‘Peaky Blinders’ Writer to Pen Bond#26
Loeffelholz
The United States, With LovePosts: 8,984Quartermasters
in Bond 26
Check out my Amazon author page! Mark Loeffelholz
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
Comments
Not sure how I feel about that. I loved Locke, and enjoyed Eastern Promises, but didn’t click with either Peaky Blinders or Taboo. Both felt a little too ‘over the top’ for me. Same with The Veil. He’s a bit prone to Hollywood style unrealism. Surprising choice with Villeneuve involved.
Bond films aren’t exactly realistic though, I feel like he’s a pretty good fit.
Yeah, I suppose it’s not exactly an art film is it. Just don’t want it to take itself too seriously. Personally I liked the tone of Skyfall.
Yeah me too, something around that dramatic and yet slightly knowing at times tone would be ideal for me too. Skyfall's also arguably in a more stylised reality than something like Living Daylights or Licence To Kill is, and that very much works for me.
Many people here seem to praise the SF vibe for the next film, but don't forget CR, which has exactly the tone you expect from a reboot. I know some people consider it has nothing to do with Bond 26 because of the origin story, but the heart of the plot doesn't really deal with this concept.
BBC Radio 5 LIve breakfast spoke to Knight this morning.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c99mxlym3lko
"I'm hoping that, being a Bond fan for so many years, it will be imbued into me and I will be able to produce something that's the same but different, and better, stronger and bolder," he added.
Not much to be found in that comment, it seems to me to repeat Barbara's oft used phrase about retaining the core elements of what makes Bond Bond while making it fresh, or something like that.
He says that he was hired quite a while ago based on his pitches and so it seems they did follow the previous formula of picking a writer first and then a director. And he indicates he hasn't even started which is surprising.
Knight has been Oscar nominated and his other works have won various awards. Looking at his IMDB page he certainly has an eclectic list with a lot of comedy early in his career but he has also produced a lot of TV a game show, documentaries.
You're all referencing Peaky Blinders but he also wrote SAS Rogue Heroes. Would that not be a better guide?
Here's a trailer for that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTWqFccBsgg
He was born in 1959 and Brosnan, born 1953, said he saw Goldfinger in a cinema when he was 12, so Knight's first Bond film could have been DAF. The internet tells me the first year a Bond film was on UK TV was 1975. I'm guessing LALD was his first Bond film and he's someone who grew up with Roger Moore films. So I'm wondering if it is going to be light chocolate Bond but then there's Villeneuve.
Variety is reporting a 2028 release date. Asp9mm is right again.
You can hear him talking about getting Bond from 2:22:40
Page is no longer there.
Nope, page is there. Active for 30 days.
Might be different outside the UK. Try BBC.com
Knight sounds like he could be an excellent choice. Peaky Blinders was a great show. Characters were well written and three dimensional. There were also lots of gray areas, Spy-like intrigue, betrayals, etc.
I think the only thing of his I've watched was Rogue Heroes. A big thumbs-up to season one. Good action, enough humour, fast moving. It wasn't perfectly historically accurate, but it was thoroughly enjoyable. Season two was a disappointment for me, alas, especially in the accuracy stakes. Fortunately, that doesn't really apply to any Bond writing he does...unless he has Bond having an affair with May, his septuagenarian housekeeper. Then again, we kind of had Bond as Blofeld's brother, so I suppose it couldn't be much worse whatever he does!
I just had a look at Purvis & Wade's CV. They had only two movies under their belts before they started writing for EON, so Steven Knight has a lot more experience.
Between Villeneuve as director, and Knight as writer, it's clear that Amazon are very serious. I confess that I'm beginning to get a wee bit excited
And soon the actor…?
I don't know any of his work but he sounds like a good choice of writer to me. At least it's not Purvis and Wade yet again. We should be grateful for small mercies.
Amen! 🍻
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
Well. This could turn out to be a really good choice. But do you think it will only be him credited as a wtiter in the end? Isnt it usully several writers on board on these films?
Yeah it'd be a miracle if he were the sole writer in the end.
I guess it can happen: the latest Jurassic film is credited to Koepp alone.
Well, that's the thing. Bond films are rarely the work of any one person. They tend to be written by committee. Therefore, I suppose there is still a chance that Purvis and Wade could be involved in some capacity. It would be refreshing to have some new writers on board though as the writing stage is vitally important as it's the first stage of all on any film.
