Bond Rises (Again)

Let’s go back a few years first.

When James Bond returned to the big screen after a six year absence with 1995’s GoldenEye, Pierce Brosnan’s debut in the role, it kickstarted something of a juggernaut. Bond movies have pretty much always been big business, of course, but throughout the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, they were also (very) regular events. The end of one Bond would often not just tease that James Bond would return, but in which film he would be back. There was a sense of longer term planning of which film stories Albert R. Broccoli and his team wanted to tell. That sense isn’t quite there anymore: that once a 007 movie is complete, it’s clear there will be another, it’s less clear just what it’ll be.

Pierce Brosnan would star in four 007 adventures between 1995 and 2002, and the newly-energized series was rewarded with growing box returns. Even his swansong, the much-maligned Die Another Day, would gross just shy of half a billion dollars worldwide.

Brosnan’s run made him the first 007 – Lazenby aside, as you might expect – to never work with the same director twice on the films, as the series settled into a formula of recruiting varied, often-acclaimed directors to make the first 60% of the film, before effectively handing over to the stunt team for the rest. A formula had been found, personnel were switched around, the films came along regularly.

But things seem to have changed in the Daniel Craig era of 007, and it’s made the transition from one movie to the next far more labored.

The Craig Era