Seal Team Six is the US Navy special forces squad that killed Osama bin Laden. The weekend warriors who like their AR-15s and train in their local woods are often over weight. These sorts of people have turned up at Trump events. As they are so often very fat they are called Meal Time Six.
We now know from the IO financial report the video game is more likely to be scheduled for 2025.
Through a quirk of fate I now am very confident that Bond26 is coming out in 2024 and I'm no longer surprised that movie websites are reporting a 2024 filming schedule, no doubt for a Nov 2024 release.
EON and its studio partner work with a range of other organisations for the production and marketing of the films. Some of these require a lot of forward planning and as such agreements are being done now.
Through a quirk of fate a friend of a friend of a friend is in a position to know about one such agreement. I recognise this is not going to be satisfactory for some but I am genuinely stating here that I have a very high confidence that what I have been told is legit and a deal has been done with one of EON's partners and the film is coming out in 2024. Babs Broccoli's comments do not exclude this timing if you read them carefully.
This also makes me think the IO game will be a tie in.
Yeah I must admit I don't think I'm hugely interested in the idea of yet another Pierce-style, formula Bond film - we've got three decades' worth of those. Although I think I'd like something perhaps a touch lighter than the recent ones, I think I'd like a fresh way of looking at the films, to be surprised a bit.
How they do that I have no idea. I don't envy them at all.
Agreed, I'm absolutely exhausted by the Craig era and its shoddily realised yet smugly self-important 'arc', and sincerely hope they go back-to-basics with whatever comes next.
Mendes changed the course of Craig's era from intelligent, modern action thrillers to condescending, cloyingly sentimental soap operas; shrinking the scope and grandeur of Bond's world to a diminutive cul-de-sac of melodramatic squabbles between foster siblings and maternal figures.
What began with such self-assured magnificence in 2006 slowly but surely lost its way; a kite dancing in a hurricane, perpetually chasing trends it did not comprehend how to ride, or at least had little interest in putting the requisite planning in place to do them justice.
There's simply no excuse for this amateur, do-your-homework-on-the-bus mentality in $300 million blockbuster filmmaking. The missteps especially egregious when the producers are so keen to wax lyrical about how beautifully profound the films are now, and how Daniel Craig has elevated the series beyond what it once was. They seem to have forgotten what business they're in.
Granted, tumultuous productions are no stranger to the franchise, but the difference is, Bond used to be fun popcorn adventures. Tomorrow Never Dies had no delusions of grandeur about itself - it wasn't trying to make a statement about the value of 'love' or 'family'.
The problem is, the same talentless hacks who gave us such wonderful lines as "yo momma" in Die Another Day are now tasked with writing 'profound' emotional dramas, and they are utterly incapable at it. I'm convinced Casino was a fluke due to the base text already existing.
In my view, this series should get back to what it excelled at, or at the very least, please for the love of god, let Purvis and Wade live out their ultimate fantasy of retirement so they don't have to keep making Bond do so in every film.
I don't think we should be so negative about Craig's tenure and the writers. They had Fleming's novel when they made CR, but that was perhaps only 1/3 of the movie. Still the movie was a masterpiece. In spite of DAD we should give them credit for that. SF also got very good reviews and many fans consider it one of their favourites. The other Craig movies are more devisive, but personally I find things to enjoy in all of them. The producers and writers made mistakes, in my opinion mainly what I mentioned in my earlier post. But I don't want to paint Craig's tenure as a failure when there's so much to enjoy. After DAD many wanted a course correction, and we got it. I suspect the mood was similar after AVTAK and LTK. It's natural to have had enough of the exsesses of an actor's tenure at the end of it. After some years we take a new look at it and see the qualities.
I don't know, I think it would be a bit weird if the characters didn't have some sort of arc through the films. And I quite like a continuing story, especially character stuff. People get hooked up on this stuff.
As a Bond fan I always used to get excited if there was a mention of Tracy or whatever, I don't think I'm alone in that.
Indeed, it's purely subjective of course, and I know I'm in the minority here, but I haven't enjoyed a Bond film since 2008. It pains me to say that - each time I hoped for a course correct but they continued down a path I find antithetical to the former ethos of the series, or at least my interpretation of what Bond was and should be.
That combined with ever-increasing gaps between films, not only have I not liked the films post-Quantum, I've had to wait even longer to then be disappointed.
This is why I sincerely hope Bond 26 spells a return to form, otherwise I will just have to accept the series has changed and no longer my cup of tea, and I say that as someone who isn't even 25 yet!
