Blockbuster features inside “James Bond” movie If we trace the evolution of the genre inside the “Bondiana”, we can see that the base structure and the set of special effects stay the same. There’s always a pursuit with the spectacular ending and tense shooting, beautiful landscapes, expensive clothes and other characteristic features of the series.
Setting our eyes upon the first part of the movies with Sean Connery, we can mention that the first two movies were relatively cheap (appendix 1). Basically they consist of small skirmishes, man-to-man fights, pursuits and exotic locations (Turkey in “From Russia with love” or Jamaica in “Dr.No”). But the next ones called “Goldfinger” and “Thunderball” respectively got the first Oscar awards for the visual effects. It just proved that “Bondiana” became a real significant event in the cinema along with its technical facilities and action in the inside. But the next nomination for the visual effects appeared only in 1979. Despite the growing budget the innovations and original moves in James Bond faded away. A great and epic scene in the underground silo (along with 9 500 000 $ (appendix 1) spent on the production) in “You Only Live Twice” was the last resolute step of the creators of the movie.
The cliché of the structure of the movies with the next Bond played by Roger Moore became unbearable for the producers and they didn’t spare neither strength nor resources for the recreating the space decorations in “Moonraker”. Record-breaking budget of 31 000 000$ (appendix 1) was an attempt to bring the visual effects statuette back but by 1979, the space theme and large amounts of money were not as extraordinary as they were in the 60s. There’s no doubt that the visual specialists found their inspiration in Star Wars series and tried to achieve the success on the wave of popularity of Lucas films.
Turning to the Dalton’s era, we can still direct our eyes upon the budget of the movies, which stand in the neighborhood of 30 000 000 $ but the inside of the movies wasn’t very remarkable and the lowering of the grosses of “Bondiana” made the producers to reconsider the approach to the movie, to change the main actor from Dalton to Brosnan and after six years of silence a new Bond appeared on the screen.
The cost of the movie was doubled ($58 000 000) and examining “Golden eye” we can notice that they weren’t spend for nothing. The famous scene in Russia when Bond drives T-54 along the streets of St.Petersburg was really impressive and showed us a new kind of “Bondiana” based on massive special effects and action. From that time we can observe an increase in the sums spent on the production and technical improvement that was made to attract more people and cause more grosses to the prejudice of sense component. It is worth mentioning by the way that there’s a direct proportionality between budget and the quality of the scenario and logical structure of the movies.
The last movies with Daniel Craig as a main character still have colossal budgets (appendix 1) along with latest technologies and tools in creating the scenes. For example “Casino Royale” marked with the appearance of innovative way of travelling around – the so-called parkour [45] and this scene in the beginning of the movie (or pursuit) was very impressive and fresh for the Bond series. Nonetheless the inside of the movie lost its unreality of gadgets and equipment as in the previous parts of series and so was the will of the producers who wanted to remake the “Bondiana” in that way, not in the way of typical action-hero movie like it was with “Brosnan Bond”. We will return again to this issue in the second chapter of this research and dwell our attention upon this changes.
We stated that “Bondiana” can be named as a mixture of three components: action genre, thriller genre and a crime element. According to these data and tracing all the history of “Bondiana” and its technical evolution we can also mention that the James Bond series always were distinguished by the spectacular budgets, spent on the production along with subsequent high profits, got from the screens (appendix 1). That (especially the last one) features give us the right to consider the James Bond series as movies very close in its sense with the very popular concept nowadays, known as “blockbuster”.
According to the results of the research,madein the first chapter, we can state the following.
1. The phenomenon of the media franchises emerged with the appearance of such movies as “Star Wars” or “James Bond” on the screens. We examined a few methods of defining the media franchise and followed the occasional blending of the concepts “blockbuster” and “franchise”.
2. There is a specific “Bond genre” as a part of the spy-movie genre and it consists of three components: crime, action and thriller. And we easily found out all the necessary evidence in the Bond movies.
3. The concept “blockbuster” came into the world in its current sense long after the appearing of the first “James Bond” movies but we surely can apply “Bondiana” to this term, according to the research. The first tries of the production of the movies, oriented on the profits only were in the historical genre but with the emerging of the science-fiction movies and such spy-thrillers like James Bond the concept of blockbuster changed a little bit of its functionality.
