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Craig, Daniel Craig:Speculation Ends As New James Bond Named By Rich Drees
“We are thrilled Daniel Craig will play the character of 007,” stated Bond series producer Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli in a statement released concurrently with the London press conference. “Daniel is a superb actor who has all the qualities needed to bring a contemporary edge to the role. Casino Royale will have all the action, suspense and espionage that our audiences have come to expect from us but nevertheless takes the franchise in a new and exciting direction.” “It’s a huge challenge,” Craig is quoted by the BBC as telling the assembled reporter at the conference. “Life is about challenges and this is one of the big ones as an actor.” While Craig, who will be the first Bond to grace the screen with blond hair, stated that he is not necessarily planning on redefining the character of James Bond for his tenure in the series. “Together with Martin [Campbell, Casino Royale’s director], I want to make the best film we can, the most entertaining film we can,” he told reporters, though adding “It’s a question of taking it somewhere maybe where it’s never gone before.” Craig is the sixth actor to slip into the British spy’s tuxedo, replacing Pierce Brosnan, who had joined the series with 1995’s GoldenEye. Among the reportedly 200 other actors considered for the role were Clive Owen, Ioan Gruffudd, Colin Firth, Hugh Grant, Gerard Butler, Jude Law, Ewan McGregor, Hugh Jackman, Heath Ledger and Eric Bana. Craig became the frontrunner for the role earlier this week when the British tabloid The Daily Mail announced that Craig had definitely been cast and London bookies closed the betting on which actor would receive the role. Although not Craig is not as well known to American audiences, he has had a high profile career in England appearing in the crime drama Layer Cake, The Mother and Enduring Love as well as the television series Our Friends In The North. The few Hollywood productions he has appeared in include The Jacket and Road To Perdition. Craig is currently filming the the thriller The Visiting with Nicole Kidman and will also be seen in Steven Spielberg’s upcoming Munich. The Bond franchise launched with 1962‘s Dr. No and featured Sean Connery in a star-making turn as the sexy British secret agent with a license to kill. Helming this new installment is Martin Campbell having previously directed the Bond adventure GoldenEye (1995). The screenplay is by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, who have scripted the last two Bond adventures; The World Is Not Enough (1999) and Die Another Day (2002), with Academy Award nominated screenwriter Neal Purvis (Million Dollar Baby) providing a polish. Casino Royale is slated to begin production in January 2006 with a scheduled release date of November 17, 2006. This is not the first time that Casino Royale has been adapted. The novel, the initial installment of writer Ian Fleming’s series about the British spy, was first adapted for the American television anthology series Climax in 1954 with Barry Nelson as CIA agent Jimmy Bond and veteran character actor Peter Lorre as the villainous LaChiffre. Since the book was the only Flemming novel not optioned by Eon Productions, the producers of the Bond series, Columbia Pictures was able to produce a film adaptation which was released in 1967, the height of the Bond/spy film craze. Originally planned as a straightforward adaptation of the novel – screenwriter Ben Hecht had penned the initial draft – producer Charles K. Feldman decided to turn Casino Royale into a comedy. Starring David Niven, Peter Sellers, Woody Allen, Ursula Andress and Orson Wells, the production was reportedly plagued with numerous delays and cost overruns. Although generally regarded as a flop now, it was actually the year’s third highest grossing film, after Disney’s The Jungle Book and Eon’s own Bond film You Only Live Twice. There had been much speculation over Brosnan’s continuing with the Bond series following the release of the most recent Bond film, Die Another Day (2002). In a July 2005 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Brosnan stated that it was while on location filming After The Sunset (2004) that he received a phone call from the franchise’s producers informing him that they wouldn’t be renewing his contract for a new film. ”After that kind of titanic jolt to the system, there was a great sense of calm," Brosnan told Entertainment Weekly writer Joshua Rich. "I thought, ‘F*** it!’ I can do anything I want now. I'm not beholden to them or anyone. I'm not shackled by some contracted image. So there was a sense of liberation." According to Brosnan’s Bond contract, he was forbidden from appearing in any other film in a tuxedo, a clause he came perilously close to breaking in a scene in the caper film The Thomas Crown Affair (1999). Reportedly, Bond producers where also unhappy with Brosnan playing a spy in The Tailor Of Panama (2001). "That was always the most frustrating thing about the role: [the producers] play it so safe,” Brosnan said of producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson. “The pomposity and rigmarole that they put directors through is astounding.” Brosnan did praise Die Another Day director Lee Tamahori for being able to stretch that installment beyond the series’ usual formula. "It was great to have Lee Tamahori directing, and I was amazed by how much the producers let him get in there and rock the cage,” he stated. “I thought we made inroads there.” Such a shakeup had led Brosnan to look forward to taking on a fifth Bond film. "I thought, 'Well, this will be great: they've actually done something on the last one, they didn't play it safe with the director, with the script, with the breaking the character down'." During the press rounds for Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003) and Vol. 2 (2004), director Quentin Tarrantino had expressed interest in helming an adaptation of Casino Royale, stating a desire to set the film in the 1960s with Brosnan as Bond, though nothing came of his overtures to the Bond series producers. |
October 14, 2005- Ending months of speculation, the producers of the
James Bond series of films have announced at a London press
conference today that actor Daniel Craig will be stepping into the
role of suave British secret agent 007 for the upcoming 21st
installment of the long-running series, Casino Royale.