20 YEARS OF 007 BROSNAN – Epilogue: Goodbye, Mr Bond

On February 2004, the famous website CommanderBond.net first revealed some sad news for those who were enthusiastic of Pierce Brosnan’s role as James Bond: his contract with EON productions wasn’t renewed, since the producers were aiming for another actor for the 21st James Bond film, then set for a November 2005 release.

Throughout this year, rumors came and went about who would be the next Bond star, some of them even leaving the door open for Pierce’s return in Bond 21, later revealed as the first official adaptation of CASINO ROYALE, with GOLDENEYE director Martin Campbell hired to helm the film.

It was in February 2, 2005, that Pierce Brosnan finally announced his retirement of the role in a letter he posted on his official web site: 

“I would like to thank all of you who have supported me over the last year or so in regard to my playing Bond. It was a decade of my life that I will always hold dear to my heart and a time that will never be forgotten. And you dear friends stood by me throughout. Many, many thanks! But everything comes to an end, and one must accept this decision which cannot be dealt with in any other way but with some kind of grace and knowledge that I did the job to the best of my ability.”

As the production of CASINO ROYALE went on, Daniel Craig was finally Brosnan’s successor, picked between actors like Jason Statham and Henry Cavill. He was very generous with Daniel, but he held it against the producers for a while since at first they considered him for a fifth time in the role and changed their mind in the course: "I thought we were going to do a fifth. I thought a fifth and no more. They invited me back and I said, 'Yeah, this would be wonderful.' And then they changed their mind in the middle of negotiations”, recalled Pierce on CBS’s “Early Show”.

As the years passed on, Brosnan had a very successful vibe with multiple films in contrast to many other Bond actors and actresses, in roles ranging from Roman Polanski’s THE GHOST WRITER to the portrayal of assassin Julian Noble in THE MATADOR and the musical MAMMA MIA! His return to the action genre is expected for August 27 when NOVEMBER MAN hits theatres, opposite Luckey Blacey and former Bond girl Olga Kurylenko from QUANTUM OF SOLACE.

Despite the issues about his farewell of the Bond franchise, Brosnan remains very peaceful with the character now: “It was a hard phone to make and it was a hard phone to get”, he explained in 2012 for the documentary EVERYTHING OR NOTHING: THE UNTOLD STORY OF 007. He also has been seen in commercials spoofing his Bond image and he took his family to watch SKYFALL, adding that Craig was “magnificent” in the role.

As we reach the twentieth anniversary of his first James Bond film next year, there are no doubts that Pierce Brosnan’s portrayal of the role saved the franchise and gave it everything for James Bond to last in the ‘90s, an era the cinematic character might have never seen. Needless to speak about the many generations of fans who grew up with his films in those times whose portrayal introduced them to the characters of Francisco Scaramanga, Doctor No, Fiona Volpe, Vesper Lynd and the marvelous world of 007.

Sources: MI6-HQ.com, Rope Of Sillicon.

20 YEARS OF 007 BROSNAN – Part Three: The Bond of the Millennium

“As the countdown begins to the 21st century… it’s good to know there’s still one number you can always count on.” This line introduced the last James Bond adventure of the 21st century, titled THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH. And Pierce Brosnan was about to become not only the actor who revived the franchise after the six year gap or the end of the Cold War, but now he was set to become the Bond for the new millennium.

Leaving the action-adventure directors like Martin Campbell and Roger Spottiswoode behind, producers Michael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli opted for British drama director Michael Apted, known for GORILLAS IN THE MIST and AGHATA. To bring up an original story far from the standard plot the previous film offered, screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade were called to write a new story recycling many elements cut out from Michael France’s script for GOLDENEYE, with Bruce Feirstein back again to re-polish the story and give Bond more presence in a script with oil-heiress Elektra King and Judi Dench’s M stealing the show.