References to the past can be OK if it's done right. If they decide to go back to the Connery-Brosnan continuity that's fine. If a new timeline starts with Bond26 the references have to be more subtle. But I want very little or no continuity from movie to movie. I think people should be able to watch a Bond movie without having seen the prior movie.
That's a different thing to continuity though. If you look at the recent Mission Impossibles there has been plenty of continuity, but crucially you can also pick that up if you haven't seen the previous movie because they always explain the backstory just enough so you can follow it. Fallout has Ethan's wife, IIsa, and the baddie from the previous film, but if you watch it you'll see that everything is set up within the film and explained.
NTTD I would say doesn't do it quite as well, but really if you're vaguely intelligent there's not much you can't work out. Bond is on holiday and retired with a woman he loves; Blofeld is a baddie. Is there much else you need to know that you can't work out by joining a couple of dots?
I have zero problem with continuing stories, I like them. I managed to follow all of the recent Bond films just fine and I can't be worrying on behalf of some hypothetical people that didn't. Did you have trouble remembering what was going on?
If it's any indication B25 Ltd was registered on 6 May 2015. Danny Boyle's production was to begin in December 2018 and that was announced in May 2018, while Cary Fukunaga started production on 28 April 2019. So even for a 2025 Bond26 film, the production company should already be registered. I should add B24 Ltd was registered in April 2014, which would mean a April 2024 B26 Ltd registration for a late 2025 release. Of course a 2024 release will mean a company registered next April.
Babs is not a director of it, but the only relatively recent company created by the EON 'family' is "Late Harvest Ltd". Registered at EON House Michael Wilson and his sons are directors. It was incorporated on 14 October 2020. Late Harvest reminds me of the code name George Lucas gave Return of the Jedi, 'Blue Harvest,' to hide what they were filming.
Hmm interesting, but why would they suddenly use a codename when all of the other companies are right there in the open and obviously correlate to Bond?
I guess it's possible that what with the Amazon thing and the end of Craig's period they'd want some secrecy this time around, but it's equally possible it's just not Bond at all. They did say they wouldn't even start until after the Oscars this year, but maybe they set up the company up first.
I dunno, it could be but I'm not totally sold just yet.
Does anyone know why this phenomenon only started occuring with Casino Royale? There's no record of a B20 LTD for Die Another Day on Companies House for example.
This is, more or less, where I’m at. I happen to love Pierce’s first 3 Bond films, but agree that things have to continuously evolve. Honestly, all of the Bond actors save Lazenby and Dalton hung around a film or two too long. But in some ways that makes the job of EON easier because audiences tend to be looking for the tone shift.
Clearly there is an audience for serious Bond films.
And while I don't mind having a fun Bond film, you do realized that after 20+ movies, at some point, the next movie has to be about something right? There are only so many times you can reuse the Bond-meets-girl-fights-boss-in-lair formula.
Fun and entertaining seems to be working for the Mission Impossible series, which is modeled directly on those old Bond films that you perceive to be so blasé. Despite featuring an inferior protagonist, the MI films deliver what many of us wish we could get from a Bond film, rather than the navel gazing and forced continuity that started with Skyfall.
I know you’re going to tell me the MI films make less money, so hold your breath. Bond has a much broader built-in reach than MI so that’s not a relevant comparison. And never forget that Die Another Day made tons of money. Bond makes money regardless of what they put up there.
MI has been going progressively darker though: it'll be interesting to see what the tone of the new ones is.
I don't disagree that they're better films generally though, and it's because they have a guy at the helm who's a bit of a savant when it comes to structuring blockbuster movies. I'd only rate Skyfall and CR being up there with them, and that's because they're doing different things.
It's occurred to me that another way they can mark time and make an obvious contribution to the reinvention in the actual film is with a reference to the new King Charles III.
I wonder if the new Bond will take a swig of something alcoholic and toast "Sir," in the same way Lazenby's Bond toasted Elizabeth II in OHMSS? A call back and a nod to changing times.
Indeed, and nowhere have I complained about Bond being "serious". My favourites being FRWL, OHMSS, CR, GE and TLD.
I take umbrage with dreadful writing masquerading as emotionally profound and wanting to be taken seriously.
But to your point - yes, we had 20 films of essentially the same formula, but you can quite easily have said "isn't this enough now?" five films in and we would've been deprived of so much greatness. The truth is, Bond had always evolved with the times and remained relevant while still operating within the framework of its formula, because it's a demonstrably winning one.
