Reconception for JAMES BOND... Using Wong Kar Wai and Clive Owen
Published at: May 30, 2001, 4:15 p.m. CST by staff
Ok, Harry here and I've been going over those damn wonderful BMWMovies and I just have to say... Dammit, Pierce Brosnan is tired and doesn't want to do another Bond... Release him. Release him and sign Clive Owen now MGM... This isn't a joking matter... this isn't even funny, Clive Owen is the future of James Bond and a birth place to reconceiving the entire Bond Franchise.
Francis Ford Copolla has given MGM the concept to begin making cheaper smarter films... After watching WHAT IS THE WORST THAT CAN HAPPEN last night.... Dear GOD Someone at MGM WAKE UP! If you can take a fantastic Donald Westlake novel and turn it into a piece of celluloidal manure... Please... just stop... breathe in for a minute and take a look at the company.
MGM has an image problem right now. Everyone has a collective sigh of dejection when we hear your lion's roar... You are no longer the king of the studios... There is no Louis B Mayer having made his fortune on D.W. Griffith films and coming to Hollywood with a dream for a giant cinema.... MGM... you are not competing with SONY or WARNER BROTHERS or PARAMOUNT or FOX or DREAMWORKS.... You are not competing with NEW LINE either.... You are competing with MIRAMAX, USA FILMS, ARTISAN, FINE LINE and SONY CLASSICS... You are now a mini... that's the sort of Box office share you're pulling in... Want to grow... Ya want to be a big lion in the cinema forest? Time to start over...
How do you start over? First thing first, you need talent... Not old talent... not bad scripts... not the latest thing on the development execs desk with the hottest and the freshest... What you need to do is to make some damn fine films.
The sort of films that critics begin to notice are coming from you... so they can begin to tell the public about you. The sort of films that cost little, but have wider profit margins... You need to change. And you start that with JAMES BOND.
Right now MGM has only one franchise... One thing that is holding it together for them. JAMES BOND... and as perfect as Pierce Brosnan was for the role... his Bond films never gelled... never hit on all the cylinders... They never fired the imagination and they basically haven't been very good at all. In fact, I'd go so far to say that Brosnan's BONDs are far and away the worst by any of the Bond actors, even though his personal performance as Bond has been exemplary. The best BOND movie that Brosnan did was THE TAILOR OF PANAMA... but noone saw that because they were never told it was here.
Right now, You have the audience believing that James Bond is a big thing to get all hot and bothered over. That James Bond is sexy and cool and big explosions and bang bang and computer wires being removed and wink wink nudge nudge and ewwws and aaahhhhsss... But there is no spying, there is no story, there are no characters and there is no passion. They are dead lifeless little films that open big and die quickly. How to relaunch the franchise?
Film geeks already know the actor, his name is Clive Owen and he's the best damn leading man not leading anyone on screen right now. There's rumors of AMERICANIZING James Bond and making him more... URBAN... WRONG! Change what he is. Make James Bond movies in the $35 million dollar tops range... Get a director like Wong Kar Wai... a Guy Richie... a John Frankenheimer... an Ang Lee or
Alejandro González Iñárritu... Give them complete and total free reign and support the films with a major commercial push... All of a sudden when you're staring at a quality James Bond film with 'new discovery' as the lead and a smashing success... You'll understand how a simple reconception can help.
Somewhere along the way James Bond ceased to be a spy and became a superhero... He ceased to be human and became a cartoon... He ceased being a lover and an enchanter and became a libido sweating on screen in the laps of the world. It's time to make James Bond real again. Not in a SAVE THE WORLD mission... but a mission. A real life or death mission.... An assassination plot... protection... a mystery... something for him to figure out that doesn't have a volcano opening up.... Now I love JAMES BOND FILMS... The Connery's, On Her Majesty's Secret Service... For Your Eyes Only, The Spy Who Loved Me... hell even Moonraker... I enjoyed the first Dalton and mildly enjoyed the second Brosnan... But it is time to reconceive the character back into what Ian Fleming thought...
It's time to put him back into the Sixties or Seventies... Making Period Bond films where he doesn't feel like Austin Powers pulled out of Deep Freeze and wrought upon modern mankind.
Now I know... Brosnan is under contract to do another... It's no secret he wants to be the Bond that dies on camera... But I say pay him his money and set him free... Use Bond to reestablish and realign MGM into a new position and as a new company. Stop making mindlessly awful films... If you're going to go under as a company, go under making the films that make movie-goers love you. Do it with class, intelligence and style.
