Just a bit of background about me, first. I’m not old enough to be an original James Bond fan. I think the first Bond movie I remember seeing was “Moonraker” at the drive-in my father used to work at. I was about 8 years old at the time. (The fact that “Moonraker” was the first Bond movie I saw, and I still became a fan says something! I don’t know what, but something.) So I grew up with Roger Moore being my generational James Bond. And yet to me, even back then, he was Simon Templar first, James Bond second. I guess that speaks a lot about the influence my father had on my TV/movie tastes growing up. He, of course, was a Sean Connery man. No one could ever be as good as Connery. No one. It’s a shame my father didn’t live long enough to see Daniel Craig. Though I’m sure he would have found something not on par with Connery, I think maybe deep down, he would have liked him.
Anyway, I went through the Roger Moore era (missed the previous George Lazenby one-shot), the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Timothy Dalton vignette, and the never-too-late-to-be-Bond Pierce Brosnan decade. (For those who don’t follow the Bond history, Pierce Brosnan was actually meant to take over the role back when he thought his TV show, “Remington Steele” was being cancelled. The story goes, the producers of the show heard the news and thought it would be great publicity for the show to keep him on another year. It didn’t help the ratings and it certainly didn’t help Brosnan, who had to wait ten years to get another chance to play Bond. Somewhere, I still have the People magazine cover with Brosnan on it, with the tag, “Take this job and shove it”.) Then came Daniel Craig.
I had to be reminded he was in “Layer Cake”, a movie I had seen but forgotten. This was going to be the new Bond? Wow. I was intrigued. (Keep in mind, I’m one of the 4 people who actually liked Timothy Dalton.) Interestingly enough, I was intrigued for the same reasons naysayers were bitching about the choice. Too blonde, too blue-eyed, too short, too thugish. A website created solely to bash the actor made the magazines no doubt because of the simple fact that it was outlandish in its purpose- imagine bashing someone before a single frame had been made public. It’d be like going into a Gordon Ramsay restaurant and saying the bass is too salty before you’ve even ordered. (And yes, they’re still nattering on about how miscast he is, how they’re not haters just real fans, etc., etc.) The venom was so hateful that I vowed there and then, without having seen a single frame myself, to go in the opposite direction- I was going to like this guy if it killed me. :p (Fortunately, after the steaming pile of “Die Another Day”, anything short of casting Rowan Atkinson was a step up.) Luckily, I didn’t have to work that hard. “Casino Royale” was amazing, energetic and a breath of fresh air to a franchise that had run out of steam. I mean, after you’re given a horrible Halle Berry CGI 200-foot back dive and an invisible car, where do you go from there??
Where do you go? All the way to the bank, baby!
- Best 1st weekend in the UK for a Bond flick, beating “Die Another Day” by 46%;
- top 3 all-time UK opening weekends;
- earned more in its 1st 2 weeks in the UK than “Die Another Day”‘s entire UK run;
- 6th highest grossing film in the UK, all-time;
- highest grossing Bond film worldwide, ever;
- final worldwide box office total $6 million shy of $600 million -source
Of course, the real test was not in the first DC-as-Bond movie, but in the second. The first one couldn’t go anywhere but up, considering the pre-release criticism of Daniel Craig. (And to be fair to the anti-DC-as-Bond website, they weren’t the only ones with their sticks out.) Very, very few expected it to do well, and even fewer expected it to be fucking AMAZING. :p I think in their heart of hearts, even those associated with the film would have been happy had it simply not bombed. Now, that same pressure must be building, but magnified by nearly 600 million and the same naysayers who are dying to say, “I told you so!” I imagine that first weekend will involve lots of alcohol for those directly involved!
All this runaround to get to the point of this post- the official trailer for “Quantum of Solace” came out today! I’ll tell you this much- whatever it makes, they’ve got my money.
