Video Interview of Chris Corbould: Special Effects Master talks James Bond!

Note: This is the video version of this episode.  We show you our interview with Chris Corbould and intersperse clips and photos from the movies we discuss.  If you want to listen to an audio version of this podcast instead of watching this video, click here to be redirected to the audio episode page.

Video Interview of Chris Corbould

This video interview of Chris Corbould was recorded in Chicago at the press event prior to the opening of the “007 Science: Inventing the World of James Bond” exhibit.  This fantastic exhibit is at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. Chris Corbould OBE has worked on 15 James Bond movies, THE DARK KNIGHT Trilogy, 2 Superman movies, and he won an Acadamy Award for his work on the movie INCEPTION.  Chiefly, his specialty has been visual effects, leading the team on many of these movies.

What movies do we discuss with Chris Corbould?

During this interview, Chris talks with Dan and Tom about visual effects in several of his James Bond movies and THE DARK KNIGHT.

So, listen to hear how they did the explosion in SPECTRE, which involved about 300 explosions in succession! Chris tells us how that worked.  Additionally, Chris mentions the warning he gave to Daniel Craig about this scene.

Undoubtedly, you remember the doughnut scene in NO TIME TO DIE.  You know, the scene where the Aston Martin spins in the square in Matera, Italy. Chris talks us through that scene and how they coordinated the “bullets” hitting the side of the buildings with the spinning of the car.

The tank scenes in GOLDENEYE! Chris also tells us the origin and some of the challenges of these tank scenes. What are the challenges of buying real tanks for a movie? Listen to find out!

One of Tom’s favorite Bond gadgets is the cello case in THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS. Chris Corbould was involved with this gadget’s development. And he gives us insight into the creation of the device.  Oh, and he lets us know what actress Maryam d’Abo, who played Kara Milovy, certainly thought about this sled.

SKYFALL train crash in the subway! Chris discusses the challenges in designing this spectacular train crash.  Lots of details had to be worked out simultaneously for that one.

It’s not all James Bond

Finally, since we were having this discussion in Chicago, Chris talked about the semi-trailer scene in THE DARK KNIGHT.   This is the scene where the truck flips over, backend over the front end.   They filmed this scene in Chicago, on LaSalle street.  Chris lets us know how they got that to work.

Let us know what you think!

So, take a listen. Chris Corbould is not only a visual effects master, he’s a great guy and a fun interview.  Let us know your thoughts about our video interview of Chris Corbould, ideas for future episodes, and what you thought of this episode by dropping us a note at info@spymovienavigator.com.  The more we hear from you, the better the show will be!

You can check out all of our CRACKING THE CODE OF SPY MOVIES podcast episodes on your favorite podcast app or our website. Check out our YouTube channel as well.

The Exhibit

As we mentioned, we met with Chris at the “007 Science: Inventing the World of James Bond” exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. This exhibit has vehicles, gadgets, screen-used props, and educational materials based on the James Bond movies. You can find out more about the exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry’s website.

Top James Bond Kills of the 2000s

Top James Bond Kills of the 2000s is our fifth and final video in our series that shows you James Bond’s best kills from each of his movies in the 2000s. We’ve previously released James Bond’s Top Kills for the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s Bond movies.

This episode covers the top Bond’s kills in the six James Bond movies released from 2002 to 2021. We start with Pierce Brosnan’s last movie as James Bond and finish with the five Daniel Craig Bonds.  So, we look at:

  • Die Another Day (2002)
  • Casino Royale (2006)
  • Quantum of Solace (2008)
  • Skyfall (2012)
  • Spectre (2015)
  • No Time To Die (2021)

Did we miss any good James Bond Kills from these movies?  Did you enjoy “Top James Bond Kills of 2000s?” Drop us a note at info@spymovienavigator.com if you have any detailed comments.  We’d love to hear from you.

If you want to see the kills from other decades:

You can find more videos like this on our YouTube Channel or our website.

No Time to Die

No Time to Die is Daniel Craig’s final outing as Bond, and wasn’t released until 2021.  Bond is retired in Jamaica, is brought out of retirement by Felix Leiter who wants his help for a mission to rescue a kidnapped scientist, and MI6 eventually reinstalls his 007 moniker.

There is a lot in this movie, including Madeleine Swann again – and her history with an evil man who killed her mother, her love interest with Bond is frontstage and Spectre and Blofeld and everything else is in this movie.   The evil Lyutsifer Safin is the ultimate villain who Bond must defeat before his deadly technology wreaks havoc on the world.   And so, we see what happens to Bond, his daughter – yeah, he has one – and the rest of the group.   Great action scenes, Paloma (Ana de Armis) is awesome, and Bond succeeds – or does he?   If you have seen the movie already, “Cheers.” 

Spy Movie News – January 25, 2022

Contributed by: Dan Silvestri and Tom Pizzato - Spy Movie Navigator

Posted on

Here’s our Spy Movie News for January 25, 2022!    Bond IMAX and VFX, Mission Impossible – really!, Blacklight, The Bricklayer, Conmen, Eraser: Reborn, The 355, Miénteme, Red Notice, To Catch a Thief, and more!

ONLY ONE SPY MOVIE SCHEDULED TO RELEASE IN FEBRUARY 2022

We have one new spy movie scheduled for a theatrical release in February 2022 in the US.  Liam Neeson stars in Blacklight.   As the official website, BlacklightMov.com says,” In BLACKLIGHT, LIAM NEESON is Travis Block, an operative whose discovery of a dark secret pits him against the FBI director he once swore to protect.”

The US release date is February 11.  So, we get a 2/11/22 release date.  There is a staggard release date worldwide, so you’ll need to watch for it in your country.

 

UPCOMING SPY MOVIES

So, on to the news of spy movies in development.  We’re not sure when we’ll see them, but we are looking forward to their releases.

The Bricklayer

Aaron Eckhart has signed for the upcoming spy movie The Bricklayer.   According to Deadline.com, In The Bricklayer, someone is blackmailing the CIA by assassinating foreign journalists and making it look like the agency is responsible. As the world begins to unite against the U.S., the CIA must lure its most brilliant – and rebellious – operative out of retirement, forcing him to confront his checkered past while unraveling an international conspiracy.

What is it with these spy movies pulling operatives out of retirement lately?

Miénteme

Filming has started for the Chilean-Argentine romcom/spy movie Miénteme, which translates to “Lie to me” in English.   This movie has actor Lucas Akoskin playing opposite his real-life wife, Leonor Varela.  We’re not sure how a romantic comedy/spy movie will work, but we’ll check it out for you when it comes out and let you know.   Distribution hasn’t been set yet.   You can read more about Miénteme on Yahoo.com.

Conmen

Cory Hardrict will star opposite Neil Brown Jr. in Conmen.  This is the first movie produced by Hardrict’s  Hardcor Films.  The high-level plot has two black conmen, posing as FBI agents.  They try to con a heroin dealer who is a Klansman and this Sherrif’s son.

No release date has been set for Conmen.

Eraser: Reborn

In 1996, Arnold Schwarzenegger starred as U.S. Marshall John Kruger in the movie Eraser.  Well, Johnathan Fuge tells us that a reboot, titled Eraser: Reborn was shot in the summer of 2021 in secret. It has received an R rating and is expected to be released sometime this spring.

Eraser: Reborn does not bring back John Kruger.  Instead, Dominic Sherwood plays a new U.S. Marshall, Mason Pollard.  The synopsis on IMDB says: “It is based on U.S. Marshal Mason Pollard who is specialized in engineering the fake deaths of witnesses that leaves no trace of their existence.”

To Catch a Thief

We loved the original Hitchcock movie, To Catch A Thief.  It starred Cary Grant who played an ex-cat burglar who had to prove he was falsely accused of another burglary.   Well, Gal Godot will be starring in a remake of this classic movie.  We don’t know how the plot will be changed, but we look forward to this one.  You can find out more about To Catch a Thief on MovieWeb.com.

Mission: Impossible

It is getting impossible to release Mission: Impossible 7 and 8

Well, the twice-delayed Mission: Impossible movies have hit another delay.   We should remember that Mission: Impossible 7 was originally slated to release in November 2021.  Then it was pushed to September 2022.  Now Paramount and Skydance have announced the most recent pandemic-related delays for Mission: Impossible 7 & 8.  The new release dates are now July 14, 2023, for Mission: Impossible 7 and June 28, 2024, for Mission: Impossible 8.  Ugh.

 

CURRENT SPY MOVIES

The 355

So, let’s shift gears and talk about the most recently released spy movie, The 355.   We released a no-spoiler review of this movie on January 9th. There has been some news about this movie, mostly about its box office, or lack thereof.

Box Office for The 355

An article in Variety points out that The 355 only had a $4.8 million North America haul.  Well, we just looked at BoxOfficeMojo.com and found that The 355 currently has a $16.5 million box office as we record this Newscast. This is against a production budget of about $40 million.

Given the movie’s female focus, getting young men to the theater to see it has been a challenge.  It appears young men are spending their money on Scream and Spider-Man: No Way Home and not much else.

The spy movie The King’s Man, which was released before Christmas outperformed The 355 this past weekend, even though The King’s Man has been in theaters 2 weeks longer than The 355.

For their sake, we hope The 355 has a good digital rental release.  We want spy movies to make money.

Lupita Nyongo didn’t attend the virtual press day

Lupita Nyongo, one of the leads in The 355 did not attend the virtual press day.   She had a good reason to miss this as she had tested positive for COVID-19.  She tweeted “I too have tested positive for COVID-10.  I’m fully vaccinated and taking care in isolation.”  We hope she’s recovered and is doing well by now.

Is The 355 a remake of the first Mission: Impossible movie?

In our January 9th no spoiler review of The 355, we mentioned a few similarities between The 355 and other movies.  However, we kept spoilers out of that podcast.

Our friend, Mike Reyes at Cinemablend.com has an interesting take on The 355 and its use of tropes from other movies, specifically the first Mission: Impossible movie. He’s written an article containing spoilers that compares The 355 with Mission: Impossible.  We will warn you that he has spoilers in the article so you might want to wait until you’ve seen The 355.  Reyes is dead on with his analysis here.

Red Notice

Since the Netflix movie Red Notice was released, we’ve been speculating that there will be sequels to this movie.   Well, according to an article by Mike Fleming Jr, two sequels are planned.  The thought is to shoot them back-to-back which is becoming a trend with successful movies.   Fleming says that the goal is to bring back the three main stars, Dwyane Johnson, Gal Gadot, and Ryan Reynolds.

He also says that Rawson Marshall Thurber, who wrote Red Notice, has already started writing the sequels.

James Bond

For a franchise that released its last movie back in September, there were a lot of articles written about James Bond in January. Many of them are speculation about which actor or actress will be chosen to carry on the role of James Bond.  However, some of them talk about the making of No Time To Die.

IMAX Re-Release

By now we assume you’ve had a chance to see the movie No Time To Die.  If you haven’t, the movie was rereleased beginning on January 21st in select IMAX locations. According to Mike Reyes, this release is to help celebrate James Bond’s 60th anniversary.  It will include a special James Bond 60th Anniversary Logo.  Reyes comments that he thinks the other Bond movies should get theatrical releases as part of the 60th Anniversary celebration.  He points out that the Prince Charles Cinema in London started running all of the James Bond movies in release order through SPECTRE starting January 20th and running through July 2022. He comments that he wishes other theaters or MGM itself would follow suit on a global basis.

NO TIME TO DIE VFX Team discussion

Variety’s The Shortlist Virtual FYC Fest held a panel discussion with the No Time To Die VFX Supervisors.  This was an excellent 31-minute discussion moderated by Jazz Rangcay, the Senior Artisans Editor at Variety.

Charlie Noble, who was the visual effects supervisor on No Time To Die, talks about how visual effects can help augment the practical side of moviemaking.  He says “We sort of pick up the bat where other departments leave off. They go as far as they can…and then we take over”.

Special Effects Supervisor Chris Corbould adds “The thing I think was so fantastic about it [was that] it was all invisible. It didn’t jump out at you as being, ‘Look, this is the greatest visual effects ever.’ It was just a marvelous blending of what they do creatively”.

The discussion breaks down scenes such as the DB5 donut stunt and gives some great background on what they did there.

You can see this discussion on Variety.com.

That Was One Big Explosion

Many James Bond movies have set Guinness World Records for their explosions.  The boat explosion in Thunderball was an early example. SPECTRE set a record for its explosion.

