Pierce Brosnan in "Better The Devil"

Inspired by the project undertaken by Mr Blofeld and coco1997 to eliminate Roger Moore's tenure as James Bond and assign his movies to either George Lazenby or Timothy Dalton, coco1997 and I have undertaken a similar but somewhat different project, envisaging a reality where the relaunch with Casino Royale didn't go to plan and Pierce Brosnan returned to the role of James Bond in 2008's Better The Devil:

BETTER THE DEVIL (2008)

It becomes immediately clear when Casino Royale debuts that the reinvention of the James Bond franchise isn't the phenomenal success that EON and MGM had hoped. Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson chair emergency planning sessions talking about the future of the franchise - and come to the eventual conclusion that they must woo Pierce Brosnan back and make a movie in the style of Die Another Day, but bigger and more extravagant.

Neil Purvis and Robert Wade write a screenplay that is derived from ideas tossed about in a brainstorming session with Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, in one of which they decide to make this a direct sequel to Die Another Day and use Colonel Moon's satellite, the Icarus, as the films mcguffin. EON decided to offer the role of director to Die Another Day director Lee Tamahori, but he refuses, so this role is handed to Michael Bay, fresh from directing Transformers.

With the producer chosen and the screenplay near completion, the cast of the movie (at this point still known as Bond 22) is assembled. Adrien Brody is considered for the role of the villain, Edward Solomon, and signs up on condition that his then girlfriend, model Elsa Pataky, is given a minor role in the film. Brody later withdraws from the movie shortly before production begins due to illness, but Pataky retains her role. EON considers several women to play the movies leading ladies, eventually settling on Eva Longoria to play Luna DiAngelo, and, at the behest of Michael Bay, choosing Rachael Taylor for the role of Petra Solomon.

With the beginning of filming imminent, selection of a new actor to play the main villain is somewhat rushed, with up and coming British actor, David Morrissey. Finally, David Arnold returns to compose the soundtrack whilst Gwen Stefani is ourted to perform the main theme for the film - and a funked up disco version on the end credits.

Notably, Michael Bay chooses to return to a tradition not seen since the eighties, and announces the title of the next film at the very end of the end credits which comes as a surprise to audiences, many of whom are not aware of its inclusion, when the film opens on the 31st October, 2008

CAST

Pierce Brosnan as James Bond

David Morrissey as Edward Solomon

Eva Longoria as Luna DiAngelo
Rachel Taylor as Petra Solomon

Elsa Pataky as The Masseuse
Sonya Walger as Jenny

Dominic Cooper as Mascott

Matthew Marsden as Major Stuart Jones
Christopher Lee as Count Hugo Hammerstein

Judi Dench as M
Michael Kitchen as Bill Tanner
Samantha Bond as Moneypenny
John Cleese as Q
Michael Madsen as Damian Falco
Joe Don Baker as Jack Wade

GUN BARREL OPENS ON …

THE AMAZON

OPEN on the Amazon, stretching as far as the eye can see - except for a cargo helicopter, cruising at relatively low altitude. In the cabin is a man with an oxygen mask - his identity obscured - whilst at the control stick is a beautiful blonde woman whom the masked man refers to as Jenny.

A light on the controls informs Jenny that they're over the drop area, she makes the helicopter hover stationary over the jungle and then she hits a switch and a hatch opens in the floor of the cabin causing wind to rip round the inside of the plane. The man has connected his harness to a cable that is, in turn, connected to a spooling device.

He's lowered out of the plane, not unlike Bond in 'License To Kill' and into the foliage below - and when the masked man hits the floor, he unclips himself and the wire begins retracting.

All of this seen from a shadowed branch above, a figure wearing a rolex (and thus, not a native) pulls a test tube from his pocket containing a gaggle of ants and he pours them onto the retreating cable ...

Meanwhile, our masked man has removed his mask to reveal - Major Stuart Jones, 007 - a pretty boy individual who proceeds to infiltrate a huge tree-house (it's the bastard child of the Ewok Village and the Death Star).

The ants are pulled up into the waiting helicopter on the cable and, once there, scuttle towards the nearest identifiable food source - the beautiful Jenny. They swarm her, she's being eaten to death by the ants and loose control of the plane -

Just as Jones has his target, scientist Nils Wagner, in his sighs, the plane hits the canopy and a flaming fireball rockets into the treehouse catching Jones off guard.

But NOT, it seems, catching Wagner's formidable bodyguard off guard (we will see Wagner later in the movie) and whilst Wagner makes his getaway, Jones fights the bodyguard to the death as they tumble through the flaming wreckage of the helicopter.

