39 replies to this topic

[Agent 76]

Was the title ever confirmed for this one?

[Royal Dalton]

There wasn't one. It just says 'Bond 17' on the title page.

[Chemateo]

I have always thought this would have made for a fun & adventurous film. I honestly wish that they made this instead of Lazy G. Wilson's flawed LTK.

 

I think instead of rushing into production with LTK in the Summer of 88 for the Summer 89 release. They should have waited for the writer's strike to end. Given Glen the boot. Got Roger Spottiswoode on board. Why rush? You see how that hurt them with LTK. Start production in early 1990 for a Fall 1990 release. This could have been dynamite!

 

The beautiful locales would have added. That was missing in LTK. Leave it to drippy Glen to make Mexico & The Florida Keys look drab. I have heard that in LTK various treatments, Maibaum had emphasized exotic locales to compensate for the budgetary restrictions. If I may deviate, I think the loss of using mainland China was a serious blow. The ideas of having a car chase atop The Great Wall of China & a brutal fistfight amongst the terracotta statues would have been terrific!

 

Sir Henry Lee Ching would have been an interesting villain. A fun skiing sequence in beautiful Japan, it was lifted for TWINE,  towering imposing Kohoni Twins, sexy Connie Webb, and Rodin with his motorcycle paraphernalia, the return of the DB5, the futuristic/modern elements would have added up to a solid sum.

 

The biggest crime that this never happened was the fact we missed out on Q & Denholm Crisp getting sloshed! That is worth the price of admission alone.

Edited by Chemateo, 24 December 2014 - 06:39 AM.

[Turn]

Great stuff, but Eon would've never gotten that type of budget to support that. Funny that back then Bond was still all that was propping up MGM/UA as well.

[Chemateo]

Great stuff, but Eon would've never gotten that type of budget to support that. Funny that back then Bond was still all that was propping up MGM/UA as well.

 

Not sure about that. EON was handcuffed throughout the 80s budgetary for sure. But they were set to loosen the purse strings a bit come Bond 17 in pre-production in 1990. The series was finally getting a budgetary raise of $10 million. From $32 million to $42 million. You do not believe that EON could have made this type of film in 1991 on that budget? EON has proven they can do wonders with the peanuts they were receiving in the 1980s. The $42 million budget was on par or greater than other contemporaries, such as, Lethal Weapon 3, Back to the Future 2, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

 

MGM has clearly been mismanaged multiple times throughout history. MGM relied on Bond, Rocky, and Pink Panther. Many of us were hoping that Bond would leave MGM after this most recent financial disaster and move to a more reliable studio like Warner Bros. or Sony exclusively.

[Turn]

I'd never heard that before. Interesting. I'm amazed they were granted any type of preliminary budget post LTK given all the disarray of the time.

[Guy Haines]

An interesting screen treatment, although I'm having a hard time envisaging Timothy Dalton as Bond in this story - it reads more like a Pierce Brosnan type of adventure to me. Then again, we only know Dalton from his turns in TLD and LTK, so we'll never know how he would have played Bond in this, obviously.

 

Casting around - the character "Denholm Crisp", the jaded MI6 man only months away from retirement. You don't suppose they had Denholm Elliott in mind for that role? Good actor, recognisable from the Indiana Jones films, and it wouldn't be the only time a screen treatment or early script used the name or part thereof of the actor rather than character name. The first drafts of SF referred to the villain not as Raoul Silva but as Javier Bardem - they knew who they wanted for the part but just had to get the character name sorted out.

[Royal Dalton]

Probably. Although, Denholm Elliott's health was on the decline at that time, which would almost certainly have ruled him out.

[Chemateo]

An interesting screen treatment, although I'm having a hard time envisaging Timothy Dalton as Bond in this story - it reads more like a Pierce Brosnan type of adventure to me. Then again, we only know Dalton from his turns in TLD and LTK, so we'll never know how he would have played Bond in this, obviously.

 

Well after seeing Dalton in Tales From The Crypt, you realize just how adaptable of an actor Dalton truly is. Dalton would have had no problem leading a more fun & fantastical picture.

 

 

Casting around - the character "Denholm Crisp", the jaded MI6 man only months away from retirement. You don't suppose they had Denholm Elliott in mind for that role? Good actor, recognisable from the Indiana Jones films, and it wouldn't be the only time a screen treatment or early script used the name or part thereof of the actor rather than character name. The first drafts of SF referred to the villain not as Raoul Silva but as Javier Bardem - they knew who they wanted for the part but just had to get the character name sorted out.

 

 

Funny you mention Denholm Elliot. As that always came to my mind as well. Although, I would like to believe Elliot could have done it. Llewelyn & Elliot sound like a fun duo. I want to say Elliot filmed Noises off in the Spring of 91. So perhaps Elliot could have done this as a fitting swan song.

[tdalton]

Dalton is an adaptable enough actor to take on any kind of Bond film, be it the kind that he actually appeared in or something more along the lines of a Moore or Brosnan entry.  His work in Chuck, albeit many years after his turn as Bond, shows that he has the ability to take on such things.

 

Now, whether he would have wanted to take Bond in that kind of direction, that's another discussion.  But, I do think he would have been capable of it had he chosen to do so.