There are two things you should do when you meet the actor who currently plays James Bond at a bar: You order them a martini, you order yourself a martini, and then you pitch them on your dream 007 movie. Granted, most of us would get dragged off by security before we even got to the first step, but Quentin Tarantino isn’t like most of us, and according to Pierce Brosnan, he actually managed to pull this off many years ago when Brosnan was still Bond. As Brosnan explained during a GoldenEye commentary video for Esquire (via Indie Wire), at some point after he made what ended up being his final Bond movie (2002's Die Another Day), he was informed that Quentin Tarantino (who had just released Kill Bill Volume 2) wanted to meet with him.
So, Brosnan “went up to Hollywood one day from the beach” (being a celebrity sounds so exhausting) to meet with Tarantino at the Four Seasons where he was doing press. Brosnan waited for him at the bar, but Tarantino was busy and had to push the meeting back. Naturally, “someone sent over a martini,” because that’s what you do when you see James Bond waiting at a bar, but when Tarantino still hadn’t arrived after a half hour, Brosnan had another martini. Then possibly more. Either way, he says he was “fairly smokered” by the time Tarantino showed up, so the director also decided to get “fairly smokered.”
From there, Brosnan says Tarantino was “pounding the table,” talking about how great Brosnan was as Bond and saying he wanted to do a Bond movie. It’s unclear if he actually had a specific pitch (like the Star Trek movie he’s totally definitely absolutely going to make some day), but Brosnan says he went “back to the shop” and told them what Tarantino had told him, but in the end it “wasn’t meant to be.” The timing of this is probably a key factor, since it came after Brosnan’s last movie but before the series was rebooted with Daniel Craig as Bond, so maybe it just wasn’t the time for some kind of weird Tarantino movie with Brosnan’s Bond
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I am pretty sure that a drunk Taratino has pitched a movie idea to just about every star in Hollywood. Its probably how his Never gonna happen Star Trek project got started
Drunk Tarantino sounds like the most annoying thing in the world tbh, I’d sooner deal with coked out of his mind Tarantino
Pick yer poison
All people/ideas/projects regardless how ridiculous look or sound great when both parties are drunk. It’s when you wake up the next morning and your head and probably other parts of your body hurt is the when true test of what the next steps/plan of action are really made.
“Oh man, Costner and I got so wasted last night. Hang on, why is the word “Waterworld” scrawled on my arm?”
I really do hope we actually find out what his Star Trek pitch actually was. I’m sure it was terrible, or at the very least, unfeasible, but it would still be cool to hear one day.
Tarantino has talked about this many times. It’s one of his vapour films like the Vega Brothers movie. We said he wanted to set it directly after ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’ with Bond dealing with the emotional fallout of the murder of his wife. He talked this up at the same time he was talking about his ‘Adam Sandler WW2 movie’ which eventually became Ingolrious Basterds. I mean, who knows how serious he ever was, but he played with the idea for a long time.
Which means, that it might not actually be all that different from the take on Bond we got with Craig, or at least the first two films of his run.
Interesting. My recollection was Tarantino wanted to do CASINO ROYALE with Brosnan, set in the 60s. (Again, pre-Daniel Craig.)
Having just re-watched OHMSS and Diamonds Are Forever back-to-back, I really wish *someone* had made a movie where Bond deals with the emotional fallout of his wife’s murder. Such wasted opportunity to have Blofeld as the villain of Diamonds and never bring up Tracy’s death.
Unpopular opinion: the Casino Royale-Quantum of Solace duology is basically that, and it’s pretty good.
The first half, sure. The second sucks donkey balls.
Totally agree. Quantum of Solace has some issues due to the writer’s strike, but as an extended epilogue for Casino Royale it does a great job of finishing the origin story that movie started.
The first ten minutes of Diamonds, with Bond going balls out and globetrotting to find Blofeld, should have been the whole movie.
I recently did the same(thanks, Hulu autoplay!) and I think it clearly showed that Bond dealt with his emotions by hitting the bottle so hard that he turned back into Sean Connery. YMMV.
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Tarantino has never kept it a secret that he wants to do a James Bond movie. However one that takes place in the 60’s time period of the books.
Although that would have been hard to do with Bronson, given his previous Bond movies. Unless they returned the favor of the Austin Powers movies by stealing their idea of time travel back to that time.
“Bronson”?
The name’s Bartokomous, Balki Bartokomous.
(slow clap, building to a thunderous standing ovation)
“For Mypos, 007?”
Yes, I’m from an alternate universe where Charles Bronson played Bond. No, not really.
He did say he was willing to set it in the present day if that’s what was needed to get the approval of Eon Productions. He had previously hoped he’d be able to make the film without them because Columbia owned the rights to Casino Royale, but then Columbia traded them away in exchange for MGM’s rights to Spider-Man.
Or they just accept “it’s a movie” and assume the audience will enjoy it.
Austin: So, Basil, if I travel back to 1969 and I was frozen in 1967, presumably, I could go back and look at my frozen self. But, if I’m still frozen in 1967, how could I have been unthawed in the ‘90s and traveled back to the ‘60s? Oh, no, I’ve gone cross-eyed.Basil: I suggest you don’t worry about those things and just enjoy yourself. [looks directly at camera as if talking to the audience] That goes for you all, too.“The Spy Who Shagged Me” (1999).
Honestly, they should all be set in the sixties.
Could be really cool, but as a standalone, non-canon, Bond film. Take a page from the comic book movies and just make a totally out there, bizarro alternate world Bond story set back in the 60’s.
