Staring Daniel Craig as the newest James Bond, some of the highs and lows of the production have already been documented on The Last Reel, of course. I gotta say though, for all of its troubles and very public fan backlash over the casting of Craig, things seem pretty solid. Graig certainly looks the part anyway:
The jumbo jet parked on the runway is ready to be blown up.
The fuel truck with the leaky gas tank — and a terrorist bomber behind the wheel — is idling in a nearby hangar. And the Aston Martin belonging to a certain secret agent has juts pulled up to the curb.
In other words, everyone at this secluded airfield outside London, on this picture-perfect July afternoon, is waiting for the cameras to roll on what could be one of the most spectacularly explosive — not to mention spectacularly expensive — action sequences ever shot for a James Bond movie.
Unfortunately, so is the guy in the hang glider, making swooping circles in the sky overhead, snapping as many photos as he can.
''The paparazzi are everywhere,'' sighs a weary Daniel Craig, taking a break as security guards chase after the winged intruder. ''We pulled two of them out of the bushes last night. They were in Prague when we were there. They were in Venice. They were on the beaches in the Bahamas. Everywhere Casino Royale has shot, they've been there.''
Well, who can blame them? The press — and public — always get a little curious whenever someone new starts shaking James Bond's martinis. And this time around, there's certainly plenty to be curious about. After all, many moviegoers had never heard of Craig before October 2005, when it was announced that the 38-year-old blue-eyed Brit would follow Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, and Pierce Brosnan to become the sixth James Bond. Frankly, some wish they still hadn't heard of him: A group of hardcore purists have been so outraged by the casting of a fair-haired actor in a role they believe is strictly for brunets, they've gone so far as to launch an anti-Craig Internet campaign and threaten a boycott of the movie (yes, Mr. Blond, they expect you to dye!). But even those who don't care about hair color, who admire Craig's work in films like Layer Cake and Munich, may have questions about this 21st official installment of the seemingly eternal action series. Because the hair isn't the only thing different about this new 007. In fact, with Casino Royale, Bond is undergoing his boldest makeover since swaggering onto screens some 45 years ago in Dr.No.
''I watched every single Bond movie three or four times, taking in everything I could about how the character had been portrayed in the past — then threw all that away once I started doing the role,'' Craig announces. ''There's no point in making this movie unless it's different. It'd be a waste of time unless we took Bond to a place he'd never been before.''
Of course, some things about Bond never change. In Casino Royale, he still carries a license to kill (although not so many lethal gadgets), takes orders from ''M'' (Judi Dench, the only familiar face returning from previous Bond movies), and invariably goes for the girl with the bodacious, um, accent (this time even getting his heart — among other body parts — broken by French actress Eva Green). Still, make no mistake, this is not your father's 007. In some ways, it's more like your grandfather's. ''We're going back to the character Ian Fleming originally conceived,'' says Barbara Broccoli, producer of the series along with Michael Wilson (Broccoli's half brother and stepson of the franchise's late co founder Albert ''Cubby'' Broccoli). ''It's not a period piece or anything like that. It's set today, right now, and it's got all the action fans have come to expect from the movies. But we're getting back to the essence of Bond, to the Bond in Fleming's first 007 novel.''
Actually, that original novel is hardly the most action-packed in Fleming's oeuvre — the drama essentially hinges on a high-stakes game of baccarat. And it has been (very loosely) adapted before, in 1954 as a live TV drama on Climax! (with a crew-cutted Barry Nelson playing American agent Jimmy Bond), and again in 1967 as a big-screen spoof (with Woody Allen as the diabolically nebbishy Dr. Noah). But now, with this $150 million-plus production, shot over six months at a half dozen locations around the globe, Casino Royale is finally becoming part of the official canon — and a hugely ambitious part at that. As if the previous 20 films never existed, this latest will push the reset button on the whole series, reintroducing Bond to audiences as if for the first time with the tale of his maiden mission as a double-0 agent. Darker and more violent (in one torture scene that actually does come from the novel, Bond's testicles are...oh, but let's not spoil the surprise), with a story line involving no hollowed-out volcanoes or henchmen with oversize orthodontia (only a terrorist financier named Le Chiffre, played by Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen, who Bond is sent to bankrupt at a high-stakes game of Texas Hold 'Em), Royale is a return to a more serious, realistic 007, what Broccoli calls ''classic Bond.''
Obviously, it's an enormous gamble, especially since the franchise hasn't exactly been losing money lately (the last Bond movie, 2002's Die Another Day, grossed $432 million worldwide). But Broccoli and her brother, who used to be famously reluctant to tinker with the franchise's formula, are now convinced it's time to take a risk. Especially since they couldn't think of anything else to do. ''After the last film, we spent eight months trying to come up with a story, but just couldn't,'' says Wilson. ''The movies had become so fantastical — with invisible cars and stuff like that — there was just no way to continue in that same vein. There was nothing new left to do. So we decided to start all over with the story we've always wanted to tell — how Bond became Bond in the first place.'' ...
Be sure and click here to read the entire article.
To be honest, I was never part of the "Craig Is Not Bond Crowd" anyway, and after 44 years on the big screen.. a 007 reboot may be just what the doctor ordered. Casino Royale opens Nov 17 2006.
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