It's not uncommon for films in general to have multiple writers. The reality is, there are films with multiple writers who aren't even credited. John Milius rewrote entire scripts or portions of scripts without credit. "Ghostwriters" have been a thing in the film industry forever. I also think we need to take into consideration that EON is not running things anymore and for better or worse, how the production of a Bond film is approached could change to some extent relative to casting, writing, etc.
To me, the most interesting part is that it would seem EON was effectively nowhere in developing the next film. No director, no writer, and obviously no actor to play Bond because you’d need one or both of the the first two before you can cast. From on point of view, they were basically holding the IP hostage waiting for a buyout. On the other hand, the choices for both director and screenwriter strike me as very EON-esque. So perhaps some things were in the works and just hadn’t been announced, and now Amazon is going public.
May be someone will write a book about it and we will find out?😀
Today I've been dabbling with the very questionable "science" of looking at Villeneuve and Knight's work to see if there are some locations and themes they have immersed themselves in that may give us pointers for Bond26. The obvious one is deserts. Knight has been writing for "SAS: rouge heroes" shot in Morocco and Villeneuve has shot the very desert-centric Dune movies in Jordan and Abu Dhabi. Knight wrote the screenplay for both "Allied" and "All the light we cannot see" set in WWII France, both based on novels. Sweden-set "The girl in the spider's web" is based on a book too. "Eastern promises" must be a result of a close study of Russia and especially Russian criminal culture. "Dirty pretty things" involves immigrants from Nigeria, British culture and Britain is naturally a central theme.
When it comes to Villeneuve we know "Siccario" is very much about Mexico and Mexican criminal culture. Other than that and the desert thing, he is best known for sci-fi movies. His sci-fi movies are not really focused on technology. Instead the stories philosophy, culture and alien civilizations. Locations are never just a backdrop or just there to be exotic. Has anyone else made any observations about the two men's CVs?
EON had Villeneuve lined up to direct Bond 26, before the Amazon took over. Before that there was movement around the end of 2023, but things stopped abruptly, not sure why.
Do you have a source for that? It does not fit with the narrative that's been put out regarding getting a director on board. Given Barbara Broccoli's relationship with Amy Pascal and EON's tight lipped way of only divulging news when they want to, it wouldn't surprise me (it would also not be surprising if Pascal uses Barbara as a sounding board for Bond 26 decisions either).
Sadly, None of that is remotely true. EON had no intention of forging ahead with another Bond after NTTD. And that film only went ahead because DC was involved.
What was all the talk from Barbara about reinvention and being a "couple of years away" from starting on Bond26 then?
What was she supposed to say? “Nothings is happening as we are in the process of securing a deal to sell off all creative rights to Bond. We’ve had enough, and it’s time to move on.”
This has been in the pipeline since 2016/17. We just assumed it was Disney or Netflix.
True, but talking about reinvention is a bit specific if you wanted to just fob people off with a, 'we're working on it,' response.
I know you've been correct in the past, Asp9mm, and I think you may have talked about knowing people on the production and I think you mentioned a 2028 release date for Bond26 before and that appears to be coming true but I think a sale of the creative rights being in the pipeline since 2017 seems a bit too early. Didn't Craig sign on for two more movies after Skyfall? It was Craig's wavering commitment that led to the five years between SPECTRE and NTTD. I think if Craig had wanted to do a true-to-the-book-YOLT movie after surviving the NTTD immolation Barbara and MGW would have done that.
A sell off is pretty much a reinvention of the whole of cinematic Bond.
Check out my past posts. I’ve talked about the selling off in the pipeline from around that time I mentioned, 2017. It’s early stages. But BB and MGW were almost done. Craig signed in to do one film after Skyfall with an option for a second. Spectre was originally going to be his last. Which is why we got that ending. They even screen tested other actors after Spectre. A couple of years after that, the sell off was mentioned and got traction. Craig was convinced to return as long as he got his death scene. And of course BB wanted to be involved with that. A bookend to the EON Bond series. Craig certainly was never returning. Covid hit. Delays etc etc. But this has been quite a long time coming. As I mentioned. Disney or Netflix was my suspicion. Amazon came in from left field.