tarantino made the greatest Bond film ever (for Eon), and it did very well at the box office - what then? Business as usual with BOND 22? No way. The fans wouldn't be happy with another jobbing hack director from the UK/Commonwealth like Roger Spottiswoode or Lee Tamahori - they'd want Tarantino back, or, failing Tarantino, another fashionable whizzkid with his own unique style. And then the discussion would be: Steven Soderbergh for BOND 22? Takashi Miike for BOND 22? Hey, how about Bertolucci for the next Bond flick? Oliver Stone?

Here's what Tarantino has to say about Bond:

"There's a thin chance that it might work out," Tarantino says. "I've talked to Pierce Brosnan about doing it. I would like to do it. I don't see that they have anything to lose at all. They've got this gigantic franchise, they can't do anything wrong with it, Pierce Brosnan's only going to do one more movie for them, if that . . . so let's go my way and do it a little differently."

"I won't do anything that will ruin the series," Tarantino pledges. "And by the way, mine won't cost $100 million."

The trouble is, Tarantino is talking rubbish when he suggests that he could make a Bond film and that Eon could afterwards go right back to doing things as they've always done, and he knows he's talking rubbish. His directing a Bond film (regardless of whether it cost well under $100 million or even more than DIE ANOTHER DAY) would alter the tone and direction of the Bond films forever. Currently, every time the series hits a rut, the fans cry: "Let's go back to basics, back to Fleming! Let's have another down-to-earth thriller like FOR YOUR EYES ONLY!"

Well, would you want fans, in the future, to be shouting: "Bring back Quentin!", or "Let's get another Tarantino-type director!"? If Tarantino did a Bond for Eon, the search would always be on for another A-list, visionary, superstar director to stamp his own personal vision over the series.... at which point the Bond series, as we know it and love it, would cease to exist.

[Bond Bug]

Further reply to above posts:

Were the Ian Fleming novels so crap that they couldn't be successful if they were faithfully filmed? I really don't think so.

Were they so crap that to capture the tone and the pace in a movie and to get the essence of Flemings Bond character wouldn't work on film? I don't think so.

Edited by Bond Bug, 19 April 2004 - 06:29 PM.

[JimmyBond]

Loomis,

I was going to quote one of your posts so you knew I was replying to you, but you make so many interesting points it would take me too long to work out all the quoting myself Yeah, I'm lazy, but anyways:

I'm in the same boat as you, a bit more optimistic maybe, but the same boat. Basically I'm not getting my hopes up for Tarantino to do the next Bond film, I want him to, so that's why I'm optimistic about it, if he's serious about wanting to do it, I imagine at one point he'll try to arrange a meeting with the producers, and that's what I'm hoping for, if they tell him no, well hey, at least he met with them.

Also, you bring up a good point in answer to my question to this thread. And that's what caused me to post this in the first place. I to think the Bond series would be changed forever, people would expect more in the next one, and if EON went back to the same cookie cutter Bond films they've been making, fans would be upset. I mean if you get a taste of chocolate, you don't want it taken away and replaced with broccolli eh

Off Topic, but I love Kill Bill (both Volumes) and I don't think I'm being premature when I say it's my favorite movie ever, I can't wait till he recuts them back into one huge epic

[Bond Bug]

Are any of you old enough to remember when you'd have the main feature then a short film at the cinemas.

What if Tarantino made a 20 minute featurette tagged alongside the next Bond movie?

[Loomis]

I to think the Bond series would be changed forever, people would expect more in the next one, and if EON went back to the same cookie cutter Bond films they've been making, fans would be upset.

Right, exactly. Let's face it: the Bonds are cookie cutter, formula movies. Cookie cutter, formula movies made with unusual flair and panache (except for the odd dog like TWINE, of course ), which is why we love them, but cookie cutter, formula movies nonetheless. That's what Barbara Broccoli, Michael G. Wilson and their colleagues at Eon and MGM are in the business of making, not outlets for brilliant visionary filmmakers like Tarantino.

Off Topic, but I love Kill Bill (both Volumes) and I don't think I'm being premature when I say it's my favorite movie ever, I can't wait till he recuts them back into one huge epic

I've just watched VOL 1 for the third time (and the first time on DVD), and I love it more than ever. Tarantino really is a phenomenally gifted director, perhaps the greatest of all time in terms of natural talent, and VOL 1 is hands down one of the most audacious and stylish pictures I've ever seen, a true work of art as well as terrific entertainment. Can't wait to see VOL 2 at the cinema next week.