Whether NBC and ER would want to share him is not the question. Of course it would be good PR for them to have the new Bond on their show and their network. The only reason that Remington Steele was brought back into production in 1986 was because Pierce was going to do Bond, and NBC wanted to exploit that. The question is whether EON would hire a guy to play Bond who is already doing a network show, that people can watch for nothing. They didn't hire Pierce because of that, so why would they hire someone less suitable with the same problem?
I just think that far too many people are making too much out of this "final four" report and are jumping to conclusions that make no sense. Specifically, the conclusion that because of who his competition supposedly is, that Visnjic will be the next Bond.
Let's use logic here. First, about the list, does this "final four" make sense when the ages are all over the place, and one (Stewart, of course) is clearly not a real candidate? Even if the other 3 are correct, then there is one person who is not being named, and I would bet that this is because it is someone who actually does make sense as Bond, and EON (assuming they are behind the "leaks") is simply holding back the name because it would be obvious that they are going that direction. And this does not even factor in that this list came from a tabloid newspaper and is only being taken seriously at all because of the inclusion of Cahill, who CBn heard was highly regarded. Also, no one knows how good O'Lachlan or Cahill could be, because nobody has seen them in anything to speak of, so maybe they are better than anyone gives them credit for. And again, this is assuming that some of the report is correct (I think we can safely say that Stewart is incorrect).
The other thing that is being ignored is the nature of EON itself. They have been a pretty conservative company for about 30 years, with very few exceptions, or ever since Roger Moore became Bond. Really, the only risks they have taken were with FYEO and LTK, going back to the basics with the first and breaking with the Bond formula for the latter. Two times they chose Brosnan to be their Bond (1986 and 1994), which is the very definition of a conservative choice that would be easy to sell to the public. Do you really think that they will break so radically from their comfort zone to cast a Mediterranean/eastern European to play the British action icon? No matter how good he might be, everyone would know that he's not British just by his name. EON will not take the chance that he won't be accepted as a British agent. They are not going to risk the franchise on it.
Of course, I could be wrong. I just don't see it in this case.
Edited by MarJil, 28 July 2005 - 03:55 AM.