Well, according to an article on CinemaBlend.com, NO TIME TO DIE obliterated an explosion record. The big explosions at the climax of No Time To Die set the record for the most high explosives in one shot.    The previous record was for 65 kilograms of high explosives in one shot. They used 140 kilograms for the climax.  Boom.

The official 007 YouTube channel has a video with Chris Corbould talking about this record if you want to see more.

 

MOVIE INDUSTRY NEWS

Piracy has cost Black Widow a lot of money

We just talked about explosions.  Well, here’s a discussion that will blow your mind.

In previous podcasts, we’ve talked about the impact of day-and-date release schedules for movies.  if you aren’t familiar with the term, it means releasing a movie in theaters and Paid Video on Demand or streaming on the same day.  This was brought about by the pandemic, but the pandemic showed some flaws in the system.   Some distributors released using day-and-date, others shortened their theatrical window or the amount of time a movie will be in theaters only.

You also had movies like Red Notice that everyone was told was being put out by Netflix.  So, everyone assumed it was a tv movie first.  When Netflix finally decided to release it in theaters a few days before streaming it and marketed that decision badly in our opinion, it tanked in the theater.  It performed very well on Netflix but had terrible box office numbers.

Deadline.com has a fairly comprehensive breakdown of the impact of day-and-date on movies.   Some of the data is sparse due to the limited ways to get the data, but it is telling nonetheless. The stat that blew us away has to do with the movie Black Widow.  The article estimates that due to the data-and-date release of Black Widow, about $600 million was lost to Disney due to piracy.   This is because once a movie streams, it is pirated almost immediately.   Now we get why Scarlett Johansson sued Disney over their decision.

 

IN MEMORIUM

This leads us to our In Memorium section of today’s news.  This is a long list with some giants from the entertainment industry.

Sidney Poitier

Sidney Poitier passed away at the age of 94.  This much-celebrated actor was the first of four black actors to win the Best Actor in a Leading Role Academy Award for his role in Lillies of the Field. For spy movie fans you may remember that he played Roy Parmenter in Little Nikita.

Marilyn Bergman

We’re sad to pass on the news that Marilyn Bergman passed away at the age of 93.  She was a well-honored lyricist.  Usually working together with her husband Alan, she received three Academy Awards, four Emmy Awards, three Grammy awards.  Spy movie fans will know her for the lyrics to the title song to the James Bond movie Never Say Never Again, which she wrote with her husband.

Mace Neufeld

Mace Neufeld has also passed on at the age of 93. Spy movie fans will know his work as the producer of Jack Ryan movies and the Amazon Prime series “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan”.

Hardy Kruger

German actor Hardy Kruger has also passed away at the age of 93.  Kruger is probably best known for his roles in A Bridge Too Far or Barry Lyndon. Spy movie fans may know him from his roles in The Spy Who Never Was, The Inside Man, or The Defector.

Michel Subor

French actor Michel Subor passed away at the age of 86. Spy movie fans may remember him from his movies such as Le Petit Soldat, Beau Travail, and the 1960 Hitchcock movie Topaz.

Yvette Mimieux

And finally, we lost Yvette Mimieux at the age of 80.  Her most well-known roles were in Light in the Piazza and Toys in the Attic.  However, spy movie fans may know her as Kim Stacy in the 1970 movie The Delta Factor.

So, that’s a wrap of the January 25, 2022, Spy Movie News, brought to you by SpyMovieNavigator.com – please Subscribe to our show, Cracking the Code of Spy Movies, right now on your favorite podcast app, and know when new episodes come out and more – Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram too!

Interview With Brigitte Millar – Dr. Vogel in SPECTRE and No Time to Die!

Join us for a charming talk with Brigitte Millar, who played Dr. Vogel in SPECTRE and in No Time to Die!  She’s also played Emmeline Vance in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, she won an award for her performance as Amelia Holland in David is Dying, she joined fellow Bond alums, Benicio Del Toro, Max von Sydow, and Art Malik in The Wolfman.

Brigitte has some great insights into the Bond movies!  We  show you her work as she describes it.

Ideas? Info@SpyMovieNavigator.com

Brigitte Millar – Dr. Vogel in SPECTRE and No Time to Die!

Podcast Episode

Brigitte Millar – Dr. Vogel in SPECTRE and No Time to Die!

Join Dan and Tom as they have a charming talk with Brigitte Millar, who played Dr. Vogel in SPECTRE and in No Time to Die!

Join us for a charming talk with Brigitte Millar, who played Dr. Vogel in SPECTRE and in No Time to Die!

She’s also played Emmeline Vance in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, she won an award for her performance as Amelia Holland in David is Dying, she joined fellow Bond alums, Benicio Del Toro, Max von Sydow, and Art Malik in The Wolfman.

Want to hear how they filmed the SPECTRE meeting in Rome where she gives her talk?  Brigitte has some great insights into the Bond movies!

Ideas?  Info@SpyMovieNavigator.com

 

We talk with Brigitte Millar about her roles in:

  • No Time To Die
  • Spectre
  • Nox
  • Psyche the Prologue
  • Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
  • David is Dying
  • Walking the Ferryman
  • And more…

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A Former CIA Spy Decodes Real vs Movie Spies!

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THUNDERBALL – A Deep Dive – Part 2

Watch the Video Version of this podcast Join Dan and Tom for Part 2 as they take a deep dive into the James Bond 1965 film, THUNDERBALL, starring Sean Connery, Claudine Auger, Adolfo Celi.

James Bond Spy Movie Collectibles

Watch the Video Version of this podcast Join Dan (Tom was on vacation during recording!) as he looks at some of the collectibles that SpyMovieNavigator owns from some of the James Bond movies! It’s a quick 14 minute look –…

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NO TIME TO DIE – Decoding the Pluses and Minuses!

Podcast Episode

NO TIME TO DIE – Decoding the Pluses and Minuses!

Vicky, Dan, and Tom decode NO TIME TO DIE. The good and the bad. We also have a review by Morgan Lisney.

 

NO TIME TO DIE – we look at some of the pluses and minuses of the movie as we decode certain scenes.   Morgan Lisney, winner of the 2020 James Bond International Trivia Marathon, sends in his summary review of the movie too.

SPOILERS are rampant in this podcast!   If you have not yet seen NO TIME TO DIE, skip this podcast until you have seen the movie.

Ideas/Feedback: Info@SpyMovieNavigator.com

In this episode, Vicky, Dan, and Tom decode the pluses and minuses of No Time To Die:

  • What worked and what didn’t work
  • Production Quality
  • Tom’s desire to see Purvis and Wade extricated from the series
  • Why we almost didn’t recognize James Bond
  • The Pre-title sequence
  • The Titles (awesome in the 3D format)
  • The new characters
  • The existing characters
  • The three parts to the end of the movie
  • And Morgan Lisney expresses his opinions of NTTD
  • And More…

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James Bond GoldenEye Pre-Title Sequence Decoded

Join Dan, Tom and Vicky as they Decode the Pre-Title Sequence to GOLDENEYE!

Gadgets in James Bond’s YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE Decoded!

Join Tom, Dan and Vicky as they have some fun with the gadgets in YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE!

Julian Glover Talks FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, Other Roles, and his new book!

Dan and Tom interview Julian Glover in a wide-ranging interview, discussing his career, including playing Kristatos in FOR YOUR EYES ONLY!

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NO TIME TO DIE –Theater Viewing Formats Guide: 2D, 4DX, Imax, 3D – NO SPOILERS

Podcast Episode

NO TIME TO DIE –Theater Viewing Formats Guide: 2D, 4DX, Imax, 3D – NO SPOILERS

SpyMovieNavigator.com has seen No Time To Die in most available formats! Tom discusses here: 2D, Dolby Cinema, 4DX (that has seat movement etc.), Imax and 3D! We only talk about the theater experience; nothing about the content. So, there are no spoilers in this podcast.

 

SpyMovieNavigator.com has seen No Time To Die in most available formats! Tom discusses here: 2D, Dolby Cinema, 3D, 4DX (seat movement & atmospheric effects), IMAX!

We only talk about the theater experience; nothing about the content. So, there are no spoilers in this podcast.

Listen and decide even if you have seen the movie already, you may choose to see it a second or third time – this will help! And if you have not seen it yet, this will help you decide which format to see it in first!

Feedback / Ideas: Info@SpyMovieNavigator.com

Related Content

This episode talks about the experience of seeing No Time To Die on the following theater formats:

  • Standard 2D
  • Dolby Cinema
  • IMAX
  • 3D
  • 4DX

All without talking about the movie’s plot.  There are no spoilers here. We just discuss the theater’s experience.

 

 


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Brigitte Millar – Dr. Vogel in SPECTRE and No Time to Die!

Join Dan and Tom as they have a charming talk with Brigitte Millar, who played Dr. Vogel in SPECTRE and in No Time to Die!

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No Time To Die – No-Spoiler Fan Reaction

Podcast Episode

No Time To Die – No-Spoiler Fan Reaction

Join us in this No-Spoiler look at the new James Bond Movie, NO TIME TO DIE. Comments by Tom and Vicky as well as fans as they left the theater. Even comments by Mike Reyes and David Zaritsky.

Tom and Vicky saw No Time To Die on its opening day in West Midlands,  England.

In this no-spoiler podcast, they talk about what they saw in the movie.  They also spoke to fans to get their reactions as they left the theater after watching No Time To Die.

In addition, Mike Reyes from CinemaBlend.com and David Zaritsky from The Bond Experience lent us their expertise of the James Bond world and provided their no-spoiler views of No Time To Die.

Did we mention that these are no-spoiler looks at the movie and every single person who commented definitely liked this movie?  We did not do any selective editing here.

So, sit back and take a listen to see, even if you aren’t necessarily a James Bond fan, why you will want to watch No Time To Die when it is available in your country

Related Content

We discuss:

  • The new actors and characters (well, most of the new ones.  this is No-Spoiler, there is at least one uncredited new actor here. No comment)
  • The Soundtrack
  • The Car chases
  • Some of the Bond movies that influenced No Time To Die
  • And more…

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James Bond’s THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS Pre-Title Decoded!

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James Bond – The Daniel Craig Arc from CASINO ROYALE to SPECTRE!

Podcast Episode

James Bond – The Daniel Craig Arc from CASINO ROYALE to SPECTRE!

Join Dan Tom and a special guest, our agent in Montreal "Eddie," in looking at the Daniel Craig arc - get ready for NO TIME TO DIE!

 

Join Dan Tom and a special guest, our agent in Montreal “Eddie,” in looking at the Daniel Craig arc – get ready for NO TIME TO DIE!

We look at what we call the “connective tissue” holding the four Craig movies together: CASINO ROYALE, QUANTUM OF SOLACE, SKYFALL and SPECTRE!

Let’s go!

We are using the picture from the Apple TV show “Being James Bond”, coming September 7, 2021. (Source EPK-TV)

Feedback: Info@SpyMovieNavigator.com

 

In this episode we examine:

  • Bond’s age throughout the first four Daniel Craig movies
  • Callbacks to some scenes in those movies that may come back in play in No Time To Die
  • The role of the writers Purvis and Wade
  • How Ian Fleming influenced this story arc (and where he didn’t)
  • Some of the trailers for No Time To Die, with a bit of speculation
  • And More …

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Spy Movie News Article: Oct 3 2020 – NO TIME TO DIE Delay & Fan Reactions

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The Bond Hype Machine WAS Cranking! And has come to a grinding halt!  Here’s our Special October 3rd, 2020 edition of Spy Movie News with the disappointing announcement of the delay of No Time to Die again with some fan reaction! 

  

NO TIME TO DIE – DELAYED AGAIN

 

Well, It’s still No Time to Die!  As announced October 2, 2020: 

MGM, Universal, and Bond producers, Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, today announced the release of NO TIME TO DIE the 25th film in the James Bond series, will be delayed until 2 April 2021 in order to be seen by a worldwide theatrical audience.

 

 

 

In our last Spy Movie News it was looking good for a November 2020 release date, but MGM, Universal, and Eon Productions have decided that based on the current potential worldwide theater situation, and the fact that probably only 22% of the global theater-going market was comfortable going back to theaters, the delay makes sense.

Disappointing for sure – NO TIME TO DIE will be a year and a half after the initial planned release when it finally comes out.   Here is to hoping that by March 2021 things are looking up for this global pandemic.  We hope that it is behind us for the most part – or . . . who knows what else might happen.   Hope for the best!