Obviously it goes without saying these films are designed to make money, but that clearly isn't EON's sole concern given each Brosnan film earned more than the previous. They took a huge risk when they rebooted in 06 and it paid off, but there was no guarantee it would do.
They are willing to take risks and audiences are in turn willing to show up at the cinema and give it a chance, because it's Bond - it has earned its esteemed reputation over the last 60 years.
The Craig era has been wildly successful financially, but in my view, completely botched from a creative / artistic point of view. The producers cannot claim to have raised Bond above its 'silly' exploding pen days when they presided over appallingly insulting, pantomime plotlines such as "daddy loved you more than me, James".
It's not only incredibly lousy from a narrative perspective, but shows a flagrant disregard for the history of such iconic characters to resurrect them in such a vapid, infantile manner. The latter Craig films didn't earn the right to be so po-faced and self-congratulatory while presenting such mockeries of scripts.
But hey, perhaps The Spy Who Loved Me would've been a better film if, in a shocking twist, Karl Stromberg actually turns out to be Bond's dad, Andrew, who faked his death in that climbing accident after failing to save Monique, and years later, was actually responsible for ordering Tracy's death in Majesty's, because he was jealous Bond would get to live the very life he was denied. Upon learning this devastating truth, along with the fact Jaws is his biological brother, Bond chooses to sacrifice himself to the warheads. And in a beautifully bittersweet ending, Anya quits her life as a KGB assassin; driving off into the sunset with the little Thai boy Roger pushed off the boat in the previous film, whom she has now adopted.
Forgive my facetiousness, but I'll take 'adaptive camouflage' any day of the week over the decade-long train wreck of a soap opera we've just gotten.
Comments
Seal Team Six is the US Navy special forces squad that killed Osama bin Laden. The weekend warriors who like their AR-15s and train in their local woods are often over weight. These sorts of people have turned up at Trump events. As they are so often very fat they are called Meal Time Six.
I see. Clever. Thanks. 🤣
The IO game won't come out before the film.
We now know from the IO financial report the video game is more likely to be scheduled for 2025.
Through a quirk of fate I now am very confident that Bond26 is coming out in 2024 and I'm no longer surprised that movie websites are reporting a 2024 filming schedule, no doubt for a Nov 2024 release.
EON and its studio partner work with a range of other organisations for the production and marketing of the films. Some of these require a lot of forward planning and as such agreements are being done now.
Through a quirk of fate a friend of a friend of a friend is in a position to know about one such agreement. I recognise this is not going to be satisfactory for some but I am genuinely stating here that I have a very high confidence that what I have been told is legit and a deal has been done with one of EON's partners and the film is coming out in 2024. Babs Broccoli's comments do not exclude this timing if you read them carefully.
This also makes me think the IO game will be a tie in.
I'm not sure either. Just Googled, and a Sixer is the leader of a Brownie or Cub group.
Yeah I must admit I don't think I'm hugely interested in the idea of yet another Pierce-style, formula Bond film - we've got three decades' worth of those. Although I think I'd like something perhaps a touch lighter than the recent ones, I think I'd like a fresh way of looking at the films, to be surprised a bit.
How they do that I have no idea. I don't envy them at all.
At what stage of pre-production does B26 LTD appear on Companies House?
I'm absolutely sure I want standalone movies, very little about everyone's past and a Bond that enjoys himself more.
+1
Agreed, I'm absolutely exhausted by the Craig era and its shoddily realised yet smugly self-important 'arc', and sincerely hope they go back-to-basics with whatever comes next.
Mendes changed the course of Craig's era from intelligent, modern action thrillers to condescending, cloyingly sentimental soap operas; shrinking the scope and grandeur of Bond's world to a diminutive cul-de-sac of melodramatic squabbles between foster siblings and maternal figures.
What began with such self-assured magnificence in 2006 slowly but surely lost its way; a kite dancing in a hurricane, perpetually chasing trends it did not comprehend how to ride, or at least had little interest in putting the requisite planning in place to do them justice.
There's simply no excuse for this amateur, do-your-homework-on-the-bus mentality in $300 million blockbuster filmmaking. The missteps especially egregious when the producers are so keen to wax lyrical about how beautifully profound the films are now, and how Daniel Craig has elevated the series beyond what it once was. They seem to have forgotten what business they're in.