Jones grabs the gun from the dead Jenny’s holster and blasts the henchman in the side, the blood staining his suit crimson as the fight continues into the nearby river – where, ultimately, the henchman slumps into the water – seemingly dead. For the moment, it looks like Jones has won the day - until, like all good henchmen, the bodyguard 'rises from the dead' and plants a bullet in Jones' head before he collapses to the floor - and we HIT the title sequence.

TITLES: performed by Gwen Stefani, written by Linda Perry, Dallas Austin and Gwen Stefani.

I can’t imagine how hard it must be to be you.
Adopting all your history, it’s hard being me too.
Are your secrets where you left them?
Cause now your ghosts are mine as well.
I think it’s time I met them and I think it’s time you tell …

And you should have told me when you met me all these things I should know.
And I should have asked, we should have talked, about this so long ago.

It's not fair, it's not fair, and don't leave me here!
Oh, how's this happening to me?
It feels so lonely here.

We are in a mess, a Danger Zone.
What will happen next? You never know.
We are in a mess,a Danger Zone.
What will happen next? You never know.

Now we share the closet, now you've let me come inside.
And now you're finally undressing and I feel like I might die.
The damage is infectious, the confession is too late.
And how can I accept this? How is this happening to me?

It's not fair, it's not fair, and don't leave me here!
Oh, how's this happening to me?
It feels so lonely here.

We are in a mess, a Danger Zone.
What will happen next? You never know.
We are in a mess,a Danger Zone.
What will happen next? You never know.

All your secrets.
All your Lies.
All of it.

We are in a mess, a Danger Zone.
What will happen next? You never know.
We are in a mess,a Danger Zone.
What will happen next? You never know …

JAMAICA

The final credit irises into Bond enjoying the royal treatment from a beautiful blonde masseuse as the sun sets, on the balcony of his house in Jamaica. A helicopter thunders overhead and Bond excuses the masseuse before fishing under the pillow on the bed for his PPK before cautiously approaching the front door, flinging it open and holding the PPK to the head of the person outside. This person is M and she is accompanied by Tanner –

Bond dresses and sits down with M at a table on the balcony as the blonde masseuse (now clothed) furnishes them with drinks. Tanner puts a laptop on the table, opens it and boots it up – and it reveals the personnel files of Major Stuart Jones, 007 (“Your replacement …” reveals M).

Tanner explains that Jones’ body was dredged out of the Nile several days ago after investigating a scientist, Nils Wagner, who was involved with development of Icarus, somewhere in the Amazon jungle. The scientists retreat, when investigated, was burnt to the ground and the corpse of Jones’ companion recovered.

Bond sucks his teeth and M reveals that the other members of the Double-0 Section are preoccupied.

At which point, M offers Bond his commission back and Bond warmly accepts (“It’s about time …”) which is good because M and Tanner already have his first mission:

Count Victor Hammerstein, a wealthy arms dealer, is hosting an arms auction that week in France at which a way to control the presumed deactivated Icarus satellite is to be auctioned. Bond will attend posing as Herman Van Doran, an industrialist, and will acquire the control method for the Ministry of Defense.

HEATHROW

Dressed as a Virgin stewardess, Miss Moneypenny walks up to Van Doran in the concourse of Heathrow Airport. She explains that there is a message waiting for him and that he is free to use one of their phones to collect it.

Van Doran thanks her whilst she escorts him to a side room. She shuts the door and when he picks up the phone and speaks into the receiver, gas begins to vent through unseen holes, knocking him out.

Moneypenny and Robinson watch this scene play out through a two way mirror.

A few minutes later, Moneypenny walks up to Bond. He is now wearing a suit and standing in exactly the same place that Van Doran was. She presents him with Van Doran’s briefcase and the relevant forged travel documents as well as a watch – ‘with the usual refinements …’

As she hands over his tickets, she tells Bond that it’s nice to ‘have (you) flying with (us) again …’

Bond, in turn, thanks her and heads to the gate where his plane is ready to board.

FRANCE

An hour later, the plane comes into land at the Tours Val de Loire Airport and Bond clears customs where a limousine with tinted windows sits waiting for him outside. The chauffeur hands Bond a blindfold and asks him to wear it during the journey so that their eventual destination may remain secret –

Later, when the limousine pulls to a stop, the chauffeur tells Bond that he can take the blindfold off. He does so and is confronted by a massive zeppelin moored in a meadow in front of them which the chauffeur instructs him to walk towards.

