It seems that the next James Bond film will, in fact, be the one fans of author Ian Fleming's original novels have long been waiting for -- an adaptation of the author's first and most character-driven novel, Casino Royale! This news was announced along with the fact that the adaptation will likely be ruined by director Martin Campbell who competently directed the first Pierce Brosnan film Goldeneye, but that means you can also credit him for turning James Bond into just another action hero.
Shockingly, E! Online managed to briefly mention the full history behind Casino Royale: it was Fleming's first Bond novel that for some reason was never optioned by Eon Productions -- the producers of all the Bond films run by Broccoli dad and now daughter -- so instead the title was used for a spoof in 1967. While E! was doing a decent job with the story, industry trade paper Variety's own story (sub req'd)stupidly attributes the choice of title to distrib MGM being on a "title revival role," explaining that the new Inspector Clouseau movie with Steve Martin will be called The Pink Panther, just like the first film in that series starring Peter Sellers and David Niven, both of whom also starred in the Bond-spoof. Instead, author Nicole Laporte seems to be ignorant of the fact that the film is a return to adaptations of original Fleming-written Bond source material, something which hasn't happened in over 15 years since The Living Daylights (and that was only a short story, not a novel).
Campbell is yet another action hack, just not one as offensive as, say, oh, I don't know ... Michael Bay. I mentioned a long time ago that my dream for a next Bond picture would be "Clive Owen as James Bond in Casino Royale directed by Quentin Tarantino." Well, it won't be Quentin (who absolutely would be more interesting than Campbell), but there's still a chance that it could be Owen. The novel Casino Royale is a phenomenal character study that, while creating the suave British spy we've come to know and love, also presents Bond as a darker, more mysterious character than the one to whcih we've become accustomed to in the films. With the right actor, Campbell is decent enough to (hopefully) not screw it up too much. Here's hoping the right choice is made.
It's great to hear Casino Royale is finally going to become a proper Bond film...but it's a shame QT won't be directing. CR was Flemming's most dialogue driven book, but I guess with the Goldeneye cat directing, that won't be the case with the film. I'll never understand why Goldeneye was so popular; I always thought it was one of the blandest Bond outings. And I bet without QT, Uma Thurman won't be playing Vesper Lynd. That's too bad as well.
I've only seen Clive Owen in King Arthur (IMO the worst film of 2004) and though he looks the part, he was a black-hole of charisma. I know he's supposed to good in Closer though.
Posted by: Eddy Faust | Friday, February 04, 2005 at 12:10 PM
Eddy, for a good noir-ish Clive Owen pic, check out Croupier. Instead of playing the baccrat as Bond (crossed fingers), Owen's dealing it in this one. It's not bad.
Great site, Aaron.
Posted by: tj | Friday, February 04, 2005 at 01:09 PM
Eddy: tj is totally correct. While I'm not going to hail King Arthur as a good film, I think Owen was hurt by a director who is weak with actors and an underwritten character in an underwritten script. But, I think if you take his role in Croupier, mix it with a bit of Arthur and throw in Closer on top and then a dash of those Mercedes short films he made, then make the guy a British spy, you've got the perfect James Bond. I actually think that a well-made Casino Royale with Clive Owen in the role could be the absolute best of the entire Bond series of films, even topping anything done by Connery. Yes, I know that's sacrilege, but it's true. Owen is, in many ways, a great mix of the best qualities of Connery, Moore and Dalton, and he's less "pretty" than Brosnan.
I'm totally with you on Goldeneye. It was fine, but it was basically just a big action movie with a lead character named James Bond. I, too, fear that Campbell is going to provide less than what is possible.
Posted by: Aaron | Friday, February 04, 2005 at 01:30 PM
Those were BMW short films by the way.
http://www.bmwfilms.com/
Posted by: neon rebel | Friday, February 04, 2005 at 09:42 PM