Granted, tumultuous productions are no stranger to the franchise, but the difference is, Bond used to be fun popcorn adventures. Tomorrow Never Dies had no delusions of grandeur about itself - it wasn't trying to make a statement about the value of 'love' or 'family'.
The problem is, the same talentless hacks who gave us such wonderful lines as "yo momma" in Die Another Day are now tasked with writing 'profound' emotional dramas, and they are utterly incapable at it. I'm convinced Casino was a fluke due to the base text already existing.
In my view, this series should get back to what it excelled at, or at the very least, please for the love of god, let Purvis and Wade live out their ultimate fantasy of retirement so they don't have to keep making Bond do so in every film.
Realized that myself lately. The direction of the reboot changed entirely between QoS and SF from brutal action movie to drama…
IG: @thebondarchives
Check it out, you won’t be disappointed
I don't think we should be so negative about Craig's tenure and the writers. They had Fleming's novel when they made CR, but that was perhaps only 1/3 of the movie. Still the movie was a masterpiece. In spite of DAD we should give them credit for that. SF also got very good reviews and many fans consider it one of their favourites. The other Craig movies are more devisive, but personally I find things to enjoy in all of them. The producers and writers made mistakes, in my opinion mainly what I mentioned in my earlier post. But I don't want to paint Craig's tenure as a failure when there's so much to enjoy. After DAD many wanted a course correction, and we got it. I suspect the mood was similar after AVTAK and LTK. It's natural to have had enough of the exsesses of an actor's tenure at the end of it. After some years we take a new look at it and see the qualities.
I don't know, I think it would be a bit weird if the characters didn't have some sort of arc through the films. And I quite like a continuing story, especially character stuff. People get hooked up on this stuff.
As a Bond fan I always used to get excited if there was a mention of Tracy or whatever, I don't think I'm alone in that.
Indeed, it's purely subjective of course, and I know I'm in the minority here, but I haven't enjoyed a Bond film since 2008. It pains me to say that - each time I hoped for a course correct but they continued down a path I find antithetical to the former ethos of the series, or at least my interpretation of what Bond was and should be.
That combined with ever-increasing gaps between films, not only have I not liked the films post-Quantum, I've had to wait even longer to then be disappointed.
This is why I sincerely hope Bond 26 spells a return to form, otherwise I will just have to accept the series has changed and no longer my cup of tea, and I say that as someone who isn't even 25 yet!
References to the past can be OK if it's done right. If they decide to go back to the Connery-Brosnan continuity that's fine. If a new timeline starts with Bond26 the references have to be more subtle. But I want very little or no continuity from movie to movie. I think people should be able to watch a Bond movie without having seen the prior movie.
That's a different thing to continuity though. If you look at the recent Mission Impossibles there has been plenty of continuity, but crucially you can also pick that up if you haven't seen the previous movie because they always explain the backstory just enough so you can follow it. Fallout has Ethan's wife, IIsa, and the baddie from the previous film, but if you watch it you'll see that everything is set up within the film and explained.
NTTD I would say doesn't do it quite as well, but really if you're vaguely intelligent there's not much you can't work out. Bond is on holiday and retired with a woman he loves; Blofeld is a baddie. Is there much else you need to know that you can't work out by joining a couple of dots?
I have zero problem with continuing stories, I like them. I managed to follow all of the recent Bond films just fine and I can't be worrying on behalf of some hypothetical people that didn't. Did you have trouble remembering what was going on?
If it's any indication B25 Ltd was registered on 6 May 2015. Danny Boyle's production was to begin in December 2018 and that was announced in May 2018, while Cary Fukunaga started production on 28 April 2019. So even for a 2025 Bond26 film, the production company should already be registered. I should add B24 Ltd was registered in April 2014, which would mean a April 2024 B26 Ltd registration for a late 2025 release. Of course a 2024 release will mean a company registered next April.
Weirdly there is a B26 Ltd already but it is a manufacturing company.
It's director is a Barbora but she is German.
Here is Barbara Dana Broccoli's details on Companies House
Babs is not a director of it, but the only relatively recent company created by the EON 'family' is "Late Harvest Ltd". Registered at EON House Michael Wilson and his sons are directors. It was incorporated on 14 October 2020. Late Harvest reminds me of the code name George Lucas gave Return of the Jedi, 'Blue Harvest,' to hide what they were filming.
I didn't spot Late Harvest last time I looked. That may be it then possibly.
Hmm interesting, but why would they suddenly use a codename when all of the other companies are right there in the open and obviously correlate to Bond?
