But maybe a seven year old watching SPECTRE for the first time - and with a lack of films of competing vision with which to compare it - would be blown away. And if he watched it regularly enough, would love it - warts and all.
Any maybe a fifty year old watching DAF for the first time would not notice the amount of screen time Blofeld has, nor the number of guards in the climactic battle, nor appreciate the humour and weirdness, quite so much as us...
+1 These dynamics that widen viewership to include children form the lynchpin for practically every major aspect behind the making of a Bond movie, story development, cinematography, post-production, marketing and yes, what ties all these together, budget. Bond films will always be made to wow the adult demographics, but they will likewise go beyond to make them extremely appealing to kids; this is why the Bond movie never did or never will come close to Francis Ford Coppola or David Lean, since the Lawrence of Arabia comparison was earlier made in this thread.
Though the producers have always managed to avoid an R rating, LTK is an example of a Bond movie that was nevertheless "too adult" that led to what was considered an underwhelming performance at the box office. But what appealed to kids and what was considered "groovy" by kids in the 70s is different from what kids today consider "the sh*t," so that PG-13 became the new tolerance threshold for the youth market and ironically, this was pioneered by LTK.
So...the kids who enjoyed DAF on the big screen also enjoyed Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, whereas the kids who flocked to the recent Bonds (including Brosnan's) were from the Furious 7 and Assassin's Creed generation, which is why Spectre is what it is, and which BTW was made to Sony standards for all that implies. The bottomline is, if you want to enjoy a beautifully shot spy film without the comic book and video game elements factored in, you'd might as well watch a John Le Carre movie; against the best of those, this viewer will always choose Bond movies and live with the pain of their subpar cinematography )
"...the purposeful slant of his striding figure looked dangerous, as if he was making quickly for something bad that was happening further down the street." -SMERSH on 007 dossier photo, Ch. 6 FRWL.....
As some of you may have read today ,my post on FRWL , I took this on holiday last week ,so my first job when I arrived home ,was to wack on the film ,whilst the book still burned in my mind ,Questions ,
(1) why was Kronsteen , in the book ,Changed from a Russian /Moscow chess champion ,to a Czech champion ?
(2) why was the chess match moved from Moscow ?
(3) why was KLEBB killed at the end ,and not bundled off in a laundry basket ?
(4) why was the periscope changed from a Turkish one to a British one in the film ?
there are more ,but this is a start
It seems these days The Broccolis and Wilsons solution to problems is throw more and more money at the screen.
That's kind of the Hollywood formula in general. Lucas and Speilberg showed in the 1970s and 1980s that you could take a simplistic B-movie script and turn it into a tent pole film by spending lots of money. What we see now is more or less the excesses of doing so as a matter of course. Why should a filmmaker try to be creative when he or she can just spend tons of money? It's fine if the money is well spent. David Lean was known for spending money, for instance, as was Kubrick, but the results speak for themselves.
There's cachet in something like Bond to say they spent so much regardless of the final product, and nobody is going to complain if they're getting limousines, eating high quality meals, staying in great hotels, being paid to tour the local sights, and jetting around to parties and the like. I'm guessing a huge chunk -- maybe the majority -- of a Bond film budget has nothing to do with what shows up on the screen.
I think it's more of a case of they throw good money after bad. In the sense that the 2 most recent lauded bond films, both financially and critically, we're Casino Royale and Skyfall. They both had significantly smaller budgets than the films that succeeded them, films that were not as well recieved. Having a tighter budget means the filmmakers have to think laterally to ensure the money is used wisely and the films turn out good. They then go 'well that worked, now let's do it again, but spend more cash' in my oppinion the reason Quantum of Solace and Spectre are less well regarded is that they are simply the preceding film, turned up to 11, rather than bringing something new to the table. CR bought us an aggressive Bond who was hard to control, QoS turned that up to 11. Skyfall brought us a Bond that may not fit in the modern world and a dark reflection of a villain, Spectre turned that up to 11.