Count Hammerstein, an octogenarian businessman in a pinstripe suit, greets Bond at the bottom of the boarding ramp to the zeppelin, the Secatur, and tells him that someone will show him to his room and that there will be a cocktail reception in the lounge prior to the auction.

THE SECATUR

Bond nods, heads to his room where he scans the room for bugs before getting changed and making his way to the lounge where the cocktail reception is in swing.

By this point, the sky has darkened and night has fallen and the zeppelin is cruising above snow covered mountains on which the moonlight casts beautiful silhouettes.

Bond finds himself in the company of a fellow businessman and together they set eyes on a beautiful Latina businesswoman, Luna DiAngelo, who stands with a drink watching the scenery pass by. Bond smiles and the businessman reads his mind, warns him that he’s familiar with Luna and that she has a reputation as a bit of an ice princess.

Watching Luna from behind and the dress she’s wearing with a plunging neck and back (that reaches to the nape of her back), Bond smiles and tells his companion that he thinks he’ll ‘have a crack at her …’

Luna rejects Bond’s advances which only makes her more fascinating to him. This provides the dynamics between the two of them when it is revealed that Luna is Bond’s main competition when it comes to bidding for the method of controlling Icarus. The bidding is equal until Luna makes an amazing jump in bidding – increasing the price she’s willing to pay by several million – causes her to win.

Bond approaches Luna to congratulate her on her win and he puts the moves on her, though she resists his advances – as the businessman from earlier appears wielding his Walther PPK. Bond and Luna try to evade him and somehow make their way to the inside of the big balloon where he threatens to shoot them – which would, however, kill them all.

Bond realizes the businessman is standing on top of an emergency escape hatch which can be opened by a nearby button – he sneakily slides his watch off his wrist and tosses it across the cavernous room so it hits the button, the hatch opens and the businessman falls out.

As Luna and Bond look down through the hatch at the retreating figure, Bond slips his watch back on and mutters ‘well, that certainly brought him down to Earth …’

In the aftermath of the preceeding events, Luna puts the moves on Bond, inviting him back to her room where she slips off her dress (as it slides over tanned buttocks, Bond quips ‘the cheek of it …’) and they make love. Bond wakes during the night and places a piece of what initially appears to be sticky tape onto Luna’s mobile phone.

Hours later, the zeppelin is moored above a field and Bond disembarks to a second waiting limousine where the driver greets him with a causal ‘Guten tag …’. They’re somewhere in Germany.

MI6 HEADQUARTERS

Back at MI6, Bond enters the Operations Room just as M finishes a conversation with Damian Falco, her NSA counterpart about Bond jeopardizing their operation on the Secatur (turns out the businessman was an NSA operative). Bond finds himself in a meeting with M and Tanner. Whilst M is upset and castigates Bond for loosing the auction, Tanner announces that they’ve followed the tracker from Germany to (Q enters and fiddles with a bank of consoles, fiddling with the controls until a map of the world comes up and zooms in on an island off the coast of California) Edward Solomon’s private residence.

Solomon is a big name Hollywood actor and an influential member of The Hands of God and the island is where the bug that Bond placed on Luna ended up.

M makes a decision, Bond will visit Solomon and see if he can smoke the actor out though first he must visit Q and receive some equipment.

M hands several items across to Bond at the same time as exchanging the usual familiar repartee. Equipment provided to Bond include the Q Department version of the Swiss Army Knife, ear pieces that will relay information from MI6 and/or play white sound into Bonds ears and a car, the Aston Martin DVS V12 with all customary optional extras and a few that Q thought that Bond would enjoy field testing.

OFF THE CALIFORNIAN COAST

A speedboat cuts across the water and approaches a private island located within the Santa Barbara Channel. Bond is on the boat and as it closes on a wooden jetty, he can make out a beautiful blonde woman in a flower patterned lightweight cotton dress. Servants moor the speedboat to the jetty as Bond climbs out and the woman takes steps towards him.

She introduces herself to Bond as Edward Solomon’s wife, Petra, and escorts him across the island to the palatial residence.

From a room in the residence overlooking the jetty, a shadowed figure watches and speaks to someone else – a handsome young man – and orders him to ‘keep an eye on Mr Bond and my wife …’

The shadowed figure is a casually dressed Edward Solomon who is next seen making his way down a grand spiral staircase and gretting Bond and Petra exclaiming that it is always nice when lifestyle magazines take an interest in him and allow him to put his thoughts forward instead of ignoring or ridiculing him for his religious beliefs.