The result was a very good film, with Pierce Brosnan more confident in the role, but it was also slow-paced and somewhat boring for moments. Yet, the plot was a strong point, by having the first female mastermind in the series and a quite original story.

Bond couldn’t return until 2002, in the 40th anniversary film DIE ANOTHER DAY. Production started on January 11, 2002, in a press conference introducing the main cast of the film: Halle Berry, Toby Stephens, Rosamund Pike and Rick Yune. Broccoli and Wilson bet once again on Purvis and Wade –this time the duo alone- for the script and on another drama director, New Zealand born Lee Tamahori. 

“I lived the life of a prince”, commented Pierce on the press junkets. “I formed my own company (Irish Dreamtime) and I made films with that company, I couldn’t do that without Bond”, said the thankful actor about the series and his fourth Bond film.

Yet, despite Pierce’s optimism and the $431 worldwide box office numbers, the 20th Bond film couldn’t seduce the audience and critics. The script, providing an original and shocking opening with Bond tortured and imprisoned in North Korea after failing a mission, was then wasted by a rather fantastic story with Halle Berry’s Jinx everywhere pretending to be “a female James Bond” and with lots of unbelievable CGI laden stunts.

From 2002 on, Brosnan’s Bond was tied up with an unrealistic characterization of the character, quite the opposite he expected to play back in 1994 when he offered to show “what made this man a killer”. The invisible car, the lousy NSA agent, Gustav Graves’ techno suit was enough to weaken a promising portrayal of a very interesting character, much in the same way the LICENCE TO KILL script sent Timothy Dalton’s Bond way off target.

Yet, Pierce took some more advantage of the role by playing the secret agent on two Electronic Arts’ videogames: NIGHTFIRE (2002) and EVERYTHING OR NOTHING (2003), but the negative effect on DIE ANOTHER DAY was quite hard to beat to the world’s eyes.

20 YEARS OF 007 BROSNAN - Part Two: "The Return of 007"

“You were expecting someone else?”

Pierce Brosnan was probably referring to the many action heroes of the nineties, or maybe he was sharing a sort of in-joke with the audience: the ones that followed him since the days of REMINGTON STEELE and waited for him to become the new Bond, or those who this time knew he was the first choice to portray the role of Ian Fleming’s secret agent.

With a strong cast integrated by Sean Bean, Izabella Scorupco,  Famke Janssen, old Bond villain Joe Don Baker (from THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS), and with a new and female M played by Judi Dench, GOLDENEYE was a high stakes bet. It shouldn’t be just a good action film or a good Bond film, it should also aim to establish a new Bond actor to the audience and adapt a well-known character to the new world order: globalization, internet and the end of the Cold War.

Released on November 17, 1995, GOLDENEYE brought a new generation of James Bond fans and pleased the classic Bond audiences craving for a new James Bond film, even when the reviews were good but not terribly overwhelming. And with a gross of 351 million dollars worldwide, it was the most successful film in the franchise since 1979’s MOONRAKER. The film also allowed the return of 007 not only to the new world order, but to the last decade of the 21^st century, and its legacy would stand out for almost twenty years with three videogames based on the film’s plot.

By the end of 1995, James Bond was no longer part of a retro club meeting subject.

In 1997, the second film of the Pierce Brosnan era was released: TOMORROW NEVER DIES. While its predecessor flick tried to aim for a deep story and a strong plot, the Roger Spottiswoode film went for a lighter story (written by Dan Petrie Jr, Nicholas Meyer and GOLDENEYE’s Bruce Feirstein) with the classic “world domination” plot, adapted of course to the mass media as a powerful weapon manipulated by a press tycoon played by EVITA’s Jonathan Pryce whose wife, the now popular DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES’ actress Teri Hatcher, had a previous romantic affair with 007.

TOMORROW NEVER DIES pleased many critics and fans too, even when the shooting had some complications and Pierce Brosnan wasn’t too happy with the plot: too much shootouts and poor script development, he claimed then in interviews. Besides, the success of James Cameron’s TITANIC seemed too big even for 007, with Hong Kong being the only country where it could beat the drama film.