Fan reaction: from the @007 post about the delay on Twitter:

  • Not unexpected and I fully understand your reasoning. Let’s just hope that in 6 months things might have improved?
  • Your confident there will be a theatrical audience to show it to? what are theatres supposed to do until then? 
  • I’m sad that we have to wait longer to see the movie, but it is ultimately the correct decision.
  • That is just plain stupid! Find another way! If you are waiting for things to get normal again and have the movie theaters filled…you are never going to premiere this film…beyond disappointed!
  • I’d rather just watch it on demand now and see it released in theaters when this whole thing is over with
  • Don’t worry, I understand. I’ll be ready to watch it when you’re ready to show it.
  • And simply put, “So disappointing!”

One very clever post, which added some humor to this dreadful news, was by a “Simon Hinks”

If other Bond movies took this long to be released what would they be called?

    • No release date…
    • Tomorrow never comes…
    • Diamonds take forever…
    • For nobodies eyes only…
    • For the Living daylights… when?
    • Die another year…
    • No time to be released…

Another amusing one was. “And if you put YET another trailer…. then we have seen all the movie so STOP PUTTING OUT TRAILERS . . .”

Many posters said to release it on-demand and we’ll pay a lot of money!  There were a lot of posters with this sentiment.

Certainly, the studios and Eon did all of their homework about the numbers if delayed again versus releasing it on-demand.   Sure, it’s not the same seeing a major motion picture on your own home entertainment system, but lots of posters are calling for this instead of a delay.   Can this happen?   If April is not significantly better regarding this pandemic, maybe it will.  

There were many, many sad and unhappy posts regarding the delay.   Many posts were supporting the decision as well, but naturally, many fans are disappointed.  A lot of the posts asked why all the marketing hype over the past week with the Official James Bond Podcast launch, the Billie Eilish video release, and more.   But, who knows when the final decision was made?  And, importantly, we will see more hype for the film to keep people’s interest high.  So, we aren’t surprised by the hype this past week or so.

 

The Cinema Impact

But some of the most poignant posts were from cinema workers and the fear of now what might happen to the cinema theaters without this monumental release, and to their jobs.   These posts are heart-wrenching – as the decision truly affects the lives of some people.

And some fans posted that they were willing to go support their local theaters just to help keep them going and all.  They said things like:

  • “Nah. This is the wrong move. You’re gonna kill the cinema. .  .
  • Or, “We won’t have any cinema to go back to at this rate come April . . .”

For us fans, yeah, there’s another delay.   For people in the theater industry, they have more to worry about.

So, we must keep things in perspective.

Some fans were just complaining that this is all about money – the studios and Eon want bigger audiences, which some said, “was shameful.”   Wow – there are a lot of emotions involved here.

But ultimately, these decisions are made based on the worldwide opportunity to make No Time To Die as successful at the box office as was Skyfall (which was over a billion US dollars worldwide).   It is money that drives this bus.

We shall see how this all pans out.

 

JAMES BOND – WHO WILL BE NEXT?

And will he still be young enough when No Time To Die is released?

According to this article on CinemaBlend.com, Tom Hardy is looking good!   So good, in fact, that betting has been suspended!  Yeah, you can bet on just about anything, and there were lots of bets placed on who will be the next James Bond!

Right now, Tom Hardy seems to be the favorite.   Of course, there is no way the MGM or Eon would be announcing the next James Bond before the release and run of No Time To Die, Daniel Craig’s last outing as Bond.

Sure other names have surfaced, like

Tom Hardy: 1/3
James Norton: 7/2
who was in the lead until Tom Hardy just passed him up in the odds column

Sam Heughan: 5/1
Richard Madden: 7/1
Idris Elba: 8/1
Cillian Murphy: 14/1
Tom Hiddleston: 18/1
Jack Lowden: 25/1

 But the odds are with Tom Hardy!  And as we know, these things can change in a heartbeat, so at this point, it all we know is the odds-makers and betters see Hardy in the lead spot.

We won’t hear anything for a while.   But, I was cleaning up some old stuff and ran into an article about Sean Connery in the 2000 January/February edition of Modern Maturity.  When Connery was asked what’s the secret to Bond, he replied, “The person who plays Bond has to be dangerous.  If there isn’t a sense of threat, you can’t be cool.”

Connery as Bond was dangerous and cool!   So, what are your thoughts on Tom Hardy?

 

HENRY CAVILL AND MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE

Henry Cavill seems to be jealous that he is not part of Mission: Impossible 7.   He loved working with Tom Cruise on Mission: Impossible – Fallout.  This, again, is according to this CinemaBlend.com’s article by Mike Reyes.

But, as the article states, his character August •%09https:/www.cinemablend.com/news/2555807/why-mission-impossibles-henry-cavill-is-very-jealous-of-mi-7-filming-right-nowWalker, got killed off in Fallout.   Ah, well.  But as the article also states, and as we have said here at SpyMovienavigator.com, anything can happen in fiction!  Write it and it is done!   There are ways to bring back dead characters if you want to!

Still, Henry Cavill has thrown his hat into the James Bond ring as well, as we mentioned.   Wow.  As the betting list indicates, he isn’t even in the Top 10!  See this article by Katherine Webb on CinemaBlend.com for more details.

UPDATE:

ANNOUNCED OCTOBER 2, 2020 – NO TIME TO DIE NOW DELAYED UNTIL APRIL 2020

The Bond Hype Machine is Cranking!  Here’s our Special October 1st, 2020 edition of Spy Movie News with lots of updates on No Time to Die including release strategies, The Official James Bond Podcast, Billie Eilish, Ana de Armas, and more! 

NO TIME TO DIE:  STICKING TO THE NOVEMBER RELEASE DATES

Wow – according to Express.UK.CO It looks like MGM and Universal are sticking to the November 2020 release date of No Time to Die.  They reference a September 23, 2020 Tweet by https://twitter.com/007 of a photo of Paloma and Bond at a bar, saying “Dressed to kill. Bond and Paloma from #NoTimeToDie, in cinemas this November.”   Now, we noted before that the new posters said November.   This Tweet definitely says THIS November.  

We mentioned that other movie releases, like Black Widow, have been delayed until next year.  

Express also reports that fans are replying to the Tweet with encouragement to either delay the release or stream it so that viewers can stay safe during this pandemic, which is far from over.  

Here are a couple of responses that SpyMovieNavigator noted:

  • “Which I will not be seeing in theaters, as it isn’t safe to be in a movie theatre until there’s a vaccine. Now if you released it for streaming rental, I’d definitely pay $30 to watch it at home (that’s like the cost of seeing it in IMAX twice!)”
  • “There is no way I’m entering a cinema this November. Health comes first. . . . So a big PASS from me. I look forward to streaming the film in due course.”

As we reported in our September 24th, 2020 Spy Movie News, in a recent survey, only about 22% of people around the world feel safe to go to a theater now to watch a movie.  

Many fans want the movie released this November, and there were plenty of responses who wanted the movie released in November 2020.  That’s just the way it is. But, the negative response to the https://twitter.com/007 recent Tweet is some indication of what some of the fan base thinks.  

The decision for the studios and Eon will be economic more than likely.   If they think they can make a threshold, baseline, minimum required take, they will go for it.   If the indication is that they won’t then they may delay.   But, a hybrid solution of releasing to the theaters AND releasing on video on demand simultaneously might not work.

Just reporting the news!  What do you think?  Check out this link at Express.co.uk for all the details.

WHY NO TIME TO DIE MIGHT COME OUT IN NOVEMBER 2020

Still at CinemaBlend.com, check out this article by Michael Reyes, to see why he thinks NO TIME TO DIE might want to stick with it’s November 2020 Release date.

In what is the most compelling reason advanced by CinemaBlend, MGM and Universal might want to release in November as planned because of their new 17-day contract with movie theaters like AMC.  We talked about this new deal between AMC and Universal in our August 11th Spy Movie News podcast and article.

New movies can be released in theaters and run for 17 days. Then they can be released on Paid Video on Demand.  That way, the studios and Eon can do both – not simultaneously, but sequentially.   So, if you choose NOT to go to the theater, then in a matter of weeks to a month after the release, you can be watching it in the comfort and safety of your own home.  

We think this is a pretty compelling reason why they will release in November.  

CinemaBlend also says that with all the other delays in releases to next year, No Time To Die might have very little competition in November. 

What we at SpyMovieNavigator.com have observed as of late is that Eon Productions and the studios are gearing up for a November 2020 release – with new official podcasts released September 30th, new posters, video, and more.  It looks like they are getting ready to go.

NEW OFFICIAL JAMES BOND PODCAST

The Official James Bond Podcast launched on September 30,  with interviews with the actors of No Time to Die and more.  

What does this mean for the release of the movie in November?   Is this pre-release hype and marketing to get people really pumped to go see the movie in theaters this November?  Does it mean they are testing the waters to see reactions, or just putting something out to keep the interest level high?   Who knows.   But they did it.   We listened to the first one and it was good.

Here is the copy from their Apple podcast page:

No Time To Die: The Official James Bond Podcast is a new and exclusive podcast hosted by James King. The six-part series features exclusive interviews with Daniel Craig, Rami Malek, Léa Seydoux, Lashana Lynch, Jeffrey Wright, Naomie Harris, director Cary Joji Fukunaga, producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell and a host of key behind the scenes crew from casting director to special effects supervisor.

Each of the six episodes focusses on a different aspect of the franchise. Learn everything about Bond from music, gadgets, locations, stunts, costumes and cars.

Podcast listeners will be the first to hear exclusive score from Hans Zimmer and brand-new recordings from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra from Bond 25 released by Decca Records.

No Time To Die: The Official James Bond Podcast is produced by Somethin’ Else in association with Metro Goldwyn Mayer Studios, Universal Pictures International, United Artists Releasing and Eon Productions.

And here is the episode list, from an article at IGN.COM:

  • Episode 1: Bond in Context
  • Episode 2: Bond Around the World
  • Episode 3: A Name to Die For: Allies and Enemies of Bond
  • Episode 4: The Craft of Bond
  • Episode 5: Clothes, Tech, and Cars
  • Episode 6: Being 007

Also, see MovieWeb.com’s article on this podcast.   The reality is, releasing a new podcast each week for 6 weeks gets you to about a week before No Time to Die is scheduled for release in the UK.   This is no coincidence.

BILLIE EILISH VIDEO RELEASE

Couple the podcast with this week’s video release of the Billie Eilish No Time to Die title song.  This is a strong signal that November 2020 is it!

Check out Variety.com’s article for all the details and the video.

The video is a collage of shots of Billie Eish singing and clips from the movie.   It is well done with Billie Eilish coming out of the dark shadows into view – adding more mystery to the film.  Directed by Daniel Kleinman, it is first-rate. 

ANA DE ARMAS ON PLAYING PALOMA IN NO TIME TO DIE

Reported by CinemaBlend.com, that Ana de Armas wanted to play a role that was not a stereotypical “Bond” woman role, but to add something that represents women well.  Having spoken to Cary Fukunaga about her role, she emphasized that she wanted her character to be empowered and realistic, and not stereotypical.  

Well, from the clips we have seen, she looks empowered – wielding two guns at once, flying through the air for kicks – yeah – she looks good!   Go Ana de Armas!

See CinemaBlend.com’s article by Dirk Libbey for more.

IT’S A LOVE STORY

In Tom Butler’s article on Yahoo.com, he says that No Time to Die will tie together all of what Craig’s Bond has been through from Casino Royale to this final Craig appearance as Bond. 

From losing his love, Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale, to maybe settling down with Dr. Madeleine Swann, Bond has gone through many emotions and attitude changes.   He’s tough, but maybe mellowing a bit now with a new love interest.  

Barbara Broccoli has said, “it is a pretty epic film, I have to say.”  Léa Seydoux said it is “more psychological and more emotional” than Spectre.  

OK –from our point of view at SpyMovieNavigator.com,  we certainly have not seen Bond in love very often in the Bond movies.  Sex, lust yes.  Love.  Um.  Not often.  Of course, Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale.  In On Her Majesty’s Secret Service to be sure – he married Tracy di Vincenzo.   Spectre ? We assumed that at the end of the movie, Bond was hanging it up and driving off into the sunset with his new love, Swann.  

In No Time To Die, there are plenty of rumors that he has been with Swann for the last 5 years, during which he has been retired.  And there are even rumors they have a daughter.   Nothing is substantiated yet, and all this is speculation, but there does seem to be a love story in here. 