This is not a phenomena that is exclusive to the Craig era either. Goldeneye followed by Tomorrow Never Dies, The spy who loved me followed by Moonraker etc.
I don't know if it's the money's fault or whether the filmmakers are too readily believing they have cracked some mystic bond formula whenever there is a smash hit and the following film fails in comparison.
There's cachet in something like Bond to say they spent so much regardless of the final product, and nobody is going to complain if they're getting limousines, eating high quality meals, staying in great hotels, being paid to tour the local sights, and jetting around to parties and the like. I'm guessing a huge chunk -- maybe the majority -- of a Bond film budget has nothing to do with what shows up on the screen.
Unless there’s access to actual production expenditures, all of that will be just that, a “guess” and a wild one at that. To instead offer an educated guess, large and established enterprises like EON, MGM and Sony would not allow frivolous spending on such a scale. It’s not like they’re given a blank cheque for frills and junkets galore, but it’s more like having their financial statements routinely scrutinized by auditors on behalf of their corporate stakeholders.
"...the purposeful slant of his striding figure looked dangerous, as if he was making quickly for something bad that was happening further down the street." -SMERSH on 007 dossier photo, Ch. 6 FRWL.....
There's cachet in something like Bond to say they spent so much regardless of the final product, and nobody is going to complain if they're getting limousines, eating high quality meals, staying in great hotels, being paid to tour the local sights, and jetting around to parties and the like. I'm guessing a huge chunk -- maybe the majority -- of a Bond film budget has nothing to do with what shows up on the screen.
Unless there’s access to actual production expenditures, all of that will be just that, a “guess” and a wild one at that. To instead offer an educated guess, large and established enterprises like EON, MGM and Sony would not allow frivolous spending on such a scale. It’s not like they’re given a blank cheque for frills and junkets galore, but it’s more like having their financial statements routinely scrutinized by auditors on behalf of their corporate stakeholders.
Even if one has access to the production expenditures, it can be a "wild guess."
The film industry is well known for cooking the books to hide any number of indiscretions and perks to the people with power, and it doesn't seem to matter what major studio is affected. Here are just a few discussions gleaned from a quick review on the Web:
By the way, the Hollywood Reporter, which I've been reading for years, routinely runs stories about the voodoo Hollywood does to hide the extravagances. Here are some more articles which suggest how stars and others use the production to live high on the hog:
Perhaps the more germane concept is this excerpt from an interview with an actual filmmaker by filmmaker Kevin Smith in the first article noted in the previous post:
SD: It's this great sci-fi movie where this guy, for $800,000 and his little barebones crew, with a small digital camera, made a movie that would have cost Warner Bros. $50 million to make.... He was one of the first of this new generation who grew up with his laptop. He did like 250 visual effects in the movie on his own laptop. And he made a $50 million movie for $800,000. I saw that happening. I saw what Jason Blum was doing with the Paranormal Activity movies and I said, you know what, the business is changing and you gotta evolve or die. And so part of my interest in doing a movie so small is that I want to be a part of what's happening right now. And I want to be a front runner. I want to be good at it.
They then discuss his new movie, Sinister, which had a $3 million budget (which shocks Smith, who insists it looks like a movie that's much more expensive). Of course, in many ways, this goes back to the discussion we've been having here for many, many years -- responding to the old school movie studio guys, who demand that we answer how could they possibly continue to make $200 million movies. One answer, which we've pointed out time and time again, is that the question is the wrong one. Any business should be asking how it can make its product profitably -- not how it can keep its costs high. No one in the tech industry asks "how can we continue to make $5,000 computers?" They ask "how can we make profitable computers" and one answer is to make the product more efficiently. It's great to see filmmakers like Derrickson not just get that, but then celebrate what that means for him artistically and financially as well.