Nevertheless, the marketing concerning these two first films of this new era and the new wave of fans cheering up for the return of 007 was enough to establish Pierce Brosnan firmly as the James Bond of the 1990s and the 21^st century. And this time, James Bond would dominate another format in popular culture: the videogames, with the release of Rareware’s GOLDENEYE 007 game based on the 1995 film for the Nintendo 64 game systems. It wasn’t of course the first incursion of the secret agent in the world of gaming, but after the success of this 1997 product, the name of GOLDENEYE and James Bond was now firmly part of a new era as it was in the early ‘60s.

Once again, the world belonged to Bond.

20 YEARS OF 007 BROSNAN - Part One: "Hello, Mr Bond"

It was the first day of June 1994. And a lot of things happened the last eight years to Pierce Brosnan: he got many roles in action movies like John MacKenzie’s THE FOURTH PROTOCOL (1987, opposite Michael Caine), TAFFIN (1992, opposite Alison Doody) and the drama comedy MRS DOUBTFIRE (1993, opposite Robin Williams). But on the other side, and, in a more painful situation, he lost his wife Cassandra in 1991, who succumbed to ovarian cancer. She was, among other things, the girl who introduced him to Cubby Broccoli back in 1986. Bad luck he didn’t got it.

He must have been thinking in all the things he came through that day at his Malibu residence when the telephone rang at 12.35pm. It was his agent, Fred Spector. "Hello, Mr. Bond. You got the part”, he said. Of course, in these eight years another thing happened: LICENCE TO KILL, the second film starring Timothy Dalton as James Bond, wasn’t a big hit worldwide, with the press calling it “007’s final mission”. Also, a legal trouble between Danjaq and MGM/UA (taken over by a group of actionists) froze the return of 007 set for 1992 and Dalton, who couldn’t keep his other projects on hold, resigned to the role of James Bond. Once again, there were no hands to hold the Walther PPK handguns and many names where among the list. Many of them were really considered, like Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes (who would become part of the Bond alumni almost 30 years later), others were heavily rumoured like Hugh Grant and Mel Gibson. But, of course, people would immediately think of the one who didn’t got the role then. Fate wanted him to get it now.

A big conference was held one week later, on Wednesday, June 8^th, at the Regent Hotel in London. More than 300 media people were ready to cover the first step of the resurrection of James Bond: producers Michael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, heirs of the legacy of long-time producer Albert R Broccoli, were there. So was Martin Campbell, a New Zealand-born director with credits including TV’s EDGE OF DARKNESS and the futuristic flick NO ESCAPE, who was now in charge of the 17^th James Bond film titled GOLDENEYE, just like Ian Fleming’s Jamaican house.

Brosnan, sporting an expensive dark suit and a grown hair and beard due to his upcoming shooting of the title role in ROBINSON CRUSOE, was nervous. “Stay cool, think of this as a celebration”, he tought. After all, every one of them were also new in a way: GOLDENEYE was the first Bond film Campbell would direct, and the first Wilson and Broccoli would produce.

“I was standing behind a screen and on the other side were the press if the world, waiting. I could hear the James Bond theme music had started…”, recalled Pierce when interviewed by author Garth Pearce in 1995.

“Ladies and gentleman, the new James Bond… Mr. Pierce Brosnan,” sounded the voice on the speakers. Applauses and shouts were heard: many of them for the return of Bond, and others, perhaps, for the justice given by the saying stating that all things come for those who wait. “Nothing could quite prepare me for the pandemonium once I came through. The glare of the lights, cameramen yelling ‘Pierce, Pierce, Pierce…’ It’s like everyone wants a piece of you,” he remembers.

The press conference went on with lots of interviews from journalists from all over the world, many of them asking about Brosnan’s portrayal on the character and what he will bring to it. His answers were that Bond was still a ladies’ man, but also a killer, and that he’ll try to “see what is beneath the surface of this man, what makes him a killer”.