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR PODCASTS

That wraps up our Spy Movie News for October 1 2020 and our focus on No Time To Die and James Bond!  Follow us on Facebook, Twitter (@SpyNavigator), and Instagram too!  Subscribe right now to our Cracking the Code of Spy Movies show on your favorite podcast app! 


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No Time To Die is now scheduled for a November 2020 release, after the April 2020 delay due to the worldwide pandemic.  

Plenty of speculation of what will happen in the film – we have about 6 podcasts out on No Time To Die already!  The biggest
question is:  What will happen to Bond?   Will he survive?  Die? Be Dying?  Will someone big, who we are used to, die?

James Bond has been around since Ian Fleming first published “Casino Royale” in 1953.   He has been on television with Barry Nelson playing an American version of Jimmy Bond, in the 1954 production of Casino Royale.  The first actor to play Bond on screen.   Then Eon Productions took over striking a deal with Fleming to produce James Bond movies, and Dr. No was the first one they produced, released in 1962. It was an immediate hit.    About $1 million to produce, and it grossed over $59 million!

Eon continued to produce James Bond movies, and No Time To Die will be their 25th film in the franchise. Over the decades, they grossed at the box office over $7 billion.  And then there are licensing fees, DVD and Blue Ray sales and more that bring in revenue.

The formula, although changed gradually over the decades, has worked well for Eon Productions.   It has made them a lot of money, has gained them tons of recognition around the world, and continues to be a juggernaut.   Skyfall (2012), their 23rd movie, grossed over $1 billion at the box office.   And Spectre, in 2015, grossed over $878 million dollars.   So, this franchise is strong and continues to grow in popularity and in making money.   Which is a good thing.

So, now we have No Time to Die, the 25th entry, scheduled.   And speculations abound.  Many serious reports that Bond will survive, and others that he will die.   Now, if you are Eon Productions, which has successfully tweaked Bond’s character over the decades, reducing his misogynist tendencies and womanizing, and make him more in tune with the brave new world.  

And, as of the last film, Spectre (not one of the fans’ favorite films in general), they still grossed over $879 million. Not bad, right?

 

You’re in a meeting with Eon.  Where should the franchise head?

So, now suppose you are sitting in one of the Eon meetings where they are deciding what to do next.   Are you raising your hand saying, “I think what is best for the business is if we kill off Bond in our next release?”

Well, if not you, who?  Danny Boyle?  And what is the argument?

“I think in Bond 25, we should kill off Bond and start afresh with a new 007 – perhaps a woman.   It would fit the social narrative of our cultures now, and we can gain a large part of the female audience that we lack so much now.   The male audience will continue to come to see the “Bond” movies because they are used to it and will want to see how the new 007 develops. We can merchandise lots of clothing and other items around the new 007 who is female.   We won’t lose out massive Bond audience if we do this right.”

What happens if you’re wrong?

Well.   What if you DO lose your audience – your multi-billion-dollar business might be competing with Charlies’ Angels instead of dominating the spy movie world.   What happens if the new 007 is NOT accepted?  IF people want Ian Fleming’s Bond still around – after all, THAT is the whole basis of the James Bond franchise – the original Ian Fleming manuscripts.

 Yes – James Bond has changed over the decades as we have said. He is becoming more of a good social citizen.   But we must remember, a spy by nature is two-faced.   When we talked to Roberto Schaefer, Director of Photography for Quantum of Solace, he said as much.   A spy is something else in the known world and an undercover assassin in the dark underworld.   So, how much do we want him to change IN the dark underworld where his business takes him? Do we want a completely different spy? A nicer spy in this dark world?  

Then what?

Basically, what else do we demand to be changed in the character of James Bond?   Let’s make a list.

  1. He is still too much a misogynist.  So, we must get rid of that.
  2. He still does not have enough respect for women.  So, we must change that
  3. He has been a cold-hearted killer.   Shooting and killing people who are unarmed, like Professor Dent on Dr. No.  We can’t have that.
  4. Bond knows how to do everything.  He can fly any craft, drive any vehicle, get out of any jam, disarm bombs – is anyone THAT good?  He needs to be more realistic. 
  5. And on what an agent makes, how can Bond afford the best clothes, the best food and drink, the best of everything?  MI6 isn’t paying for all that stuff, are they? Unrealistic.   Need a more grounded agent – grounded in the real world.

And if we change all of this in Bond, no one will accept this new iteration of Bond.   So, maybe we switch to a whole new spy.  A female “Bond-like” character.

This is all possible. With the delay of No Time to Die, we have more time to speculate. 

Our thoughts

Now, if it were SpyMovieNavigator making this decision, we would do one of two things.

Leave Bond alone.  People for decades have been loving James Bond in the movies, so leave him alone.
Sure, tweak some things as you have done in the past.   The faithful audience can accept that people, even spies, change over time.    And James Bond in the movies, HAS changed over time, and the last couple of Bond movies were the highest-grossing box office Bond films ever.   So, there is plenty of reason to stay the course.

If you are going to introduce another MI6 agent to take Bond’s place – a complete replacement – then do it as an experiment.  Do NOT kill off Bond.  Ian Fleming left us hanging at the end of his novel, “From Russia With Love, not knowing if Bond would survive the poison unleashed upon him by Klebb.   In No Time to Die, do a similar thing then, if you must.  Leave us hanging.

If you KILL off Bond, and the new agent replacement for 007 is NOT accepted, what do you do?   Now, if this were science fiction, you have no problem.   Because no one ever dies in science fiction.  You can write anyone back into the next script. 

But this is not science fiction.

Where have we seen this before?

But wait.   Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did it with Sherlock Holmes!  Sherlock Holmes died in “The Adventure of the Final Problem”, after falling off Reichenbach Falls.  Sherlock Holmes.  Dead.   And fans did not like it!  They were outraged!

So, after pressure from his publisher and the public, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle “brought back” Sherlock Holmes in “The Hound of the Baskervilles”, which was
a prequel to Holmes’ death in “The Final Problem”. So, he really was not brought back from the dead.   Yet.
They COULD do the same with Bond. Bring back Bond, if the new non-Bond 007 is a flop – in a series of prequels.  

But Sir Arthur Conan Doyle finally did bring Holmes back to life, in a series of short stories, “The Return of Sherlock Holmes”.

So, maybe EON Productions can bring back James Bond in a similar manner.   He dies, let’s say, in No Time to Die.  The movie-going public is outraged and rejects the new 007 in the next film released.   A board meeting.   Eon decides, we must bring Bond back.  And, they fabricate a screenplay that does just that.  It is possible.

And would the public accept it?  Yes, of course!  They did for Sherlock Holmes and they will for Bond!  

And that takes us to … To die or not to die?  That is the question . . . that may not matter!

So, it seems:

  1. If Eon Productions kills off Bond in No Time to Die, they could probably bring him back to life somehow in a future movie, that is either a prequel or he is resurrected and is alive again to “Die Another Day.”  Or, perhaps the new 007 is even more popular than James Bond, and he remains dead as long as the money is rolling in. 
  2. If they leave us hanging, with Bond appearing to die, or dying at the end, then Eon could easily choose to do what they want next.
  3. If Bond survives, then life goes on.  And so does the Bond franchise.

So, it looks like Eon Productions can do whatever they want in No Time to Die, and all will be fine for them.   Sure, some rough waters could be ahead, but they can always return to calm seas.  

For us James Bond 007 fans, let’s see what they do.  But, whatever they do, let’s just chill out.  In fiction, where you write it and it is done, anything can happen. 

 

 

 

 


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Cracking the Code of the No Time To Die Oscar’s trailer

Related: NO TIME TO DIE:  Why You Cannot Kill Off James Bond.  Or could you?

Contributed by: Dan Silvestri and Tom Pizzato - Spy Movie Navigator

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Official Academy Awards TV Spot – released February 9, 2020

Podcast Available.

Join us as we’re Cracking the Code of Spy Movies – In the new No Time To Die trailer that aired as an ad during the 92nd Academy Awards on February 9th, several new things are revealed, so let’s take a quick look.

We’re just going to look at the differences in this new trailer versus the original trailer and the second Official Game Day Spot ad.

It begins with Bond and Swann in an embrace, and she whispers to him, “This is it.” And he echoes back, “This is it.”   Yes – we are left wondering WHAT is the IT, and why is it happening now?   But we do not know – they tell us no more.   Or do they?

Next, you see Bond standing in what looks like a hilltop graveyard.   There are mausaleum–type burial vaults in front of him – or is this a church and a churchyard?   The very next shot is Bond’s hand (yes it is Bond’s hand) – he is wearing a tan suit with a blue shirt while embracing Swann (you see the blue-collar above the jacket from the rear) and Bond is holding a note, with a crest on top, some indecipherable printing on the bottom, and the hand-written words: “Forgive Me”. And Bond is holding the note with his right hand and lights it afire with his left.

OK – this is big. WHO is the note from?   Is this another one of Bond’s loves gone bad, like in Casino Royale? Remember in Quantum of Solace when Mathis, while dying, tells Bond to forgive her (Vesper) and to forgive himself? Is this note along the same lines? Is it from Swann?   She did something that she now regrets, and wishes Bond’s forgiveness, much like Vesper? Or is the note from someone else?   Probably not from Safin – he seems to be the evil one.   Probably not from Blofeld. He predicted when her secret came out it would be the death of Bond (we think). From Felix Leiter? Did Felix betray Bond in this entire mission, setting him up? Wow – that WOULD CHANGE EVERYTHING.  This note is the most intriguing element in this entire 30-second trailer.   Whoever the author is will reveal a large chunk of the No Time To Die saga.

Let’s get back to the shot of Bond standing in the cemetery or churchyard.   He is looking down at what appears to be a tall burial vault, with what appears to be dried up flowers strewn on the ground in front of it – indicating the death and burial was not just moments ago. But when you blow the picture up, it looks like the flowers may be rather fresh – there are still visible heads on the flower stems.   WHO is buried here? Is Bond lamenting another loss of a key loved-one? Swann?

Again, in terms of arc, we know he lost Vesper in Casino Royale, and realized in Quantum of Solace, that Vesper did not betray him but died for him.   We do not know in this reboot if he has been married yet – to Tracy – from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.   But, here Bond stands, with his hands at his sides, looking down, perhaps at an inscription, on the stone. Generally, when one stands with his or her hands at their sides, it means they are not going to fight – is Bond just giving in here, not fighting what has happened? Accepting it? Or is he destroyed by it?  He looks sad in this shot. His head is slightly cocked downwards. In body language, if a head is cocked downwards OFTEN is a sign of submission. IT can also mean, because you are exposing the hardest part of your head as animals do, that you expect a fight – but combined with your hands at your side, it may mean conflict. Like, “I want to give up but there is another battle ahead.” Which maybe is the conflict he has suffered the entire film, having been in retirement (stepping down or quitting) and then getting drawn back into the battle. Regardless, in this shot, Bond is feeling stressed, conflicted – it certainly is not boredom.   He may be anticipating something big that must still be done. Or it may indicate that he is truly finished – defeated. But . . . this is BOND!

Also notice in this shot, Bond’s left foot is slightly ahead of his right foot – sometimes that is just comfort, but sometimes it may indicate the direction in which you want to head – here, it could be into the grave of whoever is buried there – which may indicate he loved and misses this person so much. Wow – a lot in one shot!

Next, let’s look at still another verbal confrontation with Safin and Bond.   We remember in the first trailer Bond telling Safin, “History isn’t kind to men who play God.”

Here, we see a quick shot of Bond in a tux with people all around him – they almost look like that are backing out of the way to make room for Bond to walk through this crowd – most of the people look rather stern, but the woman on the right of the screen seems to be smiling (or is it sneering) looking strat at the back of his head – and Bond looks intense.

A second later, in this trailer, Safin says to Bond, “James Bond. I have made you redundant.”   That’s a British term that basically means, irrelevant, unnecessary, unneeded.   Like when someone gets fired from their job, the Brits say “your job has been made redundant.” It is a form of dismissal. So, in a powerful statement, Safin says this to Bond. But Bond quickly retorts, “Not as long as there are people like you in the world.” This indicates that Bond believes the fight must go on – again, we do not know the sequence of the actual clips (or if they are all really in the final cut). Was this after the graveyard scene? Before it? All this is important as well. Both Safin and Bond seem confident in their statements in this short clip. Notice Safin’s head is cocked backward, indicating confidence.   Bond’s is straight ahead – eyes blazing, shifting it in a “no” fashion when he says the words “not as long” – cocky and confident that he is right – that good will defeat evil in this world, and the fight will go on.