I do think the Bond films need to scale back on the budget. Easier said then done but to have 250MILL budgets are way to much. I think after the success of SF EON was hoping that the 900mill-1BILL box office could become the normal for Bond. It isnt, and wont ever be. Which is not a bad thing. Having a budget of 150MILL I think would be perfect for the franchise moving forward.
I've not seen The Imitation Game, but the point reminds me of Pulp Fiction, which came out in the hiatus between Bonds. It looked great, because Tarantino shot it in slow film I think, so the colour is satuated. It is very distinctive and classic, and I don't think it has dated really, because it wasn't of its time even then. I thought that the Bonds could go in a slightly similar direction, esp as PF feels like an action movie though there isn't any action in it really. But there is always something going on, a new scene on its way to enchant you, like the classic old Bonds. It's not just wall to wall action, which is how they were in the 90s with films like Die Hard, Speed and so on.
For all that, it's a problem because with such movies a lot depends on chance - that you have a brilliant director like Tarantino or that the audience takes to the approach. Because if it doesn't work out, you just have a cheap rubbish movie made on a tight budget.
I think nowadays the producers are mindful that they are competing with massive blockbusters and the Bond films have to hold their own with that from the start. Of course, that boxes them into a corner a bit. It's a bit like YOLT which blew the budget because there were so many other Bond-style movies around, they had to stand out.
"This is where we leave you Mr Bond."
Roger Moore 1927-2017
superadoRegent's Park West (CaliforniaPosts: 2,652MI6 Agent
There's cachet in something like Bond to say they spent so much regardless of the final product, and nobody is going to complain if they're getting limousines, eating high quality meals, staying in great hotels, being paid to tour the local sights, and jetting around to parties and the like. I'm guessing a huge chunk -- maybe the majority -- of a Bond film budget has nothing to do with what shows up on the screen.
Unless there’s access to actual production expenditures, all of that will be just that, a “guess” and a wild one at that. To instead offer an educated guess, large and established enterprises like EON, MGM and Sony would not allow frivolous spending on such a scale. It’s not like they’re given a blank cheque for frills and junkets galore, but it’s more like having their financial statements routinely scrutinized by auditors on behalf of their corporate stakeholders.
Even if one has access to the production expenditures, it can be a "wild guess."
The film industry is well known for cooking the books to hide any number of indiscretions and perks to the people with power, and it doesn't seem to matter what major studio is affected. Here are just a few discussions gleaned from a quick review on the Web:
Yes, I can believe that some of those accounts could have taken place, just as employees and business owners around the world over-quote their expenses for personal gain. However, the immutable principle remains, that if any studio allowed gross mismanagement of expenditures to run rampant, they would run themselves out of business. Bond, Sony, et al. are all too big to fail and ironically, greed is what will ensure that wide scale financial fudging does not happen.
I've not seen The Imitation Game, but the point reminds me of Pulp Fiction, which came out in the hiatus between Bonds. It looked great, because Tarantino shot it in slow film I think, so the colour is satuated. It is very distinctive and classic, and I don't think it has dated really, because it wasn't of its time even then. I thought that the Bonds could go in a slightly similar direction, esp as PF feels like an action movie though there isn't any action in it really. But there is always something going on, a new scene on its way to enchant you, like the classic old Bonds. It's not just wall to wall action, which is how they were in the 90s with films like Die Hard, Speed and so on.
For all that, it's a problem because with such movies a lot depends on chance - that you have a brilliant director like Tarantino or that the audience takes to the approach. Because if it doesn't work out, you just have a cheap rubbish movie made on a tight budget.
I think nowadays the producers are mindful that they are competing with massive blockbusters and the Bond films have to hold their own with that from the start. Of course, that boxes them into a corner a bit. It's a bit like YOLT which blew the budget because there were so many other Bond-style movies around, they had to stand out.
That is the paradox from a studio's perspective, how can you predictably turn out a Pulp Fiction every 2-3 years? From a planning and budgeting perspective, PF was an unpredictable production to begin with and it rode on Tarantino reputation with Reservoir Dogs. But as it's said about hindsight being 20/20, it was an extremely happy conclusion for Miramax.
