Has Barbara completely lost interest?
John from Cork
Posts: 111MI6 Agent
in Bond 26
I don't get her attitude, as well as not caring that they have no Idea where to go next, she still shoehorns Craig into every conversation saying he was "the best bond ever" no he wasn't, 3 out of his 5 Bond movies were garbage and the last one was so devode of fresh ideas, they disgracefully had to recycle stuff from 1969.
Comments
NTTD had at least a couple of ideas that are completely new to the Bond series .... 😏
Remember this is your opinion, others may have different ones 😏
Actually, it's my opinion too.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Not just 1969, with the exception of CR, the Craig Era (they) have been recycling some stuffs from 60's.
How many times? NTTD recycled some stuffs from OHMS, they've also picked some stuffs from Dr. No as well.
QoS recycled that iconic Goldfinger scene.
And of course the Aston Martin DB5.
I can go on and on and list all of the films that the Craig Era have been recycled upon, just to prove that this whole era have been a classic Bond films remade into modern world.
just not the one everyone likes to argue about...
If making Bond26 takes far too many years to make and/or the movie is lacklustre and without good ideas, I think we should really be asking the question in the thread title. At this point I don't feel she has lost interest.
I think it's more the case of Barbara simply not being her father. Cubby steered the reigns during the absolute prime of this franchise. He stood there alongside Connery during the highs and eventually locked horns with him. Barbara hasn't had that experience. I've always said that she is to Cubby what Kathleen Kennedy is to George Lucas; both women have taken to the positions but neither of them have ever had the bare knuckle brawling with cast, crew and studio to make the ideas work in the way they demand. To this end, George and Cubby have enjoyed enormous success. George and Cubby have had the mental breakdowns, kind of like Francis Ford Coppola. It's drastically different for Barbara.
In 2023, she's cornered; the Craig era is over and, politically, the world is a very different place as it was in the early 2000s. Then, Amazon have 50% ownership. Barbara's hands are tied creatively, doctrinally, and politically. It's less that she's apathetic but more the case that she likely feels lost where to go next (especially if she feels her best era of Bond is behind her given how she praises Craig).
So you could say that she did a better job of not entirely falling out with her lead cast member and producing partner- she wisely learnt from her father’s mistakes. And is in a similar position to that of Cubby at the end of the 80s i.e legal problems at the studio have prevented going into production.
All the signs are pointing to there being issues with Amazon’s management (just look at the troubled production of Citadel), plus there’s now a writer strike on the horizon. There’s no need to project feelings of her being ‘lost’: there are obstacles.
I think Lord of the Rings is a much better comparison when it comes to Amazon intervention.
But, certainly, point taken.
TriggerMortis said:
Amazon have 50% ownership. Barbara's hands are tied creatively, doctrinally, and politically.
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what do you mean by "doctrinally, and politically"?
Rings of Power didn't work out that well either, did it?
Not if you're a fan.
https://www.metacritic.com/tv/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power
The balance of keeping the character true to his roots vs. appeasing the zeitgeist of the 2020s.
Which Cubby didn’t even bother trying half the time. Thank goodness his daughter respects the source material more.
See how easy it is to spin it that one producer was great and the other bad? I don’t know why we have to look at it that way. Cubby made some great films and some duff ones; same with Barbara.
Cubby belonged to a different era, as well, and that seems hard for many to accept. Everything about the movie business has changed since he ran the franchise. Not to mention world culture itself (now many people in the poorest countries own the ultimate Bond gadgets: tiny pocket computers called smartphones.) It’s not impossible that Eon will hire an actor to play Bond who was a toddler when Cubby died. Compare Barbara and Michael to their peers, not to a man from a radically different time.
Although BB had to deal with the Brosnan era as Cubby's legacy, launching a reboot was a means to let her own print on the franchise, something NTTD confirms with making the Craig era a genuine entity. I see it as a metaphor of the life cycle of a producer. We know Gregg Wilson has been prepared by his father to take the lead one day. But what about BB ? Could her daughter also be involved in the franchise ?
This is BB's daughter Angelica, seen here with her mother and uncle -
She's already involved in making both films and music but AFAIK hasn't been involved with the franchise like MGW's sons Gregg and David have been.
In my more optimistic moments I sometimes think EON are hiding their cards very well this time to avoid the leaks we saw in the past.
I'm sure she's not lost interest in making a lot of money in profits which, in the end analysis, is what it's all about. Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson have enough shrewdness between them to know what to do next. We as Bond fans just have to be patient and wait it out to see where Eon takes Bond next with the seventh actor in the role. I trust them to get it right, just as Eon always has before.
NTTD must have been a pretty stressful ride for the folks over at EON. From Craig's reluctance and hesitation to come back for one more, having to part ways with the first director and start over and of course the havoc that COVID reaped with release dates being postponed. One could understand that Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson (if I am not mistaken is semi retired or retired) would need a Bond break. Barbara Broccoli also probably had other projects which had been pushed back due to the Pandemic which she is catching up on. The reality is, for Barbara and EON, Bond is the cash cow that feeds her other projects and produces generational wealth. I also truly believe that Barbara et al do truly care about Bond and have a commitment to do their best and keep the Bond cinematic legacy going and keep Bond relevant (although many of us might disagree with their choices).
I agree.
Following the release of DAD, Broccoli and Wilson allegedly had no idea where to go creatively and could only conceive of rebooting and paving a completely different path.
Wiping the slate clean with the Craig era was a bold experiment that ultimately paid off, but now it's over the question is: what now?
It seems to me they're back in exactly the same position they were in '02, only this time they don't have the convenience of a Casino Royale to fall back on.
