007 Shows up with daughter at No Time to Die premier
Nothing lasts forever, right?
Honest presidents, cheap gas, movies with actual actors and story lines, as opposed to over-the-hill actresses winning Academy Award for pooping into buckets.
That said, COVID delays aside, at least we still have James Bond…for now.
I checked out the new Bond flick No Time to Die on opening night – the one that took nearly two years to find its way to movie theaters, after having an announced opening more than a year ago.
And, any…?
“I did like it,” says KCC movie maven Jack Poessiger. “In spite of the fact that it’s two hours and 46 minutes long.”
Speaking of which…
“I recommend you go to the bathroom first,” Poessiger says. “Because once it starts you won’t want to have to get up.”
Incidentally, here in Arizona, next-to-nobody hardly ever goes to a movie theater these days. Still they snagged around 50 people at my opening night 7:20 pm screening.
Which was a new record, since every other movie I’ve seen a movie was like a ghost town.
I checked on some of Kansas City area theaters and they were doing far better, but looks like we have a way to go to try and catch up to the pre COVID movie era.
Will movie theater moviegoing return to the good old days?
“I’ll grant you, a lot of theaters will go away,” Poessiger says. “There won’t be as many of them as we have now.
Also going away: the current James Bond, actor Daniel Craig.
“The talk is, there’ll either be a black Bond or a female Bond next,” Poessiger says.
Hold it right there…
There already is effectively a female Bond of sorts – Lashana Lynch – in the just released movie.
The schtick being, Bond had retired and Lynch was given his 007 designation.
But since Craig won’t be returning, movie rights holder Barbara Broccoli is already on record that the next James Bond will remain a dude…
English actor Idris Elba – who is black – is who Poessiger thinks might take Craig’s place.
Although buy the time the next JB movies hits the screen, he’ll be 50.
Lynch’s 007 will be back for the next film, but the jury’s still out on if she’s gay or straight.
Such are the times we live in…
No spring chicken these days
“Daniel Craig didn’t even want to make this movie,” Poessiger says. “They had to talk him into it. So he reluctantly agreed to make one more, and they have gone on record that they’re not going to announce a new Bond until next year.”
In return for his return, Craig was given certain concessions, Poessiger says.
“My take is he’s really more human – less sexist in this movie,” he adds.
As for the all-important bottom line, holding back James Bond for almost two years – exclusive to theaters – with no high dollar streaming options, theatre operators like KC based AMC Theatres arecrossing their fingers for a post COVID movies comeback.
“If this movie grosses $80 million domestically this (first) weekend, it would be a coup,” Poessiger says. “About two weeks ago they were projecting $60 million.”
Turns out $60 million was the correct prediction….which isn’t bad for a movie that skews toward oldsters.
In another life, a pre COVID opening in the neighborhood of say $120 million might have been possible, Poessiger says.
Speaking of big bucks…
Netflix reportedly offered Broccoli between $600 to $750 million to “take over the Bond franchise,” Poessiger says, “but she turned it down.”
That’s a lot to turn down…given that James Bond aficionados- i.e. older moviegoers – have yet to begin showing back up at theaters.
So, uh, stay tuned.
Esquire just did a story on the Bond movie No Time To Die and who will maybe be the new James Bond. Barbara Broccoli is quoted as saying, “So yes: that means James Bond can be non-white. He can be non-British, Broccoli confirmed. But he can’t – for now, at least – be a woman. “We should create roles for women, not just turn a man into a woman,” Broccoli said. Craig echoed those same thoughts in a couple of No Time To Die promo interviews.”
Esquire later in the piece quoted Barbara Broccoli saying, “James Bond will never be a woman. What’s happened here is a bit of confusion between a job title, and a character.’ This was in reference to the end of No Time To Die, Nomi is not even 007 anymore, handing Bond his shirt back at the end. What happened there is a bit of confusion between a job title, and a character as in the end Bond gets back his 007 number.
Esquire says what the next incarnation of Bond will embody depends who plays him. These are the frontrunners. And no, Idris Elba isn’t among them.
Sorry Jack.
This isn’t the complete list Esquire had posted of the new maybe Bonds, from some kind of voting they did but a few of the names that grabbed my attention. Interesting enough there were no real clear runaway winners for the role.
Dev Patel 85% says no.
Luke Evans 63% says no
Regé-Jean Page 62% says no
Tom Holland 87% says no
Cillian Murphy 66% says no
Tom Hardy 53% says no (My pick to be 007)
Robert Pattinson 82% says no
James Norton 68% says no
Jack Lowden 86% says no
Daniel Kaluuya 85% says no
Michael Fassbender 45% says no
Henry Cavill 43% says no (Who lost out to Daniel Craig 10 years ago)
That broad looks a bit like Jennifer Watson The Watson’s Girl. Dylan misses her.
Poor Dylan
007 hasn’t been the same since On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Yes, the George Lazenby one. That was the last movie where Bond made the trends instead of following them. Once that movie ended it all changed from there. The next movie, Diamonds are Forever was a comedy and a glorified parody of Sean Connery’s other Bond movies. Then the Roger Moore years happen. Live and Let Die followed a popular trend and put Bond in a Blaxploitation movie. Even worse, Bond gave us his traditional firearm for a 357 Magnum like some dirty guy from San Francisco. Then in The Man With the Golden Gun Bond followed the Kung Fu Trend. Heck in the late ’80s in Licence to Kill, they made Bond a rouge agent that follows his own rules to follow the Lethal Weapon/Die Hard trend.
Yes some agree with you but the Broccoli’s were smiling all the way to the bank from the films you mention and still do.
No doubt…
I watched the first two James Bonds on Amazon Prime just for a reference point and they were a bit slow and Sean Connery looked a lot nerdier (than I remembered him) early on.
We’ll see what happens going forward, but it’s more than just possible that the Bond movies will go the way of the Saint and Sherlock Holmes at this point