Sorry, I don't have a codename theory.
I guess it's possible that what with the Amazon thing and the end of Craig's period they'd want some secrecy this time around, but it's equally possible it's just not Bond at all. They did say they wouldn't even start until after the Oscars this year, but maybe they set up the company up first.
I dunno, it could be but I'm not totally sold just yet.
Does anyone know why this phenomenon only started occuring with Casino Royale? There's no record of a B20 LTD for Die Another Day on Companies House for example.
This is, more or less, where I’m at. I happen to love Pierce’s first 3 Bond films, but agree that things have to continuously evolve. Honestly, all of the Bond actors save Lazenby and Dalton hung around a film or two too long. But in some ways that makes the job of EON easier because audiences tend to be looking for the tone shift.
They are in the business of making money:
Clearly there is an audience for serious Bond films.
And while I don't mind having a fun Bond film, you do realized that after 20+ movies, at some point, the next movie has to be about something right? There are only so many times you can reuse the Bond-meets-girl-fights-boss-in-lair formula.
Fun and entertaining seems to be working for the Mission Impossible series, which is modeled directly on those old Bond films that you perceive to be so blasé. Despite featuring an inferior protagonist, the MI films deliver what many of us wish we could get from a Bond film, rather than the navel gazing and forced continuity that started with Skyfall.
I know you’re going to tell me the MI films make less money, so hold your breath. Bond has a much broader built-in reach than MI so that’s not a relevant comparison. And never forget that Die Another Day made tons of money. Bond makes money regardless of what they put up there.
MI has been going progressively darker though: it'll be interesting to see what the tone of the new ones is.
I don't disagree that they're better films generally though, and it's because they have a guy at the helm who's a bit of a savant when it comes to structuring blockbuster movies. I'd only rate Skyfall and CR being up there with them, and that's because they're doing different things.
Darker and more continuity-bound, using continuity to build gravitas in the last two MI movies especially.
Global James Day. Oct. 5.
It's occurred to me that another way they can mark time and make an obvious contribution to the reinvention in the actual film is with a reference to the new King Charles III.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-59135132
I wonder if the new Bond will take a swig of something alcoholic and toast "Sir," in the same way Lazenby's Bond toasted Elizabeth II in OHMSS? A call back and a nod to changing times.
Indeed, and nowhere have I complained about Bond being "serious". My favourites being FRWL, OHMSS, CR, GE and TLD.
I take umbrage with dreadful writing masquerading as emotionally profound and wanting to be taken seriously.
But to your point - yes, we had 20 films of essentially the same formula, but you can quite easily have said "isn't this enough now?" five films in and we would've been deprived of so much greatness. The truth is, Bond had always evolved with the times and remained relevant while still operating within the framework of its formula, because it's a demonstrably winning one.
Obviously it goes without saying these films are designed to make money, but that clearly isn't EON's sole concern given each Brosnan film earned more than the previous. They took a huge risk when they rebooted in 06 and it paid off, but there was no guarantee it would do.
They are willing to take risks and audiences are in turn willing to show up at the cinema and give it a chance, because it's Bond - it has earned its esteemed reputation over the last 60 years.
The Craig era has been wildly successful financially, but in my view, completely botched from a creative / artistic point of view. The producers cannot claim to have raised Bond above its 'silly' exploding pen days when they presided over appallingly insulting, pantomime plotlines such as "daddy loved you more than me, James".
It's not only incredibly lousy from a narrative perspective, but shows a flagrant disregard for the history of such iconic characters to resurrect them in such a vapid, infantile manner. The latter Craig films didn't earn the right to be so po-faced and self-congratulatory while presenting such mockeries of scripts.
But hey, perhaps The Spy Who Loved Me would've been a better film if, in a shocking twist, Karl Stromberg actually turns out to be Bond's dad, Andrew, who faked his death in that climbing accident after failing to save Monique, and years later, was actually responsible for ordering Tracy's death in Majesty's, because he was jealous Bond would get to live the very life he was denied. Upon learning this devastating truth, along with the fact Jaws is his biological brother, Bond chooses to sacrifice himself to the warheads. And in a beautifully bittersweet ending, Anya quits her life as a KGB assassin; driving off into the sunset with the little Thai boy Roger pushed off the boat in the previous film, whom she has now adopted.
Forgive my facetiousness, but I'll take 'adaptive camouflage' any day of the week over the decade-long train wreck of a soap opera we've just gotten.
What about it?