The next day, Pierce Brosnan was in Papua New Guinea shooting ROBINSON CRUSOE, playing Daniel Defoe’s famous castaway. A group of children came to the set, pointing at him and recognized him as the new 007. “Here was I, in the middle of nowhere, being recognized as Bond. (…) At that moment, any lingering doubts I had that GOLDENEYE was just another film left me completely.”

Indeed, from that day on, the Walther PPK found a new owner: Pierce Brosnan was now James Bond.

Images courtesy of Club James Bond France and Pierce Brosnan Files. Newspaper article from The Wilmington Morning star archive. Quotes taken from The Making of GoldenEye, by Garth Pearce (Boxtree, 1995).

20 YEARS OF 007 BROSNAN – Prologue: To Get So Close And Be Denied

“If he can act, he’s my guy,” said producer Albert “Cubby” Broccoli on the set of 1981’s FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, thinking of a replacement for Roger Moore who was considering his retirement of the role of 007.

Broccoli was talking about none other than the 28-year-old man who was visiting the film set in Corfu, Greece, where his wife Cassandra Harris was playing a love interest of Moore’s Bond, Countess Lisl Von Schalf.

By the time, Pierce Brendan Brosnan was an Irish actor who moved to London during his early teens, where he was captivated by films like LAWRENCE OF ARABIA and, particularly, by Sean Connery’s portrayal of James Bond in GOLDFINGER.

He wasn’t known worldwide yet, having just two non-speaking parts in THE MIRROR CRACK’D and the role of an IRA hitman in THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY. Soon, he would get some fame with the miniseries THE MANIONS OF AMERICA, but his fame baptism would come playing the title role in the 1982 MTM series REMINGTON STEELE, opposite Stephanie Zimbalist. Brosnan was supposed to play a secondary role in comparison to Zimbalist who portrayed female detective Laura Holt, but his onscreen charisma playing a mysterious man with fancy tastes in action, women and dinner jackets gave a lot of popularity to the show, with magazines even calling him “The new Cary Grant”.

The TV series’ success soared and by 1985, when Roger Moore retired after being the longest-running James Bond actor with 7 films, Brosnan’s name came back to Cubby’s mind. In July 1986, the REMINGTON STEELE rating was poor and the TV series were cancelled with a 60 day option to reconsider the renewal of the show. The search for a new Bond, the series cancelation and the fact that the Remington Steele character proved Brosnan could fit the James Bond style very well heated up the hype of his choice as the fourth James Bond for the 1987 adventure, THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS, directed by John Glen.

Pierce was then called to do the Bond screentests. He passed with flying colours and was ready to sign for the part. But, in the nick of time, NBC decided to reair REMINGTON STEELE, whose contract forced Brosnan to decline the 007 role and return to the small screen.

“James Bond is finished for me. Over. I am never going to get it now,” said Pierce to his wife Cassandra, who always had the desire to see him playing the part of Ian Fleming’s character created in Jamaica in 1953, paradoxically, the same year Brosnan was born.

On August 6, 1986, Welsh actor Timothy Dalton, an early contender to replace Sean Connery in ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE, was cast as the new James Bond. “I know Tim, he’s a nice guy and I wished him well”, reflected Pierce, but he was really uncomfortable with the situation: “I came to terms with the fact that not getting Bond was never going to leave me. However spectacular my career might be, I’d still be known for that.”

Luck clearily wasn’t on Brosnan’s side. But he never knew that eight years later, fate would determinate another thing.

Part 2 of our 20 years of 007 Brosnan special will be uploaded next Sunday. Interact with us on Twitter and Facebook with the #20yearsof007Brosnan hashtag

Images courtesy of 007 Magazine, "Inside The Living Daylights" DVD documentary. Pierce Brosnan's quotes taken from "The Making of GoldenEye", by Garth Pearce (Boxtree, 1995)