A few things were formally announced with James Bond today..
1) Pierce Brosnan is out for good. There’s been a lot of ping-ponging about whether he was in or out, but this was the first time that EON (the people who make the 007 movies) have ever said anything about it, and they said he’s out. Plus there was an announcement on Brosnan’s site about it being over too, so he’s gone.
2) The director of the movie is Martin Campbell – who has already directed one 007 movie before, that being 1995’s Goldeneye.
3) The movie name will be Casino Royale. For years and years, Casino Royale was the one remaining movie that they never used from the old stable of Ian Fleming novels / short stories. The rights lied elsewhere, and a few years back when Sony was attempting to start their own chain of 007 movies based on some really ancient remake rights that belonged to Kevin McClory and the Casino Royale rights; that stuff was all settled in favor of EON, and EON gained legal and distribution rights to Casino Royale, as well as the other unofficial 007 movie “Never Say Never Again”.
Other James Bond Thoughts of mine:
This brings up the really obvious question, who will be the next 007? No one really knows for sure, and there’s a gajillion names being thrown around. Of the ones I’ve seen, I’d like either Ewan McGregor, or an actor who REALLY looks the part – Gerard Butler. When Pierce Brosnan took over in 1994, Timothy Dalton was still officially 007, as there was a 5 year break between License to Kill and Goldeneye. I remember when Dalton was announced as being out I was really annoyed – I did not want to like Brosnan, because I REALLY liked Dalton’s portrayal. But Brosnan grew on me, and I ended up really liking him – to the point where I thought Die Another Day was an awesome movie. I really loved it.
So we’re back to a new Bond with a story that should have been made ages ago. Granted, the real novel of Casino Royale is pretty minimalistic, as are a lot of the Fleming novels – if you’ve ever actually read any of them the spectacle that is a James Bond movie isn’t there. I’ll be real curious to see how much of the novel is on the screen. For example, the 1979 movie Moonraker had only the villian’s name from the novel (Hugo Drax), and that’s about IT. So the precendent is there for them to totally ignore the story and just use the name. However, I’ve been reading press saying that the producers want to take Bond back to the beginning to what made it good early on, so hopefully it won’t be butchered to death – although some editing is inevitable.
Link:
http://www.commanderbond.net/Public/Stories/2656-1.shtml
For no reason other than me wanting to talk about it, here’s some further background information on Never Say Never Again, Kevin McClory, and remakes…

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This gives away absolutely nothing about the movie. I just got back from seeing it (I went to an 11:45PM showing).
HOLY CRAP – This was one awesome movie. I cannot say how much I loved this flick. It is by far and away the best of the three for me – no comparison.
I’ll have more to say after I’ve had a chance to digest it, and that will probably take another viewing. This is one heavy, deep, complex movie.
It also helps that I did not watch any of the trailers. I just watched the trailer now that I’ve seen the movie, and I’m glad I didn’t. In my opinion, the trailer gives away too much of the coolness of this movie.

My wife and I got our first DVD player back around the Holiday season of 1998. We’ve been enamoured with the format ever since, and we’ve watched “the general public” become more crazed with the format since. However, in all the years we’ve had one (this’ll be our 5th year, 6th holiday season) I don’t think I’ve seen such a crowded holiday release schedule of DVD releases as I have this season. Check out this list of what’s being released on DVD this coming fall that I intend on getting..

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I went to see Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines over the weekend. I, like most folks hold Terminator 2: Judgement Day up as one of the greatest action movies ever. That still holds up today, as I watched T2 the night before going to see T3. T2 is still great. I was surprised at how well it held up.
And that feeling left me with some trepidation as to how T3 would play out. No James Cameron. No Linda Hamilton. What kind of Terminator movie would it be without Sarah Connor? Well, guess what? It can be one kick ass action flick!
I was utterly shocked at how much I liked this movie. I thought it was going to be bad, and was extremely surprised at how well done it was. Were there plot holes? Of course – it’s not like this is the greatest, most well written movie of all time. It’s a testoscerone laden explosion fest. And it worked. I’m not going to spoil anything for folks reading this who haven’t read the movie. But all I’ll say is this. The movie ends so wide open for a T4, it’s not funny. And, if we get a T4 based on what happened at the end of this movie… it won’t be a stupid added on sequel, either. It will be a great movie in it’s own right, which is unusal for a sequel, especially one with a 4 in it.
If you have seen the movie, then you owe it to yourself to read this review of the movie by Steve Krutzler of TrekWeb. In it he makes the movie out to be the greatest movie of all time. I wouldn’t go quite that far, but it was a great movie, and one I intend on buying on DVD when it’s released. I wasn’t planning on doing that beforehand, but then I thought it was going to be crap, too, and it wasn’t. Anyway, Steve’s review is pretty long, but he goes into length as to why we could get a T4, T5, & T6 and it would all make sense.
About the only truly negative thing I could say, and I admit it’s a nitpick is that there was no cool “Terminator music” in the opening credits. I would have loved to have seen that. I’ll be curious to see if a director’s commentary on the DVD talks about that.
Do yourself a favor. Go see it. Don’t let it leave the theatres – this is a “big” movie, and deserves to be seen in the theatres.