Solomon suggest that Petra give Bond a tour of the private island and Bond accepts the offer, discovering the extent of the luxurious residence, several private yachts and the huge bio-dome in the middle of the island in which a jungle is being cultivated. Petra explains that her husband is especially proud of the bio-dome – his missionary parents were killed by animals whilst on assignment and he has made it his mission to collect various poisonous creatures to further research.

He, she says, jokingly refers to it as his ‘Garden of Death’!

Before they reach the bio-dome, they reach a vast indoor swimming pool which yields Mascott swimming in tight swim-trunks when he is introduced to Bond. Bond picks up on the fact that Mascott doesn’t like him – but also doesn’t appear to like Petra either.

Bond makes a point to question Petra about this, but they are soon distracted by their arrival at the Garden of Death.

A walkway allows them to walk through the bio-dome but just as they enter, Petra finds that she gets called away (she explains that it’s ‘her agent’) and as she leaves, the door slams shut and Bond is trapped in the bio-dome with the dangerous animals. The walkway retracts and Bond is tossed into the centre of the garden – fending off various creatures using his suit jacket wrapped round the branch of a tree covered in poisonous spines.

Petra hammers on the door, trying to open it and rescue Bond whilst Bond can see (though Petra cannot) that Mascott stands in a control room overlooking the garden – eventually Bond gets rescued, though not before being thoroughly shaken (though, ‘not stirred’, he assures Petra).

That night, more determined than before, he searches the mansion and tries to use Solomon’s computer. He is discovered by Petra but Petra confesses that her husband keeps her a relative prisoner in the mansion and she has some concerns about his behaviour, so she helps him to hack into the computer.

Bond manages to download some information onto a portable data drive (disguised as a ring) but is interrupted and, thus, doesn’t retrieve all of the information. Petra, again, provides a cover story from the snooping Mascott – and they retire to their respective bedrooms.

The following day, Bond finds himself interviewing Solomon and tries to smoke him out but Solomon clams up and asks Bond to leave the island.

Bond agrees, leaves. Leaving Petra to face the wrath of her husband who wants to know why she helped Bond and says that she has endangered everything that he’s working towards, that she has threatened the very redemption of mankind.

He orders her to be purified …

LOS ANGELES

Bond works with Jack Wade to recover the information that Bond downloaded onto the ring in a safe house in Los Angeles when it is revealed that the private island has suddenly burned down. Solomon has survived, but his wife has died.

Bond and Wade observe the post mortem in which the Doctor decides that Petra was restrained at her wrists and ankles before being burned to death. Bond walks out of the room, muttering ‘that bastard’ and goes off the rails.

Using connections (we show him seducing a sexy female reporter), Bond infiltrates a movie premiere at Graumans Chinese Theatre. In the bathroom during the show, he confronts Solomon about the death of his wife – the two fight, demolishing the room (‘you murdered her !’ ‘the bitch was asking for it …’) but Bond leaves having learnt nothing more apart from that (‘you’re too late, redemption is at hand, in two days, the Earth will be cleansed of sin and reborn – anew …’)

As this scene draws to a close, we close up on a computer scene as it says INFORMATION HAS BEEN DECODED and we fade through to …

SHARM EL-SHEIKH

Bond arrives in the beautiful coastal resort of Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt where he manages to seek out Luna DiAngelo who is again on business on behalf of Edward Solomon, contacting a leading scientist.

Luna agrees to help Bond’s investigation although confesses she doesn’t know much, that she was a corporate operator hired to carry out various assignments. She didn’t even know that Solomon was involved until she delivered the item to him as the orders generally came to her through a man she knew as Mascott.

However, she tells Bond that she is supposed to deliver the next item she has been hired to retrieve to a cruise ship, the SS Ascension, and she agrees to help Bond get onboard.

SS ASCENSION

Luna boards the beautiful cruise vessel, the SS Ascension, via a helicopter. A jabbering crewman escorts her through the corridors and tells her that the ship is one of the most luxurious vessels that has been built for a single person –

A bullet slams into his head, Mascott appears through a doorway and throws the corpse of the crewman over the side into the waves. Luna’s disgusted at what just happened, but she has little time to think when Mascott says that he knows she’s been associating with Bond and that he knows that she helped Bond onboard.

The only question is – where is the secret agent? He holds a gun to Luna’s head and we cut through to …

An equipment crate is opened up and Bond’s legs scissor out of the box to knock out an ND henchman. But other thugs cock their rifles as Bond rises to his feet and discover Solomon, Mascott and Luna with a gun pointed at his head.