          

We see the words, again, THE 25TH FILM . . . WILL CHANGE . . . EVERYTHING. In between, THE 25th FILM . . . WILL CHANGE . . . we see a very short shot of a bare-chest Bond and what appears to be a clothed Swann, embracing – with a possible explosion in the distant background, and torches or lights burning closer to them. When in the sequence is this shot? Why is Bond bare-chested?   What IS going on in the background? The typical James Bond film ending with the villain’s lair blowing up and burning? We do not know.   But look closely at this image – at 21 seconds into the trailer.   What do you think it reveals?

Now we see the word EVERYTHING completing the prophecy that THE 25th FILM WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING statement.

Then a close-up of M, saying, “Come on Bond.” M seems concerned and wanting Bond to succeed. Then Bond and Nomi shoot out of the plane as we saw in the Official Game Day Spot trailer – in the glider with wings expanding after the craft is ejected from the plane.   Then the title No Time To Die again etc.   Wow!

Again, another teaser trailer doing exactly what it should do – make us speculate and wonder and want to see the film.!   Great job Eon Productions!

We have a podcast covering all of this as well so take a listen.   We have had out podcasts downloaded from 44 different countries so far! Join us in Cracking the Code of Spy Movies in all of our podcasts and videos, and on our website. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter and let us hear from you! We may include your comments on our show!


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NO TIME TO DIE:  Why You Cannot Kill Off James Bond.  Or could you?

With the upcoming release of NO TIME TO DIE, there are lots of rumors about what will happen in this movie and the direction EON Productions will take James Bond going forward. Check out our thoughts these issues.

No Time To Die Oscars Trailer Reaction!

Podcast Episode

No Time To Die Oscars Trailer Reaction!

Join Dan and Tom as they dive into the latest James Bond, No Time To Die trailer that appeared as an ad on the Oscars, February 9, 2020!

Join Dan and Tom as they dive into the latest No Time To Die trailer that appeared as an ad on the Oscars, February 9, 2020!

We examine the new scenes that are in the trailer and try to make sense of what is happening in each new scene and what it might mean for the entire film!

It’s a quick listen, so download it now!  And please subscribe to our Cracking the Code of Spy Movies channel through your favorite podcast app!

Click here to watch the trailer.

 

Related Content

In the No Time To Die Oscars Ad/Trailer podcast, we talk about the new scenes that they reveal to us:

  • Bond burning a note that is inscribed, “Forgive Me” and the implications of who might be the author of this note
  • Bond standing in front of a grave – we look at body language, implications, and whose grave it may be
  • Bond in a tux shot, with people seeming to part to get out of his way – but one woman is smiling
  • Shot of Safin telling Bond, “James Bond.  Your job has been made redundant.”  Explanation and implications
  • Bond addressing Safin in retort, “Not as long as there are people like you in the world.”  What is Bond thinking here?
  • The shot of Bond and Swann is analyzed – and what is going on in the background!

 

 


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In NO TIME TO DIE, It IS Time for Somebody To Die!

Podcast Episode

In NO TIME TO DIE, It IS Time for Somebody To Die!

Today we look at the strengths and weaknesses of some of the speculative scenarios that are possible directions for EON to take on the James Bond movie, No Time to Die. What are the potential character plot twists that might unfold in No Time To Die? We'll look at Nomi, Bond, Leiter, and Swann.

We’ve watched the No Time To Die trailer a lot.  We are intrigued.  The photography, special effects, lighting – all so enticing and yet – not all that revealing.   Or is there something to be revealed here on several of the main characters?  This podcast is pure speculation!

FOCUS:  What are the potential character plot twists that might unfold in No Time To Die?   We’ll look at Nomi, Bond, Leiter, and Swann.

Today we are going to look at the strengths and weaknesses of some of the speculative scenarios that are possible directions for EON to take with No Time to Die.

So let’s speculate – and send us your speculations and insights through a voice message on our website, or message us on Facebook!  We might include your comments in our next show on the subject!!

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Tom Pizzato:                      00:02                     Hi, this is Tom Pizzato and Dan Silvestri from spymovienavigator.com — the worldwide community of spy movie fans – spy movie, podcasts, videos, discussions, and more. If you like our podcast, please give us a five-star rating on iTunes and Google Play. That helps us a lot like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter and on Instagram too. When you have feedback and idea for a podcast, something you want to say, just click the big red button on our website that says, “send us a voicemail” or send us a message from our Facebook page. We may include it on our show

Dan Silvestri:                     00:33                     In No Time to Die, it is time for somebody to die. We’ve watched the No Time to Die trailer a lot, we’re intrigued. The photography, special effects, lighting also enticing and yet not all that revealing or is there something to be revealed here on several of the main characters?

Tom Pizzato:                      00:55                     Now, pretty much the rest of this podcast is going to be pure speculation. We don’t know until April what happens, Dan. So, that said, we’re going to look at the strengths and weaknesses of some of the speculative scenarios and possible directions that EON might take with No Time to Die.

Dan Silvestri:                     01:12                     Yeah. And we’re going to look at what are the potential character plot twists here that might unfold in No Time to Die. We’re going to speculate with the rest of the world and let’s have some fun. So let’s go look at a few of the main characters here. That’s what we’ll do. Nomi, Bond, Leiter, and Swann. As we know, there is a ton of rumors and speculation flying about what will actually happen in No Time to Die. The world.

Tom Pizzato:                      01:39                     Beautiful thing about speculation, huh?

Dan Silvestri:                     01:41                     Yeah. The world is going nuts with this movie, so I think it’s going to be, it’s going to be a huge hit. They’ve done a great job of getting all of us to talk about this pretty much nonstop since the trailer came out. So we’re going to jump right in with the speculation too. And as Tom said before, send us your speculations. We’d love to hear your insights and speculations. Send us a voice message on our website, or message us through Facebook and we’ll include your comments in one of our future shows. That’ll be fun.

Dan Silvestri:                     02:11                     For Nomi, played by Lashana Lynch, of course, there has been the most speculation and we’re going to have some fun with that.

Dan Silvestri:                     02:19                     Four things can happen we think with Nomi: One) she could really be introduced as the next 007 and really replace James Bond going forward in the franchise.

Tom Pizzato:                      02:24                     Yeah Dan, How really likely is that?

Dan Silvestri:                     02:30                     That’s a good question. Well, she is introducing the trailer as we know as a double agent and she’s been gone for two years. We know she’s a badass. She’s already had to make two kills to get her double-O status.

Tom Pizzato:                      02:48                     I love, I love that requirement. It’s like you got to kill two people and then we make you licensed to kill.

Dan Silvestri:                     02:55                     Which is kind of weird but okay, so we know she’s, she’s already tough and then we hear her be a badass in the trailer when she tells bond though “the world has moved on commander bond. So stay in your lane. You get my way, I’ll put a bullet in your knee. The one that works.” I thought she’s fantastic. She delivers those lines with authority. Beautiful. So I think this reveals a lot about Nomi. A) she’s in control. You get in my way. So she’s got a way, she’s authorized to get her job done and does not want interference from Bond.

Tom Pizzato:                      03:36                     And it’s interesting Because Bond is used to getting things his way.

Dan Silvestri:                     03:39                     Yeah. So they’re already making her a very, very strong double-O. And B) she’s comfortable with her threat to put a bullet in his knee and would likely do it if she had to. I think she’d say, yeah, fine. You know what? Bam, there ya go. You little bastard. So wow. You know unlike Jersey numbers in sports that are sometimes retired for great athletes, maybe the 007 number is not retired just because Bond retires. So Nomi may be introduced as 007. That was a big rumor in the beginning. And of course, they didn’t tell you that in the trailer. But obviously, she’s not James Bond or the next James Bond. And Barbara Broccoli once said: I always feel that Bond is a male character. That is just a fact. We have to make movies about women and women’s stories, but we have to create female characters that are not just for a gimmick that turns a male character into a woman. And she took, she said that at the Bond 25 launch in Jamaica. So yeah, obviously 007, a woman, is not going to be James Bond. It’s like, okay, that’s pretty clear. And no matter, you know, Barbara Broccoli could say that all the time because that’s going to be true. You’re not going to have a female 007 as James Bond.

Tom Pizzato:                      05:02                     Okay, so, with that then Nomi is not going to be James Bond in our opinion then. Right?

Dan Silvestri:                     05:09                     Well, she’s not going to be James Bond. She could be 007 and she could replace James Bond. That’s what we’re speculating on here.

Tom Pizzato:                      05:16                     So this is one of the four areas of speculation.

Dan Silvestri:                     05:19                     The question is, will she be the franchise 007 agent in continuing 007 movies with no Bond or will James Bond return?

Tom Pizzato:                      05:31                     Well then that would lead us to speculation two, which would make the first one be absolutely impossible. Well, our speculation two then, the first one is that she becomes the next Bond. The second way to look at the next 007, replacing Bond. Then the next thing then would you know, you take the opposite of that. She could die in this movie.

Dan Silvestri:                     05:54                     We’re going to talk about that next. So Hey, here’s our second option: Nomi will die in this movie. Like Tom said. Okay, look, somebody has to die in this movie.

Tom Pizzato:                      06:05                     Well, why does somebody have to die? It’s No Time to Die. Nobody should be dying.

Dan Silvestri:                     06:09                     I know, but somebody is going to die and it’s going to be someone other than the character played by a Rami Malek, Safin. Is it Safin? I think that’s how you pronounce it. No one’s ever said it that I’ve heard. Somebody else is going to die. So could it be Swann? Could it be Nomi, it could be Felix. It’s happened before, obviously, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service his wife gets killed. He’s lost his love before, Bond. And we’ll talk about this a little bit later because he’s basically, Bond has had a tragic life. I mean, he’s got a pretty tough life, but let’s see. But maybe if it’s Nomi who will die, but wait, here’s our thought: EON Productions is going all-out to create this very powerful double-O agent in Nomi. And as Barbara Broccoli just said, as we just talked about, Hey, she wants to make movies about women and with strong women’s stories and so on. So that isn’t just a gimmick. So we think, look, you’re putting all this effort into No Time to Die for Nomi to be in this film as a strong double-O agent. EON has invested a lot into developing this female agent in the, in the modern world of advancing women’s causes and status and so on. So she gonna die. Ah, ah, yeah. I say probably not too.

Tom Pizzato:                      07:32                     All right. So we went with the thing that she replaces 007 she becomes a new 007. We then went to the speculation of she would die. So then what’s the third area of speculation we needed to tackle?

Dan Silvestri:                     07:46                     Well and I kind of like, I like these last two that Nomi will achieve equal status to James Bond in Bond films to come. This is what I think would be brilliant. And she’ll stay on as a powerful woman, double-O agent to maybe team up with Bond on cases in missions in the future or have parallel stories going on with Nomi and Bond in the same movie and teaming up at some point. This seems to be a very good idea to us at spymovienavigator.com and to us on our show here, Cracking the Code of Spy Movies. Why? It really is a perfect solution. Bring Bond back. Again they still have the issue that if he retired because of his age. As we said in the previous podcast, how do you bring them back? I mean, they do hint openly that he’s older and he’s been gone a while and so on here, but it’s the movies so they can bring them back. Right. Casino Royale was a reboot.

Tom Pizzato:                      08:44                     You know, they, they bring in new Bonds over time. So I mean they can do that

Dan Silvestri:                     08:48                     and look what they did with Casino Royale, you know, that was a reboot, but it wasn’t a reboot to 1962 it had modern technology.

Tom Pizzato:                      08:55                     It’s not just technology and also brought modern things. I know the game they’re playing, Texas Hold ’em, it’s not Chemin de fer.

Dan Silvestri:                     09:02                     That’s a good point. Yeah. So yeah, and with our willing suspension of disbelief is like, yeah, okay, we’re going to accept it and go with it. So we’re fine with that. We just love Bond. Judy Dench was still M again, you know, in the reboot and through Skyfall. So yeah, it could be done.

Tom Pizzato:                      09:25                     The weird thing to me about Judy Dench being M in the reboot. Is that the way they did this whole Daniel arc. With these stories going back to Casino Royale and then going forward with this whole series of related movies. You had nothing there about Tracy dying, about Tracy at all and her dying yet in previous Bond films, prior to Daniel, there were references made to the fact that he had a wife before.

Dan Silvestri:                     09:57                     Well, I’m going to give him a break here and say, Hey, this was a reboot and maybe these first four movies with Daniel Craig here are you know before that happened. So again, it’s the movies. They could do whatever the hell they want and we’ll eventually say, yeah, that’s okay. So anyway,

Tom Pizzato:                      10:17                     It’s EON Productions all bow down.