4. The development of technologies and the profit of the “Bond” series took a serious effect on the filling of the movies and sometimes this impact was negative. It influenced on the scenarios of the last movies with Pearce Brosnan for example and despite the fact that the film showed well in cinemas, the reviews from the critics were not so good. Also we mentioned a very important point, connected with another type of description of the “Bond” series. We found out that the genres (thriller and action) along with “Bond’s” budgets, profits and popularity gave us an opportunity to name the movies as blockbusters.
CHAPTER II. TWO “AGES” OF “JAMES BOND” MOVIE
Bond movies” industry in 1962-2002
Earlier attempts to adapt the James Bond novels were not very successful. However, there was a television episode of Climax! in 1954, based on the first novel, Casino Royale. Ian Fleming wanted to go one step further and offered producer Alexander Korda to make a film adaptation of “Live and Let Die” or other story. Initially the producer was interested in production but later he withdrew [29, p. 255]. In 1959 Fleming returned to the writing of a scenario for the James Bond movie. However, Alfred Hitchcock turned down the project [46] and a little bit later the whole deal fell through.
The key point started in 1959 with the producer Albert R. Broccoli who expressed interest in adapting the Bond stories. In 1961, Broccoli, joined his intentions with Harry Saltzman, purchased the film rights from Fleming [10, p. 5]. But for the first time there were huge problems with the studios who founded James Bond “too British” or “too blatantly sexual” [33, p. 13]. Broccoli and Saltzman wanted in the neighbourhood of a 1 000 000 $ to adapt either “Thunderball” or “Dr. No”, and finally made a deal with United Artists in July 1961. The two producers set up Eon Productions and the production of “Dr. No” began [10, p. 43].
It is worth mentioning that Bond films were backed by American dollars (United Artists) and despite the fact that first movies of Bond were clearly British, Hollywood played a very important role in the creation of the “Bondiana”.
In the first movies of the series all the traditional features of James Bond appeared on the screen and became essential for the franchise. This involved exotic locations (such as Turkey, different islands etc.); special effects; gadgets; exciting action scenes which are defused after their climax by joke or comedy.
Along with that we can also notice such things as a leading girl, whose function is generally connected with the sexual stimulation; suspicious foreigners and rivals of Bond (close to the maniacs); famous title song for each film which is similar to the original Bond theme; a big budget and a high-profile marketing campaign at last. Almost all these features became a kind of traditions for the series and were repeated in every next movie.
The basic Bond personality was developed by the Scottish actor Sean Connery. Actually, Connery was not the producers or Fleming's first choice, but they had to accept him as James Bond after being rejected by Patrick McGoohan and other famous actors. Sean Connery's selection as James Bond became real because of Dana Broccoli, wife of Cubby Broccoli. She assured that Sean Connery was the right man [5]. And it was the truth. Despite the fact that for the first time even Fleming didn’t approve the candidate for the main character after a few successful movies everybody had to admit that they were wrong, judging by Connery’s Scottish appearance. As for Fleming, he changed his mind and we could find the evidence of it in his late novels where he created a half-Scottish, half-Swiss heritage for the character.
“Though “Dr. No” received mixed reviews, some quite hostile, and even received a rebuke by the Vatican” [2, p. 16] it was a relatively good start for the franchise and showed a good distribution (appendix 1).
After the success, Connery continued to play the character in four movies in a row: “From Russia with Love” (1963), “Goldfinger” (1964), “Thunderball” (1965), and “You Only Live Twice” (1967).
Among these movies the most notable one probably is “Goldfinger”. The movie marked with the first appearance of the Aston Martin DB5 and the use of a menacing laser, newly invented just years before and not widely known to the public. One of the most famous quotes came from this movie as well and described the attitude of all Bond’s rivals with no exception throughout the whole life of the agent:
James Bond: Do you expect me to talk?
Goldfinger: No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die! [42, p. 48]
Also as we mentioned before in the first chapter, it was the first Bond film to win an Oscar (category: Best Effects, Sound Effects)
After “You Only Live Twice” Connery said that it was his last performance as Bond. The producers decided to continue the series and launched a search for a Bond actor. To replace Connery, initially was chosen an actor Timothy Dalton. However, Dalton refused to the offer, considering himself too young for the role [19].