Solomon is clad in pristine white robes, trying to be religious but coming across the opposite. He tells Bond that he’s glad Bond turned up, that now he can witness the end of the world first hand and, he adds, ‘we could always use a new convert …’

Bond is taken to a room and strapped to a chair. Solomon appears before him as Bond has his eyes sealed open. Solomon explains that they have gained control of the Icarus satellite ‘that the American government left carelessly circling the planet for anyone to salvage …’ and are to use it to set a comet approaching the Earth marginally off course and slamming into the world.

Bond calls Solomon a madman, Solomon just laughs. He says that the comet will wipe out all life on Earth, allowing everything to be reborn as God has intended it to be the first time round. And then he leaves – and the room is plunged into darkness before a series of rapid images and random noises are projected onto screens around the room.

This is subliminal messaging of the highest level – and Bond eventually blacks out from the trauma. He wakes to find himself clad in the same white robes that Solomon was wearing when he uncovered Bond.

Bond is in a cabin on the Ascension and the ship is cruising across a moderately stormy seas. He follows Mascott when he beckons him, through the corridors of the ship, where we begin to realize that Bond has, somehow, managed to resist the brainwashing.

Bond finds out where Luna, actually brainwashed, is being held and where the control room for the Icarus is. He also meets Nils Wagner, the person who constructed the slaving mechanism that Solomon’s using to control the Icarus.

Wagner was Vlad’s assistant.

Later, Bond sneaks round when everyone is asleep and finds Luna to whom he reveals that he is not brainwashed, having used the ear pieces provided by Q to pump white noise into his ear whilst the subliminal brainwashing was occurring.

He drags Luna to the brainwashing chamber where he uses the army knife type gadget to jury rig the machine to deprogram Luna.

THE ATLANTIC

As this occurs, M and Falco stand on the deck of the HMS Invincible as it steams through the choppy Atlantic in a battlegroup flotilla of various UN armed forces. Falco aggressively suggests that M order the vessel to blow the Ascension out of the water but M shoots him down and tells him that they don’t know what safeguards he’s put into place.

SS ASCENSION

Luna is now deprogrammed and she, along with Bond, race to defeat Mascott, Wagner and Solomon. Upon reaching the control room, Luna takes on Mascott and proves to be more than a match for him whilst Bond takes on Solomon.

Solomon and Bond smash out of a window onto the deck of the cruise ship and fight in a life boat suspended above the water.

Mascott slumps to the floor, unconscious and Luna punches out Wagner and begins to try to reprogram the controls to turn the Icarus away from the encroaching asteroid.

In space, we see the laserbeam sizzling through space towards the lump of rock but not, as yet, connecting – it begins to turn.

Solomon knocks Bond out and heads back in, backhanding Luna and returning the satellite onto it’s original course. Bond, however, has risen from the realms of the unconscious and shoots Solomon …

Solomon slumps over the controls and – just as the laser beam is about to hit the asteroid – turns it away and directs it towards their coordinates. Outside, the laser beam hits the water and begins to approach the cruise liner.

Bond grabs Luna and tugs her away through the corridors of the cruise ship to the sea doo hangar – just as the laser beam collides with the Ascension and things begin to explode, he flicks a switch, the hangar door opens.

Solomon, in the control room, is engulfed in explosions as the laser beam hits a vital area. Outside, the Ascension goes up in flames and the ski doo with Bond and Luna onboard flies through the air and lands in the water – taking them to safety.

HMS INVINCIBLE

Later, M, Falco and Tanner watch from the deck of the HMS Invincible as helicopters fly across the search zone, looking for anything that may have survived the destruction of the Ascension. This prompts M to ask about Bond and as Tanner begins to reply, we dissolve through to …

Medical Bay on the Invincible. Luna is laid up in bed wearing a medical smock that barely covers everything when Bond enters, she stands and loosens the medical smock which flutters to the floor and reveals a lacy pair of panties and a similar bra. Bond smiles as Luna asks him what he is doing here –

He hooks his thumbs under the waistband of her panties and smiles :- “I’m here to debrief you …”

The camera pans to a clock as it tips over from 0:06 to 0:07 and we hear the requisite ‘Oh, James!’ as we hit the credits.

JAMES BOND WILL RETURN IN

“ALONG CAME A SPY”

#1 terminus

#2 Mr. Blofeld

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#4 Mr. Blofeld

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#6 Vauxhall

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#8 [dark]

#9 Mr. Blofeld

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#11 coco1997