MGM bankruptcy may free "Bond 23" production

Started by quiller, October 10, 2010, 08:24:26 AM

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quiller

It took me about two hours to piece this together, which is half the fun if you're learning something. I started out researching actor Daniel Craig and wound up with this....

QuoteFinally. MGM (that's Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. to you) is finally going to file for bankruptcy. The beleaguered studio, home of the James Bond franchise and once a powerhouse in the movie industry, has put the finishing touches on a pre-packaged bankruptcy and new executive structure that, if all goes as the studio hopes, will put Spyglass Entertainment co-chiefs Gary Barber and Roger Birnbaum in charge. The plan has to be approved by nearly 100 creditors (the deadline is Oct. 22) and would see MGM reduced to a small production company releasing about half a dozen pictures annually. Barber and Birnbaum will likely lay off much of MGM's staff, including motion picture group Chairman Mary Parent and other executives. More on the plans from the Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2010/10/the-morning-fix-mgm-.html

BANKRUPTCY? James Bond gets a skateboard. Q demoted to L.

"Bond 23" producer David C. Wilson FINALLY confirmed Sam Mendes will direct. http://commanderbond.net/12278/wilson-gives-update-on-bond-23.html

Sam Mendes won an Oscar winner for "American Beauty," but the closest this director-in-decline has come to an action film was "Road to Perdition," also with Craig in the cast.

Of course the fans are outraged, over at the single largest, most heavily-documented James Bond site ever created in this or any other universe, the CommanderBond.net crew who will scare the casual Bond fan silly with their erudition. (There. I said it. These people are the True Faith for 007. I am unworthy in their midst.) http://commanderbond.net

They don't like Mendes any more than Patrick Goldstein, at the Los Angeles Times. Well, Goldstein likes Mendes but considers it hack-work to direct a formulaic Bond film. (Define "hack" if your film is automatically an enduring part of what becomes seriously nifty DVD gift-packs, and you get a cut of it somewhere.)

Herewith Goldstein's meat-cleaver job, tuned and honed:

QuoteWhile I'm also happy to see filmmakers practicing their craft, this is a bad decision in oh, so many ways, not to mention a depressing example of how hard it is for filmmakers to find any good studio material to work with. Not that I'm letting Mendes off the hook here. His career has been in steep decline, both in terms of critical as well as commercial success. In fact, if you look at the grosses on his five feature films, they form a graph that goes in only one direction -- straight down.

Mendes' biggest-grossing film was "American Beauty," his splashy Hollywood debut that made $130 million. His second film, "Road to Perdition," made $104 million. His next, "Jarhead," topped out at $62 million. "Revolutionary Road" only grossed $22 million while his most recent film, last year's road-trip comedy, "Away We Go," struggled to earn $9.4 million. Many critics would say the quality index on Mendes' films has gone just as precipitously downhill, with "Revolutionary Road," adapted from a brilliant Richard Yates cult novel, being an especially chilly, claustrophobic letdown.

That's liberal movie critic tough-love chuggin' along, there. One hopes he's wrong, but the guy packs so much fact into tweo short paragraphs, it's awfully tough to argue with. Why pick a director on the decline, one with no action-film experience, for a film the fans are chafing to see?

There's more, but the piece is badly outdated to last January, and the only thing now of interest is Goldstein's mention that Mendes is represented by CAA (Creative Arts Agency, the current-era power-agency in Hollyweird). http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/the_big_picture/2010/01/sam-mendes-jumps-onto-the-james-bond-gravy-train.html

...And why that strikes a chord is that I found out Daniel Craig ended his U.S. contract with William Morris just before accepting the Bond role, and cut them out of the $2 million he earned for Casino Royale. He's now with CAA as well as Mendes.

Craig earned $4.5 million for Quantum of Solace, according to numerous Internet sources. Haven't found anything yet to show CAA was behind that hefty pay-hike, but wouldn't doubt it.

The larger question for me is, what if Mendes is permanently in decline, and turns out the mess that finally breaks the single longest-running movie franchise in history?

Wilson correctly states Quantum of Solace lost its way and eased out the previous director, with months of speculation over Mendes and finally this week's confirmation this "straight drama" director would helm Bond 23.