From a management perspective, the Bond series is a cash cow and it has successfully sustained that status for several decades now. A larger budget didn't always result in proportionately larger grosses, though it helped keep revenue within a predictable and acceptable margin. Therefore, at the risk of this cash cow easing into obsolescence, whichever studio is partnered with EON will always ensure that the Bond movies get their big budgets to keep their cash cow alive.
"...the purposeful slant of his striding figure looked dangerous, as if he was making quickly for something bad that was happening further down the street." -SMERSH on 007 dossier photo, Ch. 6 FRWL.....
Actually. the size and diversification of the studios is precisely what allows them to play shell games with the money -- essentially, they rob Peter to pay Paul. The reason Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner got to direct Star Trek movies was in part because they sued Paramount for claiming the first two Star Trek films had not turned a profit, or so I've read. Winston Groom, the author of Forrest Gump, which is pretty much on cable TV every night, still apparently has not been paid anything because the studio claims the film hasn't recouped its operating costs.
Winston Groom, the author of Forrest Gump, which is pretty much on cable TV every night, still apparently has not been paid anything because the studio claims the film hasn't recouped its operating costs.
Winston Groom, the author of Forrest Gump, which is pretty much on cable TV every night, still apparently has not been paid anything because the studio claims the film hasn't recouped its operating costs.
+1. Hollywood accounting, eh?
superadoRegent's Park West (CaliforniaPosts: 2,652MI6 Agent
Actually. the size and diversification of the studios is precisely what allows them to play shell games with the money -- essentially, they rob Peter to pay Paul. The reason Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner got to direct Star Trek movies was in part because they sued Paramount for claiming the first two Star Trek films had not turned a profit, or so I've read. Winston Groom, the author of Forrest Gump, which is pretty much on cable TV every night, still apparently has not been paid anything because the studio claims the film hasn't recouped its operating costs.
Sure, I can believe those things could have possibly happened as well; I’m sure those things happen in any industry, just like how certain medical and insurance providers wouldn’t hesitate to rip-off consumers given the opportunity. However, it’s quite a straw man’s argument to conclude that the movie industry is just one big, runaway collection of unscrupulous double-dealing studio executives, lest, as I’ve said, the whole thing collapse like how the economy tanked in the great depression. In the instance you pointed out with Shatner and Nimoy, lawsuits is just one mechanism of scrutiny that keep things in check in one form or another and in the case of Sony, their management would not stand for any large scale financial mismanagement that would threaten their vast business enterprise.
Lastly, poor financial management such as runaway spending is one thing, but cooking the books is an entirely different matter and it seems a connection between this practice and the production of the Bond movies is slowly being made here; is it?
"...the purposeful slant of his striding figure looked dangerous, as if he was making quickly for something bad that was happening further down the street." -SMERSH on 007 dossier photo, Ch. 6 FRWL.....
I think the original point in this thread - that the huge budgets allow the filmmakers to hide behind shiny toys and explosions rather than focus on plot and character development - is a good one. But this talk of cooking the books and related conspiracy theories is a bit much, as I see no evidence that it's relevant to Bond.
Whilst they may hide behind expensive effects, wouldn't it be a lot cheaper to hire better writers? Out of all the people Broccoli and Wilson are loyal to, why Purvis and Wade?
Whilst they may hide behind expensive effects, wouldn't it be a lot cheaper to hire better writers? Out of all the people Broccoli and Wilson are loyal to, why Purvis and Wade?
I've asked myself this question for years. It must be a comfort level thing, because I can't think of any other explanation. Maybe there are a lot of writers who want more creative freedom than EON is willing to allow?
Whilst they may hide behind expensive effects, wouldn't it be a lot cheaper to hire better writers? Out of all the people Broccoli and Wilson are loyal to, why Purvis and Wade?