Dan Silvestri:                     10:20                     I mean, they’ve taken things out of order the whole time ever since they started with Dr. No. So with the order of the books versus the order of the movies with Quarrel getting killed in the Dr. No movie, the first movie. But, so anyway, we think this would be great though. You have two equal double-O agents that EON Productions can do whatever the heck they want with going forward. Wow. Yeah, I think that’s great.

Tom Pizzato:                      10:45                     I think that that, that’s a really good concept. So we’ve covered three of the four scenarios of what we think might have with Nomi. Let’s go ahead and get to the fourth one. And this one’s kind of Disney-like when you were talking to me about this one… You were talking about using Nomi and extending the double-O brand and creating a spinoff, which is different than what you were just talking about in the third scenario. Which is where they were like co-partners almost. It’s, you’re talking about in this fourth scenario, maybe they’re using this to spin off this Nomi character into a whole new series of movies.

Dan Silvestri:                     11:23                     Yeah. And I think that’s a possibility. Why not? I mean, others have done it and sure. It’s another investment in extending your brand and hoping this new brand extension works and that costs money to do all that. But Hey, they might be, and then they’re competing head-on with Atomic Blonde and Anna and all these other female spy movies. So, Hey, it’s a possibility, I think.

Tom Pizzato:                      11:52                     Yeah. But those movies did not make nearly the money as Mission: Impossible or a James Bond film.

Dan Silvestri:                     11:57                     Yeah. But they’re going to, this is going to have the Bond brand really. So it is a different scenario. I mean it’s possible. Is it likely? I don’t know. But it’s a strong scenario and it could happen. What do I like to happen? I think it would be fun if they actually did it and then they can either both, they could be cameos in each other’s movies and stuff. It’d be kind of cool.

Tom Pizzato:                      12:20                     Well the thing that intrigues me about this idea is that EON Productions could actually start getting to some kind of an alternating schedule. So like we’re having to wait five years for this movie. So if they could sit there and say, okay, every other year we’re going to put out a Nomi movie or a James Bond movie and alternate through there that gives them the time to do the development they need to do whichever character and whichever story. And still, be able to get out more frequently than this five-year hiatus gives us,

Dan Silvestri:                     12:54                     Yeah, that’s a good point. And that would be kind of fun. Everybody would say, Hey, wow, this is kind of cool. So that’s the end of our Nomi treatment. There are four different scenarios that could happen with Nomi and in this next film, No Time to Die. So we’re gonna look at James Bond now. Okay. Yeah. Lots of speculation as we just talked about in the Nomi treatment. What can happen to Bond?

Tom Pizzato:                      13:17                     Of course, Dan, he is going to die and they’re going to just wrap up the series.

Dan Silvestri:                     13:20                     Yeah, there you go. He dies and that’s, that curtain comes down, end of Bond – boom. EON Productions as a $7 billion franchise based on Bond. Right. The longest-running film franchise in history at stake here. Yeah. So they could make Bond die in this movie. Ah nah. I’m thinking. No.

Tom Pizzato:                      13:45                     Well you know they supposedly, the reason they changed directors was because the other director wanted to kill Bond off.

Dan Silvestri:                     13:53                     Yeah. But there was very strong speculation early on, before the trailer even came out, about Bond dying in this movie. They even said, Oh, you have Moneypenny hovering over Bond at the end and Bond looks like he might be dead. And she says, this is No Time to Die and then boom, it ends. That was one speculation. So is he going to die in this movie? No. Could he be dying in this movie? Yeah, I think that’s a possible scenario that he could be dying at the end of this movie. And

Tom Pizzato:                      14:26                     so that’s, that’s kind of along the lines of what we talked about in our previous podcast and in January where we were talking about, you know where James Bond was like Coca-Cola and why this is No Time to Die.

Dan Silvestri:                     14:39                     Yeah. So I mean, again, we’re looking at all sides so he could die or they could leave us hanging, whether he’ll live on to fight another day, you know, this is a nice little close for them to say, well, we don’t know. I mean Ian Fleming did this in “From Russia with Love”, the novel he wrote, he got poisoned at the end. You didn’t know if Bond was going to survive or not at the end of the novel.

Tom Pizzato:                      15:07                     we talked about that in that last podcast as well.

Dan Silvestri:                     15:10                     Yeah. So I mean this could happen. So, okay. So if EON wants time to think about what they’re going to do next with Nomi and the, you know, female, double-0 agent, this would give them a lot of time to think whatever.

Tom Pizzato:                     15:16                     And Bond in general, what do they do with the fact that they’ve got this guy who’s old and retired now?

Dan Silvestri:                     15:27                     This could be a very neat little scenario for them: a dying Bond. Okay, so we’re going to see, that’s another possibility. Here’s another one. He stays retired even after getting pulled back in by Leiter and MI6 and we’re still left wondering what will happen to 007 or Bond or Nomi? Well, maybe he stays retired as we said before, EON does have a problem bringing a retired Bond back if he’s too old. Well, they do. It’s like, okay, well now we bring back a young Bond How’s that fit in? Another reboot? Nah, I don’t think so.

Tom Pizzato:                      16:05                     Well see. I actually, I disagree with you on that, but go on.

Dan Silvestri                      16:08                     yeah, you think they could reboot it again?

Tom Pizzato:                      16:10                     Absolutely. I mean that’s, they’ve done that right?

Dan Silvestri:                     16:13                     Oh, can they. Yeah. I said, can they? Oh, of course they can. It’s the movies, but yeah, I just don’t see them doing it. But would we accept it? Yeah. Yeah, we would probably accept it. We’ll just have, suck it up and accept that Bond came back younger and this whole retirement thing was maybe a future concept, but maybe the new movies are just prequels to there. I’m retiring in this movie. They can do whatever the heck they want and we’ll, we’re going to go with it. We’re going to, we want more Bond movies. We, so I dunno. It’s fun guessing.

Tom Pizzato:                      16:50                     And that’s all we’re doing.

Dan Silvestri:                     16:51                     Yeah. So here we go. And then I think the last possibility for Bond, in No Time to Die, is he comes out of retirement and he stays out of retirement and he’s reassigned his 007 number. If it’s been reassigned, we don’t really know that for sure yet. Okay. That’s, that’s cool too. I think that would be all right. So again, the age thing still lingers over his head and this scenario though, but again, fill in the blanks and future movies of the younger Bond this strong Nomi, eh, it could be done. So he comes out of retirement, stays out of retirement and we got Bond back and a strong female double-O agent. Not bad.

Tom Pizzato:                      17:31                     Yeah. I’m not into that idea. I actually think, I actually think that uh, number one makes the most sense: Him dying and you know, gives EON time to see what public reaction to the movie was. And how they brought Lashana in and try to figure out what that Nomi character can do for them. So it gives them, it gives them some wiggle room and we’re all about analytics these days. What are the analytics from the moviegoers on this and how do we take it? The dying scenario to me gives them the most flexibility.

Dan Silvestri:                     18:11                     Yeah, it does. It does. All right. Now we’re going to take a look at Felix Leiter. This is a fun one. Felix Leiter has appeared in nine Bond films of the 24 prior to No Time to Die, this will be his 10th appearance. Seven different actors played Felix lighter. But Jeffrey Wright will have the most appearances as Felix Leiter at three with No Time to Die.

Tom Pizzato:                      18:38                     As an aside, Ian Fleming developed the name Felix Leiter from the middle name of a friend, Ivar Felix Bryce, and Leiter, which was a surname of another friend.

Dan Silvestri:                     18:47                     He did that a lot where he took,

Tom Pizzato:                      18:49                     and we’ve talked about that in other when we did our whole thing on the Ian Fleming manuscripts. How he did that a lot in his writing.

Dan Silvestri:                     18:57                     Yeah. So anyway, Felix here has been a big part of Bond’s life and in the trailer for No Time to Die, Felix comes to Bond who was retired and says to him, I need a favor, brother. You’re the only one I trust for this.

Tom Pizzato:                      19:14                     Well, and what I love about that is that means this has to be something really covert because he can’t trust his CIA brethren.

Dan Silvestri:                     19:22                     Yeah, that’s a good point, Tom. Because he is in the CIA. And Bond’s the only guy he could trust and Bond is retired. So yeah, this is big. So that’s pretty good. So Bond’s, strong bond with Felix is what seems to really jostle bond out of retirement and into this chase again. So yeah, so that’s a good point. He’s coming to Bond, not the CIA, his other cohorts in the CIA, but to Bond for this special mission. So

Tom Pizzato:                      19:55                     he’s going to bring Bond back out of retirement. But what’s going to then happen with Felix? Right? What are the options?

Dan Silvestri:                     20:03                     We’ve got a couple of things that could, that could happen to Felix. One is Felix entices Bond out of retirement. They succeed in their mission together and Bond feels like, Hey, this retirement thing is overrated. I’m back. This is a plausible scenario. Likely, I don’t know, probably not.

Tom Pizzato:                      20:25                     But retirement is a good thing.

Dan Silvestri:                     20:28                     Well why not? I mean, why not? He could be enticed out of it and think, eh, what the heck, I’m coming back.

Tom Pizzato:                      20:34                     Okay, so then Felix and Bond go on. Save the world in future movies.

Dan Silvestri:                     20:39                     Yeah.

Tom Pizzato:                      20:40                     Okay.

Dan Silvestri:                     20:41                     The other scenario would be, and I’d be disappointed, Felix dies.

Tom Pizzato:                      20:48                     (sighs)

Dan Silvestri:                     20:48                     Again, someone has to die. Maybe it’s Safin. Maybe it’s Felix and Safin. And maybe Felix comes to Bond and says he needs him. And in between that meeting and Bond unretiring Felix is killed. That would get Bond out of retirement in a heartbeat. Remember in Licence to Kill where Bond goes rogue to carry out his personal vendetta against Franz Sanchez who fed Leiter to the sharks. I mean if he gets killed, Bond would definitely come out of retirement to go retaliate and get whoever killed Felix Leiter.

Tom Pizzato:                      21:27                     That’s true.

Dan Silvestri:                     21:27                     Right. So this might be a very strong case.

Tom Pizzato:                      21:32                     The interesting thing is you’re referencing Licence to Kill, which is Felix having prosthetic leg and stuff like that. This is nowhere into the Daniel Craig things. So this whole, he went to seek revenge with his personal vendetta Either happens before the Daniel series starts or the Daniel series just totally ignores the past.

Dan Silvestri:                     21:54                     Yeah. It paints a picture of the portrait of James Bond and what he is and what we would do and what he’s willing to do.

Tom Pizzato:                      22:03                     And the fact that he had such a strong bond with Felix in License to Kill. We know that he’s got a strong bond for this guy.

Dan Silvestri:                     22:10                     Yeah. I mean, I hate to see Felix go, especially Jeffrey Wright. I think he’s been terrific.

Tom Pizzato:                      22:14                     Oh, he’s been absolutely wonderful. Now the interesting thing too for me here is in “Live and Let Die”, which was Fleming’s second novel. It’s actually where he wrote about Leiter getting mauled. Right. So that whole scene in License to Kill actually comes out of Fleming’s second book. And I mean even the line “he disagreed with, with something that ate him”. That was actually in “Live and Let Die”: a note pinned to Leiter in “Live and Let Die” that they just took into License to Kill.

Dan Silvestri:                     22:49                     Yeah. EON Productions and their screenwriters have done this kind of thing a lot. And, pretty well though

Tom Pizzato:                      22:57                     And the other thing though is that Fleming in that book was originally was going to have Leiter die and he had to be convinced to keep him alive. So Leiter dying really to me doesn’t sound too far-fetched. Although again, as we’ve mentioned, these story arcs are a little weird, his character does live on in some of the Bond continuation books. Yes. So where are we in time is the interesting part to me here.

Dan Silvestri:                     23:27                     The continuity thing has never been the biggest issue with the Bond series. Again, it’s our willing suspension of disbelief. It’s like, yeah, okay. It’s a little mixed up, but somewhere in there that makes sense somehow. But it may be the time now and maybe there’s another CIA operative that Bond will get close with and develop a relationship with in the future and whatever. And of course, Nomi is there to maybe be a presence for the MI6 for a long time. But this relationship with Felix and CIA and so on, I’d hate to see it end here, but that’s another possible scenario for Felix and one that sounds pretty strong.

