Pierce Brosnan out as Bond? (UPDATE: Daniel Craig confirmed) (1 Viewer)

[Paul_Scott]

can you envision a James Bond/Spy movie where instead of outracing fireballs and dodging automatic weapon fire, its a battle of wits?

too bad that kind of material is harder to write than the typical crash/boom/bang.

 

[Yee-Ming]

Shurely not. No way he'd ever be suave enough to carry off Bond. And he's not tall enough.

Plus, although he's Brit, his accent is working class, not public schoolboy as Bond should be -- although this admittedly could be fixed with a good coach.

But I just don't see it.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Isn't he also follically challenged? Seems like he lacks the hairline for Bond, IIRC...

 

[Grant H]

How about Rupert Everett?

Still think Cary Elwes would be good. He's a great under-used actor. Hell, he was reduced to X-Files: The Sucky Years for a while wasn't he? Don't think I ever got to see an entire episode he was in.

 

[PaulBigelow]

The point of being a spy is to come and go and, hopefully, no one ever knew you ever there. A saboteur leaves wreckage. Find some top writers and get Bond back to being a suspense thriller.

I'm kind of tired of the "stunt" casting with the "babe-0-licious hottie of the month". Pair Connery with Kim Cattrall.

The producers ought to take a hard look at "From Russia with Love" and see from where to proceed.

 

[Yee-Ming]

Discussed before in other threads, I believe. Too much "baggage", would Bond fans accept a gay actor as the ultimate playboy? Hence his wish of creating a gay Bond-type character, IIRC he even shot some photos dressed in a tux fighting someone, for Vanity Fair or something similar (possibly same issue as Cindy Crawford in drag?)

 

[Nelson Au]

Interesting to note, if you realize that Fleming created Bond from the conservative times of the 50's. A guy who is stuffy by 60's and 70's standards, not to mention today. But with the attitude also of the dawning Playboy Magazine lifestyle of 1953. He indulged in a lifestyle of free sex, drinking and smoking and all the other pleasures, as Fleming had. He was supposed to be from a classless background too, not obviously from the upper crust English background, nor the other end of the class scale.

Then all the Saville Row trimings added in the film incarnation by director Terence Young. The elegance created for Sean Connery added to the film mystique of the character.

Ian Fleming wanted to see David Niven play the film Bond. He had the elegance and poise. But Connery had the rough side needed to be tough like an American actor. So he was taught to be refined for the role.

With that kind of background, I think Brosnan does a great job at being a modern Bond. He looks right for the job, can fight and is refined. I don't know all the actors everyone has suggested. I am aware of Hugh Jackman and Jude Law and Ewan McGregor and Clive Owen and I don't think they fit the bill. It will be interesting to see how they go with the character after Brosnan.

But it could be time for Bond to hang up his Walther. The character has become an icon that everyone has copied and made fun of. It's hard for them to be a major film event anymore. I'd hate to see it end, but it is so hard for them to compete now and stay ahead of the competition.

Nelson

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Sign I'm a) getting old, and b) not a very observant reader: when I saw this, I thought it was a joke, because I thought it referred to KENNY Everett!

 

[Scott L]

More news on Orlando Bloom possibly being the next Bond:

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/article/ds13932.html

 

[John Doran]

sigh.

howabout gary coleman?

 

[Malcolm R]

sigh.

or Rosie O'Donnell?

 

[Scott L]

I don't think he'll be horrible. So far I've only seen him as an uptight do-gooder type guy. If he can be smooth and suave then I'm sure he'll grow into the role nicely.

I heard someone say Clive Owen would be a good choice. What do you think?

 

[AllanN]

I’m going to jump into the camp that Clive Owen would be the best choice. But it does not look like that is going to happen. Of the names floating around now Hugh Jackman I think would be the best fit. Then in ten years hand it over to Jude Law. By that time he might have manly good looks rather than boyish good looks and he would fit the part. Even though he is only four years younger than Hugh Jackman.



Here we go Frankie Muniz as bond in 2030.

 

[Grant H]

Parker's no obvious jock, but when he puts his tights on he's amazingly ripped albeit lean. Even though Maguire worked out for it they had to pad the chest and shoulders of his outfit and they CG enhanced him in a few places too.

Plus, those who grew up (or adults even) who read the comic STRIP rather than the first edition comic books were accustomed to a better looking, taller Parker. For the purists, perhaps Maguire was an okay choice, but I think it's one place where they went TOO CLOSE to the very old, original material. Amazing since they felt compelled to mess up his powers and origin. Kind of like if they'd made Superman and used the original costume instead of what it evolved into. I wouldn't have expected someone quite as big and bulky as what Parker was in the Fox Spider-Man series(He actually looked bulkier in normal clothes than as Spider-Man), but certainly not Maguire. It would be one thing if he could be a little more macho when he's Spider-Man, but he sounds all whiny and wimpy ALL THE TIME. His one-liner ability blows. He just wasn't the cool-headed cocky webslinger I've always known. SM may be nerdy and mopey in private, but not in the heat of battle.

I'd have cast Casper Van Dien.

