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Craig, Daniel Craig:Speculation
Ends
As New James
Bond Named
By Rich Drees
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.
“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. |
