Broccoli-Wilson want more gags

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Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, the caretaker producers of the 007 films who are regarded industry-wide as stooges and "stoppers", are apparently back to their tricks by trying to take the brutish edge off of Daniel Craig's James Bond character in Bond #22, which Marc Forster will direct. Take a moment to slap yourself hard on the side of the head. Craig's rough brutish edge is precisely the thing that made Casino Royale feel fresh and revitalized.

"They just want more gags," Craig says in the 7.13 edition of the Daily Express, referring to Broccoli-Wilson "The next one's going to be a lot funnier...Octopussy and Pussy Galore-style style gags. They're all great names, but that's the thing -- the Bond jokes will be flipped on their heads."

Wilson-Broccoli's dislike of a non-Roger Mooreish, blunt-weapon Bond was indicated when director Roger Michell decided against directing Casino Royale due to "creative differences." This translated into Michell wanting "an element of cruelty [in the Bond character]...certain things he does should be questionable...I think you should go, 'Fuck, that's not nice", and Wilson-Broccoli being against this, as I reported in this '06 story.

In my review of Casino Royale last November I noted that "the whole shaken-not- stirred, sexual-smoothie-in-a-tuxedo, Walther PPK stud-with-a-quip thing has been thrown out the window, finally and praise God. The influence of producers Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli is finally dead, dead...and ding-dong to that! Wilson-Broccoli have naturally been trying to sell the notion they were four-square behind this new incarnation, but don't buy it. They've been the invisible-car bad guys -- stooge caretakers -- since they grabbed the reins in the mid '90s. The startling coolness of this new film happened in spite of Wilson- Broccoli, not because of them.

Broccoli-Wilson own (or co-own) the franchise and can't be fired. So, as I've suggested in the past, the best thing to happen to the Bond films would be a compassionate kidnapping. Wilson and Broccoli wouldn't be killed or harmed, but would be gently seized and flown to, let's say, a remote location in Southeast Asia and made to live in a huge guarded villa. They would be given every last comfort of home -- high-def flat panels, private gyms, gourmet meals thrice daily, wifi up the wazoo, sexual slaves at the snap of their fingers -- but they wouldn't be allowed to leave the compound for the rest of their natural lives or exert the slightest influence upon the Bond series ever again.

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Posted by Jeffrey Wells on July 14, 2007 at 9:23 AM

comment #1

FunBobby says ...

Agree with you all the way, Wells. I guess we'll have Die Another Day, 2.

Posted by FunBobby at July 14, 2007 10:32 AM

comment #2

alynch says ...

Fuck me. You'd think that after having one of the most successful Bond entries of all time, they'd be able to take a hint.

Come on Jeff, let out your vicious side! Wilson and Broccoli should be killed or harmed! You know this is true.

Posted by alynch at July 14, 2007 10:38 AM

comment #3

Breedlove says ...

The best thing I can say about 'Casino Royale' is that I enjoyed a nice nap during the 30-minute long poker scene. This whole franchise bores me and always will.

Posted by Breedlove at July 14, 2007 10:39 AM

comment #4

Breedlove says ...

P.S. The brilliant Roger Michell would have been the best Bond director I can recall, by a long shot. I actually may have gotten excied to see his Bond. But I'm happy he's elected to focus on oher stuff. Good choice.

Posted by Breedlove at July 14, 2007 10:42 AM

comment #5

George Prager says ...

Casino Royale was torture porn.

Posted by George Prager at July 14, 2007 10:53 AM

comment #6

renorambler says ...

They really must be the only people on the planet who would prefer an Octopussy style Bond to the Casino Royalesque Bond...right...right?!

Posted by renorambler at July 14, 2007 11:00 AM

comment #7

Deege says ...

WHAT? They finally put out a Bond film that people want to see and then they want to go and smash the momentum and good will? Fuck it. I'll stay home for Bond 22.

Posted by Deege at July 14, 2007 11:10 AM

comment #8

James Leer says ...

For some reason, I'm calling this interview as bunk. It doesn't even SOUND like Daniel Craig, it sounds like a British tabloid version of Daniel Craig.

Posted by James Leer at July 14, 2007 11:16 AM

comment #9

Pelham123 says ...

I agree with Leer. This seems so far out of left field as to be a parody of what came with the foundation laid down in "Casino Royale". They have the same screenwriters for the next Bond and of course Daniel Craig, so nothing would point to such a drastic change of course. Did the pod people REALLY get Craig on the set of "The Invasion"?

Posted by Pelham123 at July 14, 2007 11:34 AM

comment #10

tholl-yung says ...

Ohh whee, Wells earned his R rating on this post.

Posted by tholl-yung at July 14, 2007 12:02 PM

comment #11

J. Huff says ...

Amazingly, I talked to a good friend the other day who didn't "get" Casino Royale. He missed the technology. Missed the suave. Although he doesn't have great taste in movies, I wonder if he's more in the majority than I'd like to think. If they forget the restart, I may just have to forget about Bond...really sad considering how much a fan I'd been in the past. TWiNE nearly killed me on it completely; DAD and CR were decent and awesome, respectively. It's rare for me to say this, but Wells is dead on.

Posted by J. Huff at July 14, 2007 5:01 PM

comment #12

Regret1017 says ...

Jeff, I'm starting to like you! Keep it up.

Posted by Regret1017 at July 14, 2007 8:24 PM

comment #13

berg says ...

"would be gently seized and flown to, let's say, a remote location in Southeast Asia and made to live in a huge guarded villa. They would be given every last comfort of home" ///

this sounds like a job for the Illuminati ... it kind of reminds me of the fate of the protag at end of the novel FLICKER

Posted by berg at July 14, 2007 8:28 PM

comment #14

corey3rd says ...

Casino Royale needs to be followed up with an equally rough adventure. To turn it into Octopussy 2 is treason.

Posted by corey3rd at July 14, 2007 9:58 PM

comment #15

DarthCorleone says ...

Well said, Wells. This is simply too ridiculous to believe.

J. Huff>> You had me with everything you were saying, until the point when you said that Die Another Day was "decent." Die Another Day is the archetypal example of that bullshit-technology-and-suaveness incarnate which needed to disappear. There are worse Bond films, but I can't think of a movie in the canon that more thoroughly took this factor to an appalling level. Putting Bond behind the wheel of an invisible car and sticking the villain in the Dynamo costume from The Running Man - those two points represent the nadir of the entire series.

Posted by DarthCorleone at July 15, 2007 1:37 PM

comment #16

J. Huff says ...

Darth -

I hear you, I really do. I had seen every Bond movie in a theater since Octopussy (born in '74, so that's not bad.) I even saw Goldeneye while I was over in Russia for a year, in Russian, because I'd enjoyed the series so much. TWiNE was so bad, however, that I didn't even bother seeing DAD until DVD. After the absolute disaster of TWiNE, DAD seemed relatively good...yes, the ending was bad, but there were a lot of good elements in the first half in particular, and perhaps I am too forgiving of the series in general. But CR is so much better than most of the films in the series that it will be impossible to go back. Heck, I was a fan of Timothy Dalton, who until Craig was much closer to the Bond of the novels (at least the later ones when he was both ruthless and debonair at the same time). But now I think it needs to be Craig all the way with another seriously plotted film that keeps the chatter and the comedy to a minimum.

Posted by J. Huff at July 16, 2007 9:14 PM

comment #17