I've asked myself this question for years. It must be a comfort level thing, because I can't think of any other explanation. Maybe there are a lot of writers who want more creative freedom than EON is willing to allow?
There are young, intelligent, capable people who wouldn't demand too much money and who would be willing to work within the confines of a Bond film. I have a good friend, under 30, who is a brilliant writer. He knows how to develop characters and a story and writes fantastic, realistic dialogue. He hasn't done anything like Bond, but surely there must be people with his talents who could do something like Bond. There are people with a little experience, perhaps in television, that haven't worked in film who would be ideal candidates to hire for a Bond film.
Actually. the size and diversification of the studios is precisely what allows them to play shell games with the money -- essentially, they rob Peter to pay Paul. The reason Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner got to direct Star Trek movies was in part because they sued Paramount for claiming the first two Star Trek films had not turned a profit, or so I've read. Winston Groom, the author of Forrest Gump, which is pretty much on cable TV every night, still apparently has not been paid anything because the studio claims the film hasn't recouped its operating costs.
Sure, I can believe those things could have possibly happened as well; I’m sure those things happen in any industry, just like how certain medical and insurance providers wouldn’t hesitate to rip-off consumers given the opportunity. However, it’s quite a straw man’s argument to conclude that the movie industry is just one big, runaway collection of unscrupulous double-dealing studio executives, lest, as I’ve said, the whole thing collapse like how the economy tanked in the great depression. In the instance you pointed out with Shatner and Nimoy, lawsuits is just one mechanism of scrutiny that keep things in check in one form or another and in the case of Sony, their management would not stand for any large scale financial mismanagement that would threaten their vast business enterprise.
Lastly, poor financial management such as runaway spending is one thing, but cooking the books is an entirely different matter and it seems a connection between this practice and the production of the Bond movies is slowly being made here; is it?
I'm not sure how it would be a straw man. Perhaps hasty generalization in the sense that you might be arguing there isn't enough evidence, but the threshold you expect for such does not seem be the same -- in the same way your certainty that somehow Sony is immune to problems doesn't meet the standards of proof I'd need to see.
What we do have is a pretty clear history of excesses and questionable accounting practices throughout the film industry, ballooning budgets, and what doesn't seem to translate as much to the screen. Short of a mea culpa by those guilty, you're never going to have absolute proof of malfeasance, but decades of articles, some of which I've posted, show the pattern. The whole point of cooking the books is to game the system, including hiding excess spending.
Whilst they may hide behind expensive effects, wouldn't it be a lot cheaper to hire better writers? Out of all the people Broccoli and Wilson are loyal to, why Purvis and Wade?
Writers are frequently not only the cheapest paid of the major players but treated shabbily. A friend of mine is a screenwriter who's sold scripts to major studios, and he's told me that essentially they don't even want the writer on set. One of his scripts was so heavily edited by the director, actors, and producers as to be virtually unrecognizable by the time it was ready to be filmed. There is the time issue, too. He wrote a Columbo episode in the late 1990s that was purchased for filming. But they sat on it so long, Peter Falk retired and passed away before they could film it.
Hollywood accounting practices are very much tied in to the budgets. In the article on Winston Groom posted earlier, he did not see a penny of royalties after his novel Forrest Gump was turned into a megahit, the accounting reason was because $80 million dollars of any realized profit for that film was set aside to cover future losses by the studio on other films. Let that sink in for a moment. The studio was not contesting that the film generated revenue nor that what it took in far exceeded the literal of making the film. They'd merely added $80 million onto the price tag that had nothing to do with the literal production costs.
If you don't think such things go on in the film industry, you're just ignoring the mountain of articles that have been written about such. It's no longer a theory when there's direct evidence of the claim.
I'm not disputing that things like that go on in the film industry. I'm just not sure how that's relevant to Bond, unless you have a specific example.
+1 -{ Reason in action!