Many of us in this forum just want EON to return to the simplicity of the past - one-off self-contained popcorn adventures as was the norm for 40 years, but the rules of this franchise have been completely torn apart with the Craig reboot and I don't see how they can go back.
Once upon a time, people were up in a tizzy about 'Blonde Bond', which in retrospect, seems even more of a frivolous concern given the once unthinkable decisions they'd be willing to make later.
Ultimately, I have absolutely no idea where they go from here but it's difficult to have a shred of faith in their decision-making when considering how royally they've ballsed up the last decade.
In 2002 the Bond movies had become self-aware kitch. I think most of the directors of the Brosnan era are now making stuff for TV and interesting movies (I'm generalizing). Now James Bond it's a series that attracts the best talent, be it directors or actors. Because of the experiments made with CraigBond EON now has more options when it comes to plot and casting. This can be both good and bad, of course. So I don't think the series is back where it was twenty years ago.
Broccoli wants Bond to be award-winning prestige, however it all comes across rather hollow when the scripts are still routinely appalling.
At the tail end of the Brosnan era, the films had become laden with cringeworthy dialogue but at least they didn't believe themselves to be anything more than fun, disposable action romps.
Flashforward to now and we have equally embarrassing scripts but with a sense of smug, po-faced superiority, as if they believe they've graduated onto making high-art, when the very same cretins who wrote such impactful dialogue as "yo mama" back in 2002 are *still* steering the ship.
Anyone actually like Bond films here?
kristopherm3 said:
the rules of this franchise have been completely torn apart with the Craig reboot and I don't see how they can go back
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not just the rules of the franchise, but how people consume entertainment,
in 2002, video rental stores were still big business, and I can remember first hearing of Nettflix as a mail order video rental service.
streaming wasn't really a thing, as most people had dial-up at best
meaning the traditional self-contained 2hr movie was the norm. Lord of the Rings started to change that format, with its ten hour total runtime broken into three near-arbitrary parts.
also at that time, if I argued TV was now better than movies people would look at me like I was crazy. but a year or two later, the revived Doctor Who looked as good as most bigbudget films,
in the 20 years sense, streaming and binge-watching have redefined the public's expectations. Teevee and movies have become almost indistinguishable, and audiences like longform serialised storytelling with bigscreen production values. I think the Craig arc is trying to do that sort of thing, just not very well (because of the long gaps between films, and the apparent lack of planning).
@kristopherm3 we had a recent thread asking the same sort of questions youve raised, called Pre Craig vs Post Craig
re this threads question, I had a rather depressing thought. not original, but I was thinking of whats happening to the classic rock catalog and realised theres a parallel
a lot of aging rockstars are selling off the rights to their catalogs for vast sums of money, because theyd rather have the cash now to get their estate in place, rather than continuing to take the risks themselves and maybe leave a mess for their heirs like Prince did. Bob Dylan, Fleetwood Mac, Neil Young were the first big names to start this trend, but now it seems every boomer rock veteran is cashing out while the money is being offered.
EON's successful efforts to reclaim rights to Casino Royale and Thunderball have the benefit of consolidating all of Fleming's Bond titles into one selfcontained package with no competition. and the absolutist ending of No Time to Die wraps up the latest stage of the saga so neatly, that if anyone else were to take over theyd be free to start a new version of the saga from scratch with no baggage.
I know we've discussed the implications before, but these two facts combined make it look as if EON is in a perfect position to cash out if they wanted to, and Babs n Mikey would have the same motivations as those aging rockstars.
in the case of the aging rockstars, there is the risk that their audience is also now entering retirement homes, and may not spend any more money in a decade or two. Classic Rock may soon become as relevant to modern audiences as bigband swing when I was a lad. Same goes for the audience for James Bond movies, it was mostly greyhairs in the theatre when i saw NTtD. Rights to the Bond franchise might not be worth so much money in another decade, now may be the optimal moment to sell.
I get the impression that they had a clear sense of direction for CR and that was about it. Starting with QoS, perhaps due in-part to the writer’s strike, Craig began to exercise significant creative control over the franchise. A lot of the hollow navel-gazing came from him. But they wanted him to stay in the role, so they allowed it, along with the prolonged gaps between films. This allowed Craig to hand-pick Mendes, who took things in a very different direction than what was promised at the end of QoS. By NTTD, I’d say Craig was probably more influential than anyone, including the (other) producers, the director, and the screenwriters! He was the one who decided (apparently in 2006!) that Bond just die. So everything had to be written to accommodate that desire.
With Craig gone, Barbara and co. have to come up with a new direction on their own. I choose to be an optimist and view that as a good thing. After all, they got it very right with CR, which was heavily influenced by the Bourne films. Perhaps this time they’ll draw inspiration from the MI films, which themselves are inspired by the classic Bond formula that EON has more recently eschewed. But if they can’t come to terms with Amazon creatively, I could see a buy-out and EON walking away, a billion pounds heavier, into the sunset. I think that would be unfortunate, but it’s perhaps the most likely outcome.
We can like or dislike the Craig Bond's (or Brosnan's), that's a matter of personal taste. I think there are good and not so good movies in both periods. But I do disagree when you say EON is in the same place as it was twenty years ago.
A lot of the hollow navel-gazing came from him
Evidence for this?
This allowed Craig to hand-pick Mendes, who took things in a very different direction than what was promised at the end of QoS.
The one which reintroduced Moneypenny, Q, the gadget-laden DB5, had big silly chases and old-style dad jokes in amongst all of the newer drama? The Mendes films which had more of a foot in the big fun Bond films of the past than any of the other Craig films?