Dan Silvestri:                     24:13                     All right. Lastly, we have to mention Swann. She’s either believable or not in the trailer. When she says to Bond, “Why would I betray you? In general, and this is my opinion, when people answer questions with another question, they’re covering something up and they’re really not answering your questions.

Dan Silvestri:                     24:33                     Like it’s like, why would I betray you? That doesn’t answer anything. It’s putting a question on you, so that’s clever for a trailer especially. Because we have no idea what’s going on and that’s good. So what are her dark secrets that they have not explored yet? It kind of says that in there. We haven’t gotten to your secrets yet. This is an exciting part of the trailer and, it makes us keep wondering throughout the trailer and till April. What’s going to happen?

Tom Pizzato:                      25:04                     We’ll find out in April.

Dan Silvestri:                     25:05                     Yeah. So what’s the first scenario for Swann? So maybe it’s all a mix-up. Here’s one possible scenario with Swann. Swann, though her father was a SPECTRE operative is clean. Tracy Di Vincenzo was clean in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, even though her father, Draco, ran a criminal organization.

Tom Pizzato:                      25:25                     So, now actually the interesting thing to me here is there’s been no acknowledgment of Tracy in the Daniel Craig arc. We’ve talked about this a couple of times. Is Swann a Tracy replacement? She’s got a dirty dad, she’s clean, do Bond and Swann get married and then she meets an unfortunate end. Is this, I mean, are they going to really do that kind of mirroring of what they did in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service with Madeline instead of Tracy?

Dan Silvestri:                     25:58                     Yeah. So if she’s clean, that’s a possible scenario, right? He ends up marrying, or maybe he did marry her. We don’t even know. You’ve been gone for a long time. Yeah. But the scene here, when she’s opening the box with the Phantom of the Opera mask, I mean that’s the eerie part that makes you question this whole scenario. Is she clean or not clean? Which is,

Tom Pizzato:                      26:19                     I love that when she opens that up.

Dan Silvestri:                     26:21                     Yeah. So you don’t really know. Was this in her possession all along or did she just happen upon it or did somebody?

Tom Pizzato:                      26:31                     Maybe she got it mailed to her. Maybe Safin sent it to her.

Dan Silvestri:                     26:34                     her and she’s just opening it. We don’t know. That’s the big question here.

Tom Pizzato:                      26:38                     That’s what I love about this part of the trailer is the look on her face when she opens that thing up and she’s like, and she looks at that mask. Is it “hello old friend” or is it, “what the heck is this?” Or “I know what this is and Oh my, I don’t like where this is going to go.” All three of those are possible with the expression she has on her face.

Dan Silvestri:                     26:59                     I look at her face and I think, Oh, she’s thinking, Oh no, I gotta do this. You know, that’s what I’m looking for. I’m thinking she’s looking at that going. Okay, shoot, I gotta do this. So I don’t know. So that’s one possible scenario. So the second scenario is maybe Swann is not so clean and she’s maybe infiltrated MI6 as a double agent. When Bond sees her in the hallway of MI6 when he says he won’t lose his control.

Tom Pizzato:                      27:26                     Yeah. He has that pause as he sees Nomi and Swan walking together.

Dan Silvestri:                     27:32                     Yeah. And he’s shocked. Is he doubting his control now that he’s seen her? That maybe she’s working for MI6 based on what he actually knows about her and that we don’t know yet. Oh, that’s also a possible scenario.

Tom Pizzato:                      27:46                     Well, I especially because the interesting thing to me is in Spectre when Swan and Bond meet Blofeld, there does not appear to be any recognition between Blofeld and Swann. Yeah. And so, but her dad worked for Spectre. Yeah. Mr. White. Yeah. So it’s

Dan Silvestri:                     28:09                     so Bond keeps getting involved in these people that have, uh, underworld connections. I, yeah. Why does he do that?

Tom Pizzato:                      28:16                     Yeah, exactly.

Dan Silvestri:                     28:18                     Anyway, this scenario, if this is a scenario where she’s not so clean, it cannot end well. Really cue the music. Maybe we will hear her Swann song as she ties.

Tom Pizzato:                      28:30                     Oh, Dan, you didn’t go there.

Dan Silvestri:                     28:34                     All right. So this would not be the first time Bond would lose his woman for one reason or another. This did happen to the other fellow because Bond is the other fella, Casino Royale 2006 he loses Vesper in the movie and in the novel by Fleming. Of course, like we just said On Her Majesty’s Secret Service in both the movie and the book he loses his wife Tracy. In Fleming’s book, “Moonraker“, Bond loses the woman at the end. He says I was going to take you off to a farmhouse in France. Her name is Gala, says to him, “I’m sorry I can’t oblige.” “Well, goodbye Gala.” And they, they go off, he loses her and later, you know, he’s talking about this is as though man, this, could have been a good relationship. Even in the book “Diamonds are Forever”, Bond really falls for Tiffany Case, but soon she’s out of his life.

Tom Pizzato:                      29:29                     He falls for all of these women.

Dan Silvestri:                     29:31                     Well he doesn’t, not in a serious way. He likes them all and he wants to have sex and whatever with them all. But in some of these cases, he really falls for them. Like this could be a love kind of thing. In Tiffany Case’s case, he really thought and he tells, it tells M, I think in from “Russia with Love”, he thought they could’ve gotten married, but she runs off with some American military officer and goes back to America. So again, he loses somebody he really cared about. It’s happened to Bond a lot. And so I think sometimes in both the films in the, in the novel Bond does not get a woman. We always think he always gets his woman. He does not always get his woman. And in this particular case, maybe Swann is another one that for one reason or another will get away or be killed. I don’t know.

Tom Pizzato:                      30:29                     All right. That’s possible. We’ve looked at the scenarios then of what could happen, what we think could happen to Nomi, to Bond, to Felix and to Madeline.

Dan Silvestri:                     30:39                     Yeah. And we know somebody who is not the evil bad guy is going to die. I just know that

Tom Pizzato:                      30:48                     (laughing) You just know it. Dan, this is what is the beauty of speculation.

Dan Silvestri:                     30:52                     Yeah, of course. It’s speculation. We don’t have any inside info here. We’re just speculating like the rest of the world. So who will it be? Send us your thoughts right now by sending us a voice message from our website. It’s spymovienavigator.com. Hit the big red button on the right of the screen that says “send us a voicemail” and we’ll put you in our next podcast about No Time to Die. Let’s see who can speculate the best. Go do it now. Send us a message we want to hear from you.

Dan Silvestri:                     31:20                     Did people like the trailer? Overwhelmingly it seems people like the trailer. In fact, most people love the trailer. We did a little poll on Twitter about the trailer of course, not a scientific poll and overwhelmingly those who responded mostly rated it ‘A’ with some ‘B’s. Nobody didn’t like the trailer and we loved the trailer. They did a fabulous job on the trailer. We can’t wait to see the movie.

Tom Pizzato:                      31:48                     Now, Dan, I think you and I have to go to London to see it. Because it releases there before it releases in the US that week in between the two

Dan Silvestri:                     31:55                     That might be fun. Let’s do it. I got to see this, right when it comes out.

Dan Silvestri:                     32:01                     Alright, let’s go to London and see it before it opens in the US that might be fun.

Dan Silvestri:                     32:08                     This has been Dan Silvestri and Tom Pizzato. We’re finished with our speculating. Head to our website now to send us the voice message with your speculations and guesses and you will be on our show and keep listening. We appreciate it very much. Let’s keep Cracking the Code of Spy Movies together.

 


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NO TIME TO DIE Official Game Day Spot 2020 – Trailer Discussion!

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James Bond is Like Coca-Cola, Which Is Why For Him, This Is No Time to Die

Related: NO TIME TO DIE:  Why You Cannot Kill Off James Bond.  Or could you?

Related: No Time To Die Trailer Discussion – A Quick-Fire Look

Contributed by: Dan Silvestri and Tom Pizzato - Spy Movie Navigator

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This article is based on the podcast Spy Movie Navigator did with the same name.   You can listen to this podcast here: (link). 

This article is based on the podcast Spy Movie Navigator did with the same name.

With No Time to Die on the horizon, there is lots of speculation about whether James Bond will survive this mission and whether Nomi, Lashana Lynch’s character, will indeed take over the 007 moniker and become the Double-O agent in future films. Rumor and speculations have been flying worldwide since EON Productions started filming. But as we know anything can happen.

Nomi’s Name

First of all, let’s look at Nomi. We think that’s a variation of Naomi. You can look it up. There are lots of different variations, but Nomi is a name from Hebrew-Japanese origin and it means beautiful, pleasant, delightful. Well, that’s a great name for a front and center Double-O agent’s intro here for Lashana Lynch. And from the No Time to Die trailer, Lashana Lynch is, all of that and tough.

In the trailer when she looks at his other knee and says the one that works, It’s like when she’s going to shoot him in the knee if he doesn’t stay in his lane. Yes, she’s tough.

But Nomi, if you’ll listen, you’ll say it slowly – NO-MI or NO-ME. Maybe her role will be short-lived. Will she survive this mission? Or could it be KNOW-ME, like we need to get to know her as we’ll be seeing her in future movies?

But these all speculations based on wordplay, but we’re all wondering whether Bond will survive, but there are a couple of other things really here.

We don’t know if the screenwriters are into numerology. We tried to find out and I couldn’t find out. In our research, there wasn’t anything that said, ‘yeah, they’re into numerology’. However, if you look into this a little bit, Nomi in numerology is eight, and that means power. It’s the great or marked ability to do, act or accomplish something. It’s a possession of control or command over others. Authority.

And the second big thing here is sacrifice, surrender or destruction of something prized for the sake of a higher claim. How does this fit Nomi in this movie so far? Well, there are a lot of interesting things here.  Is she going to sacrifice her life or is she going to sacrifice Bond’s life for a higher claim by authority, a higher goal? There’s some good stuff in here.

A skeptical view of the name Nomi is to look where we’ve seen the name in other movies. We’ve only found one other movie character with that name, that wasn’t in Asian cartoon, and that was Elizabeth Berkley’s character in the movie Showgirls. We don’t know if it was Elizabeth Berkley’s interpretation, the director’s interpretation or whatever, but she was just a nasty character that you really didn’t want to see anymore. So let’s just hope that the Nomi in No Time to Die is much better than the Nomi was in Showgirls.

We know she’s going to be tough. We know that for sure from the trailer. She was terrific in the trailer. She was good, but there always seems to be something in names. Writers are good at this kind of stuff. That’s why the Hemingway references in Licence to Kill and what we thought about with the bell in the No Time to Die trailer referencing “For Whom the Bell Tolls, are important to examine. We discuss the “For Whom the Bell Tolls” reference in our podcast on the No Time to Die trailer.  You can listen to that here (link). 

The Dove
Paloma is the character portrayed by Ana de Armas. What does Poloma mean? It means dove, which is a symbol of peace. So, is she going to have a character role in this film that’s going to be more like on Bond’s side or what? We don’t know, but these writers think of this stuff like we’re thinking of this stuff.

Coca-Cola’s Secret Formula

Bond is like Coca-Cola. It’s obvious, isn’t it? The Coke formula was secret. No one person knew the entire Coca-Cola formula for a hundred years. It’s locked in a safe and people know pieces of it and then they know or put their pieces together and they make the stuff.

The Pepsi Generation

So, in 1963, the maverick and creative genius Alan Maxwell Pottasch launched the ‘Pepsi Generation’ campaign. It was the first major advertising campaign to associate a product with a lifestyle rather than features.

The model before this was to talk about this product this feature, that feature, so this is why you should buy it. This campaign associated the product, Pepsi, with a lifestyle. So they had commercials showing young people skiing or having fun on beaches. And again, it was a lifestyle they were connecting to and not, not the product features. You’re going to live like this.

This made Pepsi a strong competitor to Coca-Cola. There’s a great article on this that came out right after Alan died. It’s called “Creative Father of the ‘Pepsi Generation’ Turned the Lifestyle into a Selling Point” by Betsy McKay on August 4, 2007, in The Wall Street Journal. Here’s a link to the article: (link).

So, here you see a product marketing campaign against a major competitor, Coca-Cola based on associating its product with the younger generation. And it pigeonholed Coca-Cola as the has-been product for the older generation. They never said that explicitly. They never had to, but it worked brilliantly and they had slogans like, “You’ve got a lot to live. Pepsi’s got a lot to give” – just brilliant stuff.

I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke

Coke fought back in the 70s with its own “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke” campaign, which was a huge hit. The man responsible for this campaign was Bill Backer. Bill Backer created the campaign and Billy Davis and Roger Cook actually wrote that song.