"...the purposeful slant of his striding figure looked dangerous, as if he was making quickly for something bad that was happening further down the street." -SMERSH on 007 dossier photo, Ch. 6 FRWL.....
Comments
+1 These dynamics that widen viewership to include children form the lynchpin for practically every major aspect behind the making of a Bond movie, story development, cinematography, post-production, marketing and yes, what ties all these together, budget. Bond films will always be made to wow the adult demographics, but they will likewise go beyond to make them extremely appealing to kids; this is why the Bond movie never did or never will come close to Francis Ford Coppola or David Lean, since the Lawrence of Arabia comparison was earlier made in this thread.
Though the producers have always managed to avoid an R rating, LTK is an example of a Bond movie that was nevertheless "too adult" that led to what was considered an underwhelming performance at the box office. But what appealed to kids and what was considered "groovy" by kids in the 70s is different from what kids today consider "the sh*t," so that PG-13 became the new tolerance threshold for the youth market and ironically, this was pioneered by LTK.
So...the kids who enjoyed DAF on the big screen also enjoyed Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, whereas the kids who flocked to the recent Bonds (including Brosnan's) were from the Furious 7 and Assassin's Creed generation, which is why Spectre is what it is, and which BTW was made to Sony standards for all that implies. The bottomline is, if you want to enjoy a beautifully shot spy film without the comic book and video game elements factored in, you'd might as well watch a John Le Carre movie; against the best of those, this viewer will always choose Bond movies and live with the pain of their subpar cinematography
There's cachet in something like Bond to say they spent so much regardless of the final product, and nobody is going to complain if they're getting limousines, eating high quality meals, staying in great hotels, being paid to tour the local sights, and jetting around to parties and the like. I'm guessing a huge chunk -- maybe the majority -- of a Bond film budget has nothing to do with what shows up on the screen.
This is not a phenomena that is exclusive to the Craig era either. Goldeneye followed by Tomorrow Never Dies, The spy who loved me followed by Moonraker etc.
I don't know if it's the money's fault or whether the filmmakers are too readily believing they have cracked some mystic bond formula whenever there is a smash hit and the following film fails in comparison.
I can't blame the producers et. al. for the ~$50m budget increase on SP from SF. SF made the revenue of CR and QoS combined.
"Better make that two."
Unless there’s access to actual production expenditures, all of that will be just that, a “guess” and a wild one at that. To instead offer an educated guess, large and established enterprises like EON, MGM and Sony would not allow frivolous spending on such a scale. It’s not like they’re given a blank cheque for frills and junkets galore, but it’s more like having their financial statements routinely scrutinized by auditors on behalf of their corporate stakeholders.
The film industry is well known for cooking the books to hide any number of indiscretions and perks to the people with power, and it doesn't seem to matter what major studio is affected. Here are just a few discussions gleaned from a quick review on the Web:
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121018/01054720744/hollywood-accounting-how-19-million-movie-makes-150-million-still-isnt-profitable.shtml
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2001/aug/31/artsfeatures
https://books.google.com/books?id=o-xK0GwVEUsC&pg=PA82&lpg=PA82&dq=hollywood+producers+live+on+extravagances&source=bl&ots=zHwigtUtVJ&sig=o6btjBI1WZ1XtvEJfKyjIgUl8MM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjqpYjDq_XPAhXCQiYKHTKUCzoQ6AEIQTAG#v=onepage&q=hollywood%20producers%20live%20on%20extravagances&f=false
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/studio-perks-hollywood-exec-home-737200
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/budget-breakdowns-what-a-typical-827862
Perhaps the more germane concept is this excerpt from an interview with an actual filmmaker by filmmaker Kevin Smith in the first article noted in the previous post:
For all that, it's a problem because with such movies a lot depends on chance - that you have a brilliant director like Tarantino or that the audience takes to the approach. Because if it doesn't work out, you just have a cheap rubbish movie made on a tight budget.