EDIT:

What's funny is a friend of mine also picked Van Dien for the role and emailed Sony about it. Get this: He actually got a reply telling him he was right and Van Dien would be an excellent choice, but unfortunately the role had been cast.

 

[Grant H]

BOT,

MGM, if you don't want the Bond character, don't do any more Bond movies.

Orlando made a cool elf, but Bond? Anyone know how tall he is? He might be tall enough. Hard to say; I don't remember if he's taller than Aragorn (who isn't that tall). He's a lot bigger than Johnny Depp, but who the hell isn't? He'd need to fill out a little more.

He certainly played Legolas cool enough. Sounds like he'd have to fight the studio to keep the "new Bond" closer to the original character.

I'd sooner watch him than Brosnan, but I may be in the minority there.

 

[John Doran]

i think you're bang-on with this; i hadn't really thought about it before, but this perfectly identifies one of those niggling little annoyances i have with the movie.

nice.

 

[Grant H]

Thanks, John. My problem with the widely accepted "He's supposed to be a nerd", hence all the (self-perceived) nerds really like him, is that I (and if you listen to Stan Lee he seems to concur) always thought Peter Parker was supposed to be an Everyman.

He has real problems like everybody else that he's constantly dealing with even though he has these special powers (and brains--once seemingly enhanced by the spider-bite) that allow him to be a super hero. So, we all should identify with him, not just the nerdiest of nerds. The original cartoons anyway went way overboard with the "I'm Spider-Man!!" machismo. It had become nicely refined over the years, yet we got pretty much none of it in the movie. SM is Parker's chance to be someone cooler than he is. We all like to think we have this really cool person in us waiting to show his stuff and when Maguire failed to bring that to the role it really hurt the franchise in my eyes. They should have made him watch a little Chrisopher Reeve to learn some duality if Parker was going to be a total dweeb.

I get bashed a lot for my criticisms of SM and Maguire (mostly way back when on Superherohype in the SM movie thread, man that was intense), but I feel like I speak from the right place since I was considered the "smart kid" in high school, and thus a nerd, but I never looked particularly nerdy. I was lousy at most sports, but not altogether unfit. Spider-Man had been my favorite super-hero my whole life probably because I identified with him so well (and maybe because they started drawing the character closer and closer to a cartoon of me--I honestly look quite a bit like the Fox version). Hence, when I saw Maguire in it, it put a bad taste in my mouth. I just told someone yesterday. "You know how the prequels ruined Star Wars for some people. Well, the Spider-Man movie pretty much did that to Spider-Man for me." Don't even get me started on MJ.

James Bond on the other hand was never an Everyman character, and it seems to have slanted more that way in recent years and it sounds like he'll be retrofitted altogether soon.

As much as I liked DAD over the previous Brosnan Bond entries I had some problems right away (though the surprise did make the film have impact and edge it otherwise wouldn't have.) Right off the bat, Bond gets caught. WTF?! Bond doesn't get caught in the beginning of the film on a routine mission. At least nothing he can't get out of. I had a bit of trouble believing the ultimate super-spy spent 2 years in a prison. 2 years?! The guy's gotten out of more impossible scenarios in how many movies and he couldn't escape from that place? Because there was a tratior? Gee, like he never ran into that before. He shouldn't have been caught in the first place. All he had to do was jump off the waterfall. Bond tends to have all his escape routes covered. No parchute in his jacket this time? He's not going to just take a chance and jump like many have in films before? (Hell, the villain lived.) Oh, I get it; he can get caught, tortured and imprisoned just like everybody else. Somehow, the first reel or so of the film was more like Alias, and then it went back to the super-unbelievable stuff of yesteryear. I guess the writers figured it all averaged out. Too bad it doesn't work that way. I imagine a lot of it is trying not to repeat what's already been done, but when that's the character what are you going to do? If I wrote a Superman comic and decided, "Hey, this week Superman's not going to care if someone falls off a building, and regular bullets will hurt him because that's the way I perceive the character this week, not because of any plot device, but just because that's how I think he should be today." that wouldn't fly very well.

That actually reminds me of the first time Lois and Clark really turned me off, but I won't go into that since I've gone OT enough.

 

[James T]

I like Dark Horizon's reasoning as to why Bloom doesn't work. http://www.darkhorizons.com/news04/040319b.php

It's not believable. Doesn't MGM remember Sum of All Fears when Harrison Ford was replaced with a younger, more popular actor, Ben Affleck? It didn't work with the movie.

I like Clive Owens, but he's not interested.

 

[Grant H]

I wonder how successful the Brosnan Bond films are when you adjust the grosses. Tickets cost a lot more these days.

How old was Lazenby when he played Bond? He was much younger than anyone else. He may have not have yet been 30 if I recall.

Ironically, the picture Dark Horizons has of Bloom actually has him looking about right for a young Bond.

As far as, Sum of All Fears goes, that movie sucked, but I wouldn't blame it on Affleck. I'd say it sucked because of the film's total lack of suspense thanks to it showing us everything on both sides all the time.

 

[James T]

Lazenby was born in 39 and the movie was realesed in 69. So he would have been 29-30...still a bit young.