But Coke nonetheless was still feeling their market share slipping.

Taking The Gloves Off
Pepsi initially didn’t outright say Coke was the older generation in their initial Pepsi Generation campaign. They kind of implied that.

If you fast forward to the 1990s: you had the Mac versus the PC commercials. This was really in-your-face and not subtle. Did Pepsi’s next move inspire those commercials?

In 1985 Pepsi created an ad attacking Coca-Cola as a relic. There is an archeologist somewhere hundreds of years in the future. And he’s digging up something and it’s a Coke bottle and he’s like quizzically looking at it like, what the hell could this mean? You can see how brilliant this ad is. It won all kinds of awards. It was spectacular. You can find it on YouTube here: (link).

Now Pepsi has Coke cornered. They had to do something.

What Does This Have To Do with James Bond?

We titled this article to imply we would talk about James Bond and No Time to Die, so far we’ve been talking about the cola wars between Coke and Pepsi.   Let’s see where this intersects with today’s James Bond and No Time to Die.

Let’s Change It

In 1985, Coca-Cola decided because the Pepsi generation was eating into their market share, they had to do something. And they came up with the New Coke. They came up with a new formula that they were going to put out there to compete now with Pepsi in a better way, and to become more responsive to the world, to the market, to the new generation, to the new way of doing things.

Pepsi made Coke a relic an out-of-touch-with-reality-dinosaur. Now we’ve heard Bond referred to as a dinosaur in Goldeneye: “I think you’re a sexist, misogynist dinosaur — a relic of the Cold War”, M said to Bond. This a little connection. It’s going to get bigger.

Coke was still number one, but Pepsi was eating the market share. That wasn’t good for Coke. So, they changed their formula. Mistake, right? 13% of soda drinkers liked the new formula. Epic implosion for Coke.

Pepsi jumped all over Coke in commercials, consumers protested and wanted the old Coke back and less than three months later, Coca-Cola announced they were bringing back the old formula as Coke Classic.

Was this a colossal failure on the Coca-Cola company’s part? Clearly, they spent millions of dollars on the New Coke campaign and formula.  But they got a lot of press. They got millions of dollars worth of press out of this. And when they brought back the old formula, because consumers were screaming for the old formula again, that was big news.

The Changing World for Bond

EON Productions is looking at the landscape of the world today: with the #Me Too movement, the focus on the power and leadership of young girls, the focus advancing women’s causes. EON Productions has decided not to call Bond Girl Bond Girls anymore, but Bond Women and so on. All of this is now connected. Why? To be altruistic? Probably not. They weren’t doing all this to be altruistic.

We think they were thinking: Well the market is responding in a certain way. Like the Pepsi and Coke markets responded. We must remember that half of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE movies had better worldwide revenue numbers than the BOND movies introduced since Mission: Impossible released in 1996. Listen to our podcast The Spies Who Loathe Me for a discussion of how MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE is battling the Bond franchise (link).

EON Productions is feeling the heat and you know we still have this Bond guy who is a womanizer and all of his faults. We think they want to broaden the interest in their base: not just men who love Bond movies. But to expand it to the millennials and the younger generation to women and so on.

Dave Holcomb talked a little bit about that on the podcast we did on his book: “His World Never Dies – The Evolution of James Bond”. We have an interview with Dave in our podcast with the same name (link).

Other filmmakers have women spies front and center. Films like: Atomic Blonde, Salt, Charlie’s Angels, Spy, Anna, Red Sparrow, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., and Get Smart all had a woman spy in a lead role.

Some of these movies were making money. They are all trying to capitalize on highlighting women in these lead roles. EON Productions wants to tap into what is happening today in the real world and not be the Coca-Cola bottle found and examined quizzically a few hundred years from now.

Is EON Productions Changing Its Formula?

Will EON Productions truly change the formula in this movie: No Time to Die? This would be a change after 58 years or so, and not a hundred like Coke. But it looks like they’re doing it. So have EON Productions, taken the 1985 version of Coke as a model?

Let’s hope they learned.

Lots of rumors are flying. At the beginning of the filming of Bond 25, now titled No Time to Die, there were rumors that Lashana Lynch, as Nomi, would be introduced as 007. Remember that rumor? Oh yeah, the door opens after M says “Where’s 007?” and in comes Lashana Lynch. That was the rumor in the beginning when they announced Bond 25. And even with the first official trailer out Nomi is acknowledged as a Double-0 agent. But they never say the number that’s after the Double-O (sneaky ad writers).

And one of the rumors about why they changed directors was that James Bond was supposed to die. 

They might still do that in the movie, we just don’t know. But, like Coca-Cola, there’s a lot of hype and lots of attention being paid to Bond and No Time to Die right now and here we’re talking about it again.

So the formula concept here is the same. They’re looking at how to change the formula. We think Eon Productions wants to change the formula.

James Bond’s Previous Formula Changes

Even if you look back at Ian Fleming, when he wrote “The Spy Who Loved Me”, he was changing the formula. And in that particular novel, Bond doesn’t appear until about the middle of the manuscript. And it’s this woman Viviene Michel who’s telling the story. It was not well received by the public. Ian Fleming had tried to change the formula.

In his next novel, the next year, “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”, Bond is mentioned right on the first page and he’s back to the old formula. And in reality, when Eon Productions did The Spy Who Loved Me movie, there was nothing based on that novel that Fleming actually wrote other than the title. So what does Eon Productions want to do?

Ian Fleming tried to kill off Bond in “From Russia With Love”. When they end that book he’s actually poisoned, potentially dying. Because you know, Fleming wanted to get rid of James Bond and write something else. This was much like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wanted to do with Sherlock Holmes. He wanted to get rid of Holmes and write something else.

The Impact of Formula Changes

Coke and EON want to change the formula. Okay. It didn’t work out exactly for Coke or for Ian Fleming when he wrote: “The Spy Who Loved Me”. Quite frankly, we don’t think it will work out for EON Productions. But, they seem to be toying with this idea right now.

Reacting To The Consumer

This movie is the Coke formula. This is what they’re thinking. And now what? Coca-Cola realized that Coca-Cola belongs to the consumers, not the company. Meaning that they felt the consumer reaction and flat sales when they came out with their New Coke and Coke change back quickly, like in 10 weeks.

EON Productions doesn’t have the ability to pivot that quickly if they release a movie with a changed formula that the consumer doesn’t like. They can’t change in 10 weeks as Coca-Cola did. It takes them 5 years to put a movie out.

However, they can change within the movie, which we think they did. At least this is our assumption.

Is This All a Publicity Stunt?

So what will EON Productions do? Is all this hype, a publicity stunt? It could be, which would be great for them because it’s been five years since coming out with their last movie. These rumors are getting all of us to talk about Bond, to hype up No Time to Die so that it’s a box office smash and help the franchise.   They haven’t put a movie out in five years, which is a long time. It’s a long time to be waiting: maybe. Or maybe they really wanted to change the formula.

Just Because You’re Paranoid Doesn’t Mean They Aren’t After You
Let’s remember Joseph Heller’s line in Catch-22: “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.”  EON Productions are running up against MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, which in 2021 and then again in 2022 are releasing movies. This has to be putting the heat on EON. It’s been five years for Bond and they may be changing all this stuff. And if it takes them another five years to react to whatever happens from this one. What happens to the franchise?

Having To Respond To The Backlash

So there you have it. Coke got a lot of backlash from its consumers when they changed the formula. And based on all the rumors at the beginning of Bond 25 when it was being announced, EON Productions got a lot of backlash based on the rumors from fans saying that Bond is Bond, 007 is Bond. Tons of podcasts, YouTube videos, articles almost daily about this stuff.

Look at Bond’s history. Fleming was going to kill off Bond at the end of, “From Russia With Love”. He doesn’t do it. And his next two books were “Dr. No” and “Goldfinger”. If he hadn’t written those books… Remember, the first movie was “Dr. No”.. What would have happened?

So what will EON do?
Maybe, and this is likely to be true if they follow the Coke analogy, maybe we see Bond dying at the end of this film, like in the “From Russia With Love” novel. Dying, not dead. Leaving us with a cliffhanger.

Let’s hope it resolves better than the “Who Shot JR cliffhanger” on the TV show, “Dallas” and his death is just a dream. Or worse yet, assuming this is Daniel Craig’s last turn at Bond, the new Bond actor leaps from the dying/dead body like Joe Pendelton in Here Comes Mr. Jordan or in the remake Heaven Can Wait? A new James Bond pops up from the dying Bond, just as he’s about to expire? Let’s hope not.

A cliffhanger would give Eon Productions another two years, three years, five years, whatever it takes for them to come up with another movie to decide what they’re going to really do.

Is It Time For a Retirement Party?
We talk a little bit about this in our, in our No Time to Die trailer podcast, but maybe Nomi is introduced as 007. Maybe she’s going to be introduced as that. James has kind of retired. The implication is he’s old. In the trailer, they go out of the way to make James Bond seem like he’s been gone a while.

The shot in the trailer when he really looked old was when he’s talking to that security guard. He was asked what his name was. He said Bond …. James Bond. The guard had no idea who this old guy was. We think that was a brilliant way of getting that line into the movie in a different way than normal. (again, changing the formula). Skyfall kind of gave you that feeling as well.

The Trap Eon Productions Finds Itself In

We think EON Productions has a problem though. In the No Time to Die trailer, Nomi tells Bond “the world has changed, Commander Bond. Stay in your lane.” The problem is this: if he survives, (assuming he does and we think he’s going to survive. Based on the Coca-Cola formula, we can assume that.) then how do they bring back an old Bond? This is the problem. They have painted themselves in a little corner here with him being old.

They can’t reboot again. That would be crazy, wouldn’t it? With Daniel, they did a complete reboot and went back to Ian Fleming’s first James Bond book, “Casino Royale”.

But now you’ve got five stories kind of connected here. They’re all connected his five movies, right? So now there’s like, yeah, you’re old, you’re retired, you’re whatever. Now what? He must survive this movie.

With Daniel’s supposed retirement from the role, they are going to have to start with somebody new and in a totally different direction.

So, this is the conundrum there. We think they were thinking at the beginning of their work on this movie, maybe he dies in this movie and we bring up Lashana Lynch as the new 007. We have a woman spy.  But now they’re there in this corner. Now they’re going to have Bond survive because the feedback is not good or whatever. And now he’s old. Now, what do you do? It’s a problem. If they would’ve just said he’s retired cause he was sick of it. Tired of it. Tired of that lifestyle. Okay, that’s good.

Plus, you have a whole industry with James Bond, this James Bond that: all talking about your product and you change it?

So, number one, he’s got to survive. Number two, they have to wrestle with this problem.

However, the trailer appears to go out of its to make him look like he’s been gone awhile nobody even knows who he is anymore. He’s Mr. Irrelevant.

This is a problem. This is a company with about $7 billion in gross revenues for their movies so far. About $4 billion of that was Daniel Craig’s movies. But the world is changing. EON Productions would be wrong if they don’t do what Coke did or at least play around with the formula, but in the end, keep the old one.

Coke released the new formula. and got rid of the old formula. But they were able to react quickly where EON can’t. If they change the formula in this movie and they go with the Lashana-Lynch-as-007 plot, they may find out that only 13% of James Bond fans liked the new formula. Like the Coke experience with their change.

The Old Guard
It’s going to be really interesting, in general, for spy movies because the two biggest series are at a point where their chief spy guy is getting old. We think Tom Cruise’s age is why they’re doing back-to-back releases for MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE. They need to do a handoff. It will be interesting to see what they do: whether they had come up with a new Ethan Hunt or whether it’s Ethan Hunt now running the whole thing as Phelps did. But MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE has the benefit of what happened in the TV show where the teams changed over. They can continue that model easier.

Bond’s a little tougher problem because of where they’ve taken the story arc and Bond’s aging.

Spy Movie Navigator’s Guess

So, we think James Bond will not only survive into a beyond-Craig-as-Bond film with another male lead, but he’ll survive for many decades to come. We don’t think any of us should worry that the formula is going to be changed in such a big way as Coke did it with New Coke.

Bond. Will Survive.

Classic Coke, Classic Bond.


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Commercials (these links will take you to YouTube):

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Article:  Creative Father of the ‘Pepsi Generation’ Turned Lifestyle Into a Selling Point, By  Betsy McKay. Updated Aug. 4, 2007 12:01 am ET in The Wall Street Journal (link)


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