It's not putting-down "Road to Perdition" to say it was not a fraction as rough-and-tumble as even the least of the Fleming-written Bond short stories. It was a good genre film and arguably even a great one for Mendes's particular approach to "Perdition's" hugely complex characters, and too for its star-casting both Tom Hanks and Paul Newman. But let's face it. If Eon Productions insists upon British directors for the UK's number one global cinema product, they are wise to look harder than this shaky declining bet.

Now maybe they'll re-start work on the script, now that the MGM mess is starting to untangle.

quiller

UPDATE....

QuoteNEW YORK, New York (X17online) - MGM has filed a financial-reorganization plan at the New York U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

In the plan, the studio named Spyglass Entertainment execs Roger Birnbaum and Gary Barber as CEO's of MGM. Over 100 studio lenders agreed on the deal that would exchange nearly $4 billion in debt holdings for 99% of the financially-troubled company.

Carl Icahn, who is one of MGM's biggest debtholders, made changes to the final terms of the deal before it was approved.

MGM chief Steve Cooper made the following statement:

      "For many months, we have been working with our lenders to explore the strategic options available to MGM to improve MGM's financial position and maximize the company's value. By sharply reducing MGM's debt load and providing access to new capital, the proposed plan of reorganization achieves these goals. Having received approval through our recently completed solicitation process, we are pleased that the lenders support MGM's approach. We now look forward to quickly emerging from Chapter 11."

MGM will hold on to a 50% stake in The Hobbit movie, and will also seek to resume production plans on the next 007 film.

http://x17online.com/news/2010/11/mgm_gets_financial_support_thr.php

If they're very, very, VERY lucky, "Bond 23" will be out in time for the 2012 Christmas season. I haven't seen anything substantive about any script (except that it's only halfway through Draft 1).

AmericanFlyer

Daniel Craig is AWFUL as James Bond.  I would rate him as an equal with Timothy Dalton.

In my book, Pierce Brosnan and Sean Connery are absolutely the BEST James Bonds that will ever play the part, with Roger Moore a distant third. 

It's all about the LOOK.  Doesn't matter if James Bond is some kind of physical specimen, and Bond is not supposed to be rough-looking.  He has to be suave, debonair, and "sneaky" ruthless. 

quiller

Quote from: AmericanFlyer on November 13, 2010, 06:39:55 PM
Daniel Craig is AWFUL as James Bond.  I would rate him as an equal with Timothy Dalton.

In my book, Pierce Brosnan and Sean Connery are absolutely the BEST James Bonds that will ever play the part, with Roger Moore a distant third. 

It's all about the LOOK.  Doesn't matter if James Bond is some kind of physical specimen, and Bond is not supposed to be rough-looking.  He has to be suave, debonair, and "sneaky" ruthless.

Keep in mind I have linked to the true Bond cognoscenti, and don't wish to pretend to knowing anything more behind-the-scenes stuff than vague press reports.

From the instant that Craig appeared in the Lara Croft film, and after excellent other work in numerous other films, he became a front-runner to replace Brosnan (who I feel was retired two films too early).

Never Say Never reiterated Bond's age had finally caught up with him. The film was a delight in reprising the one and only James Bond personally approved by Ian Fleming. I feel Fleming would agree Brosnan best exemplified the suave super-agent. The question was, could Brosnan sustain another two films in the same tradition as he'd been doing?

I felt Moore excelled as The Saint and utterly failed as James Bond. Timothy Dalton caught Connery's basic thuggery but Dalton's Royal Shakespeare background actually brought him into a slumming mentality as Bond. He really was too good for this, but the money was great, so why not?

That said, your central point is, Daniel Craig is "awful." And therein lies a matter of casting, for each of us has our own image of Bond, and mine began in Fleming's novels, bought in first paperback editions, and the glorious Connery films.

But then reality intrudes and two-year film-making might not appeal to anyone interested in doing lots of roles throughout their careers. I'm definitely impressed Craig has kept up in other films, including Defiance and Layer Cake.

Back to changing my mind about casting, after Connery. I gave an open mind to the Lazenby version, which had a good script and can't-miss scenery --- and to the eminently overqualified Dalton --- but I shut down entirely over Moore. I have but rarely watch anything he did as 007.

I strongly recommend you give Craig a chance as an actor and see him in Archangel, which slickly updates the old Cold War Len Deighton days where "Harry Palmer" (Michael Caine) gave us triumphs like The Ipcress File and Funeral in Berlin.