Eventually Brocolli chose AustralianGeorge Lazenbyafter his performance in a Fry's Chocolate Cream advertisement [22]. They liked his appearance, especially his physical form and offered him a contract for 7 movies. But George was convinced by his agent Ronan that the role of secret agent would become obsolete in the 70 and finally Lazenby decided to leave the series after the release of “On Her Majesty's Secret Service”. As for his Bond, the reviews were quite mixed. Some of the critics mentioned his similarity to the image in books and his physical conditions, but on the other hand Lazenby was rebuked for his foolish appearance in elegant suits and “delivered his lines poorly” [28, p. 159]
After the decision of Lazenby, the producers tried to return to the previous formula of success and Connery as an embodiment of it. The Scottish actor was offered a huge contract and agreed to play James Bond one more time in “Diamonds Are Forever”. Despite a commercial success, critics blamed it for its mannered humour, weak plot and secondary characters. Connery left the series after this movie once and for all but all efforts made by Sean, didn’t help him with the fact that “he was forever tainted with Bond 007 iconography: forever the laconic hero, Connery is Bond” [43, p. 180].
After Connery the search for the actor started again. There were some significant persons among candidates but the work went to the forty-five year-old Roger Moore who became the longest Bond ever with 12 years in the role along with 7 movies [28, p. 186].
With the new actor, the films became more comedic, successfully combined dark and sometimes odd humour with violence. In regards to this new embodiment of James Bond, one critic mentioned “Roger Moore has none of the gravitas of Sean Connery ... he does fit slickly into the director's presentation of Bond as a lethal comedian” [42, p. 126]. It’s worth mentioning also that Moore tried to go away from the image of James Bond made by Connery with a little change in the appearance and behaviour of the main character. He changed the cigarettes into cigars and sometimes prefers bourbon rather than the traditional vodka-martini. Despite some portion of criticism, Moore’s “Bondiana” kept the series alive in the 1970-80s with Moore playing the role until 57. The survival of the series was due to the addition of more contemporary thematic and adding new characters to inspire the outdated Fleming plots [42, p. 117]. Perhaps the most notable movie among the series in 70s was “Moonraker”, who was decided to be more sci-fi because of the success of the Star Wars movie. In 1980s “Bondiana” wasn’t the best example of itself with the aged Moore and weak plots, especially the last one named “A View To Kill” (1985), which received a very bad background from the reviewers.
Moore left the series in 1985 and created a matter of choice for the producers again but the task wasn’t very difficult for them because they decided to give this work to Timothy Dalton who could get this job at the age of 22 but refused and returned to the “Bondiana” question at the age of 41.
He was a real actor in all meanings of this word and trained in the British Shakespearean tradition and it influenced on his vision of Bond. The Guardian remarked, “Dalton hasn't the natural authority of Connery nor the facile charm of Moore, but Lazenby he is not” [2, p. 178]. He is often credited for being the closest to Ian Fleming's Bond, though more so for his hard-edged performance in “Licence to Kill” [38, p. 302]. But the two movies with Dalton, though received some positive view from the critics, showed very low results in the box-offices. In order to save on production costs, the producers even decided to shoot “Licence to Kill”, in Mexico rather than at Pinewood Studios in the UK but the failed marketing campaign and some other mistakes ruined the results of the movie. From the period since 1989 till 1994 there had been a lot of talks about the next movie but due to the financial problems it never began. Owing to the legal disputes, the production of Dalton's third film was postponed several times. In April 1994, Dalton resigned from the role [7].
To replace Dalton, the producers chose Pierce Brosnan, whom they had met earlier on the set of “For Your Eyes Only”. According to all review after the first film starring Brosnan (“Golden Eye”) it was a “direct hit”. Tom Shone of London's The Times commented, “Brosnan shares none of Connery's virtues but has also been careful to avoid Moore's vices. It doesn't give him much room for manoeuvre, but then manoeuvring in tight corners is the one thing Brosnan is quite good at”.
Box-office just proved that Brosnan was an ideal candidate for the replacement and he really gave a new inspiration to the series that was falling down in the beginning of the 90s.
Brosnan portrayed Bond in three more films, “Tomorrow Never Dies” (1997), “The World Is Not Enough” (1999) and “Die Another Day” (2002), before Eon stated that Brosnan wouldn’t get a new contract as the film series was about to be remade and the search for a new agent 007 was on. Despite the fantastic action scenes, production values and benefits, some of the reviewers claimed that the final two Brosnan films to be too unreal and too overfilled with action and gadgets with little time, spent on the characters and logic in scenario [28, p. 430].
In July 2004, Brosnan said that he was quitting the role, adding “Bond is another lifetime, behind me” [37]. So the era of the “old Bond” was ended and the producers decided that the time to revive the series, to deliver the “Bondiana” from its archaic structure and traditions, to change the personality of Bond and to make it more serious and close to the ordinary people, came. Thus, “Casino Royale” was born.
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