I think nowadays the producers are mindful that they are competing with massive blockbusters and the Bond films have to hold their own with that from the start. Of course, that boxes them into a corner a bit. It's a bit like YOLT which blew the budget because there were so many other Bond-style movies around, they had to stand out.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Yes, I can believe that some of those accounts could have taken place, just as employees and business owners around the world over-quote their expenses for personal gain. However, the immutable principle remains, that if any studio allowed gross mismanagement of expenditures to run rampant, they would run themselves out of business. Bond, Sony, et al. are all too big to fail and ironically, greed is what will ensure that wide scale financial fudging does not happen.
That is the paradox from a studio's perspective, how can you predictably turn out a Pulp Fiction every 2-3 years? From a planning and budgeting perspective, PF was an unpredictable production to begin with and it rode on Tarantino reputation with Reservoir Dogs. But as it's said about hindsight being 20/20, it was an extremely happy conclusion for Miramax.
From a management perspective, the Bond series is a cash cow and it has successfully sustained that status for several decades now. A larger budget didn't always result in proportionately larger grosses, though it helped keep revenue within a predictable and acceptable margin. Therefore, at the risk of this cash cow easing into obsolescence, whichever studio is partnered with EON will always ensure that the Bond movies get their big budgets to keep their cash cow alive.
"Better make that two."
Sure, I can believe those things could have possibly happened as well; I’m sure those things happen in any industry, just like how certain medical and insurance providers wouldn’t hesitate to rip-off consumers given the opportunity. However, it’s quite a straw man’s argument to conclude that the movie industry is just one big, runaway collection of unscrupulous double-dealing studio executives, lest, as I’ve said, the whole thing collapse like how the economy tanked in the great depression. In the instance you pointed out with Shatner and Nimoy, lawsuits is just one mechanism of scrutiny that keep things in check in one form or another and in the case of Sony, their management would not stand for any large scale financial mismanagement that would threaten their vast business enterprise.
Lastly, poor financial management such as runaway spending is one thing, but cooking the books is an entirely different matter and it seems a connection between this practice and the production of the Bond movies is slowly being made here; is it?
I've asked myself this question for years. It must be a comfort level thing, because I can't think of any other explanation. Maybe there are a lot of writers who want more creative freedom than EON is willing to allow?
There are young, intelligent, capable people who wouldn't demand too much money and who would be willing to work within the confines of a Bond film. I have a good friend, under 30, who is a brilliant writer. He knows how to develop characters and a story and writes fantastic, realistic dialogue. He hasn't done anything like Bond, but surely there must be people with his talents who could do something like Bond. There are people with a little experience, perhaps in television, that haven't worked in film who would be ideal candidates to hire for a Bond film.
What we do have is a pretty clear history of excesses and questionable accounting practices throughout the film industry, ballooning budgets, and what doesn't seem to translate as much to the screen. Short of a mea culpa by those guilty, you're never going to have absolute proof of malfeasance, but decades of articles, some of which I've posted, show the pattern. The whole point of cooking the books is to game the system, including hiding excess spending.
Hollywood accounting practices are very much tied in to the budgets. In the article on Winston Groom posted earlier, he did not see a penny of royalties after his novel Forrest Gump was turned into a megahit, the accounting reason was because $80 million dollars of any realized profit for that film was set aside to cover future losses by the studio on other films. Let that sink in for a moment. The studio was not contesting that the film generated revenue nor that what it took in far exceeded the literal of making the film. They'd merely added $80 million onto the price tag that had nothing to do with the literal production costs.
If you don't think such things go on in the film industry, you're just ignoring the mountain of articles that have been written about such. It's no longer a theory when there's direct evidence of the claim.
+1 -{ Reason in action!
My favourite Bonds tend to be highest...
http://007.lucklaboratories.com/
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
Dalton - the weak and weepy Bond!
Yes, Bond has indeed had struggles with Dalton, in your own imagination!