Craig's dynamic with Dame Judy Densch is nicely-done, though definitely not as militant as was her first drink with Brosnan, telling him she'd send him to his death if she had to. The problem lies in wading into the Gardner stories rather than revisit Connery's original films (and Fleming's books) in proper order. Do this right, and bring us a modern fight on the Orient Express, with a real villain like Robert Shaw was in From Russia With Love.

I suggest you confuse a nothing-burger wimp villain like that French toad in Quantum of Solace to someone actually good at their job. I wonder who this generation's version of Rosa Klebb would be. After Lotte Lenya, the casting on THAT one might be a real challenge!

Also: fire whoever wrote Quantum. A Walther PPK should get that done, admirably.

Solars Toy

I pray, not wish because I have a God not a Genie.

quiller

Quote from: Solars Toy on November 13, 2010, 08:09:04 PM
Yes he was the perfect Bond....

I'll toast a glass of 1952 Dom Perignon to that (though I'm still a Connery guy at heart).

Brosnan simply wasn't ready for the role while tied up doing Remington Steele (a pathetic effort I intensely disliked, like Bruce Willis in Moonlighting). Funny how action stars grow into things! I think Brosnan's looks would have held for ONE film but not two. In a way this left Brosnan going out looking his best, before the Connery age factor set in and he too would be huffing and puffing at Scrublands. Eliminating those free radicals, or some such.

More importantly, Brosnan would not fit into the image for Bond that worked marvelously well in the first dramatic Casino Royale, the missing holy grail among the Fleming novels gone to film.

Solars Toy



Not bad either....The others never seemed right. :) :)
I pray, not wish because I have a God not a Genie.

quiller

Connery himself said it, but in a different series: "There can be only one."

AmericanFlyer

So basically, my comment that Connery and Brosnan were the two best James Bonds seems to be accurate, based on what the rest of you are saying.  It's all personal preference, of course.

And of course Ian Fleming never approved of any of the James Bonds after Connery because he was DEAD.  So Fleming's opinions were never known, post-Connery.

quiller

007: Q, you shouldn't have.

Q: It's vital to your mission, 007.

007: So is the colostomy bag bulletproof, like the wheelchair?

Q: It's also Solar-powered!

tbone0106

In terms of acting and action, Daniel Craig is damned good in the role, IMHO. It's too bad he looks so much like a hound dog I once owned.

Roger Moore, I think, could have been a much better Bond had he been hired a bit earlier in life. He was already 46 years old when he GOT the job, and approaching 60 when he left it. (Moore is, in fact, several years older than Sean Connery.)

Brosnan was a VERY good Bond, but I don't know that anyone will ever "own" the role the way Connery did. Who could play Patton better than George C. Scott? Who could be Augustus McCrae better than Robert Duvall? Why does anyone think that Jeff Bridges -- for Christ's sake! -- can play Rooster Cogburn?

Pagan

Sean Connery was the best, Roger Moore sucked and Pierce was "OK".  Timothy Dalton I thought did a good job but Daniel Craig is an excellent Bond second only to Sean.

What I like about the Bond movies with Craig is getting back to basics with the whit and creativity of Bond, not the excessive gadgets of Roger Moore and yes Brosnan also.
Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.
Μηκέθ ὅλως περὶ τοῦ οἷόν τινα εἶναι τὸν ἀγαθὸν ἄνδρα διαλέγεσθαι, ἀλλὰ εἶναι τοιοῦτον.

-- Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

quiller

Quote from: Pagan on December 17, 2010, 04:20:59 PM
Sean Connery was the best, Roger Moore sucked and Pierce was "OK".  Timothy Dalton I thought did a good job but Daniel Craig is an excellent Bond second only to Sean.

What I like about the Bond movies with Craig is getting back to basics with the whit and creativity of Bond, not the excessive gadgets of Roger Moore and yes Brosnan also.

I agree on the tech-wowie stuff, for the most part, but Bond's car in Casino Royale came fully-loaded (including heart defibrilator!). Overall, both Royale and Quantum shifted emphasis to gadgets used at SIS-HQ (such as the dazzling computer display tables). Stunts were far better in the first film, but no real gadgetry was involved.

quiller

Bond will be back November 9, 2012, the EON Productions team has announced. The story evidently will pick up where Quantum of Solace left off. Sam Mendes will definitely direct.

http://www.deadline.com/2011/01/bond-is-back-daniel-craig-and-sam-mendes-set-for-nov-9-2012-release-date/