That’s exactly what I’d want in a QT Bond movie. It would be tough not to make him a misogynist pig in the ‘60s, but I’m interested to see what it would look like.
Just gonna use this as an excuse to post about my dream Bond movie, which I am confident I could never, ever, ever get financed:James Bond is sent to stop a villain who has built a device that attacks the fabric of space and time, melting reality. It is periodically triggered for brief periods during the early parts of the movie, and the result is conveyed to the audience by the movie slipping among the styles and tones of previous Bond eras (including changes to costume, acting technique, aspect ratio, color saturation, editorial style, etc).In the second half of the second act, the device is fully activated, and the style shifts become constant and extreme. At times, events occur without apparent cause, because they are simply carrying over from other movies – Oddjob’s hat flies at Bond from out of nowhere, Bond randomly quips “I think he got the point” despite not having shot anyone with a speargun, chainsaw helicopters… exist. Images freeze and morph into paintings styled on classic Bond novel covers.Towards the end, during his fight with the main henchman, Bond punches him, and he just explodes into text, then the rest of the fight is presented as scrolling black text on a white screen.Eventually, when the device is stopped, things begin to settle into a style that isn’t entirely locked in to any one era. The movie ends before it settles completely, so the sequel can be in whatever style(s) the next filmmaker desires.
The first part of that is very reminiscent of Planetary/Batman: Night on Earth, a 2003 graphic novel in which the Planetary team meets up with several Batmen in their various DC universes.Your story might be the event that finally gets Bond to realize that he’s a Time Lord that regenerates and MI-6 has been using him (and re-using him) for decades.
Never Say Never Again exists, as does the Matador (which Brosnan Bond fans definitely need to see). If Tarantino really wanted to do a Bond film with Brosnan, he should have.
(But, yeah, Tarantino has a lot of ideas that never happen.)
I’m sure ‘Octofeet’ would’ve been a fucking masterpiece.
Goldentoes, obvs
On Her Majesty’s Tippy-Toes.
License to heel.
Dr. Scholl
Dr. Scholl
For Your Arch Instep Only.
Who’d play Bond’s arch enemy?
Gert Töbe.
A View To Achilles
🎶
I wish your toes smelled better,
Scratchy heels in bed are such a pest;
With wide bunioned feet that won’t fit in half-sized shoes,
You’re podiatrically unblessed.
♬
The Spy Who Loved Feet
Casino Royale with Cheese
Footscraper
Wasn’t the pitch to reformulate the Casino Royale story a bit so it could line up with Brosnan’s Bond? I am pretty sure it was Tarantino’s pitch of Casino Royale (taking Bond back to basics and away from the CGI and gadgetry) that led EON to rebooting Craig with Casino Royale.
Now I want Tarantino to do an episode of Drunk History, just to see the guest stars try to keep up lip syncing with him.
Had he ever soberly pitched anything?
I remember reading that Tarantino was pitching his own version of Casino Royale with Daniel Day Lewis as James Bond around the time Jackie Brown came out, but he couldn’t get the rights. Maybe he figured he’d have more luck if he had the current 007 on board.
The Brosnobond era. The first movie was great. The second was decent. The third was okay. The last was a terrible joke.
Each Bond has a total stinker under their belt. For Connery it is Diamonds are Forever. For Moore it’s Moonraker. Dalton’s is License to Kill. Brosnan it’s Die Another Day. Craig’s is either Quantum of Solace or Spectre (I haven’t decided yet).
Lazenby is lucky. He doesn’t have a stinker.
I never thought Brosnan was a particularly impressive Bond. Kind of Bond by the numbers; not awful, not great.I definitely put ‘Spectre’ as Craig’s stinker. ‘QoS’ had some interesting moments, ‘Spectre’ had none.
I judge the two films on what they aimed for rather than how they fell short. QoS aimed to be an examination of how Bond handles grief and desire for revenge; I think it largely succeeded at that in spite of some unfortunately choppy plotting and editing.Spectre aimed to sell us on Blofeld as Bond’s foster brother. So yeah, this is definitely the stinker.
I actually have a soft spot for Moonraker. It is not good as a film but there are many aspects of it that I really like. I enjoy the Drax villain quite a lot. His one liners are goofy and fun and always delivered in perfect dead-pan. The production design is top notch. Oh and we get more of Jaws which is nice. All that said its not a good movie but I still enjoy throwing it on every few years.
“Oh and we get more of Jaws which is nice.”Jaws gets the girl. It’s a heartwarming story.
Dalton’s stinker smells better than nearly every other film in the series up to Craig’s era.
Unrelated I finally watched Resevoir Dogs for the first time yesterday. And …it’s not very good.
I was so underwhelmed when I saw it. I thought, “Is this the film everyone raves about?” A couple more attempts to watch Tarantino convinced me his type of film-making is not for me. A whole bunch of style with nothing interesting beneath it.
I agree with nerdwriter that it’s impressive for a film debut. But it’s really only notable for how it has inspired later action films and Tarantino’s better offers down the track. It’s mostly just a bunch of stylish scenes with characters as bland and blank as their monochromatic nicknames. The learning -> performing of the commode story sequence still holds up though.
Clearly our opinions of that film’s quality vary (which is fine), but for a first time director in 1992, it was, as Vincent Vega would put it, a bold statement.
The problem it has is that a lot of Tarantino’s early work has been copied over and over again since the 90s, (I appreciate the irony of saying people have copied Tarantino). What was fresh, exciting and edgy about his first three films is now just the language of American cinema, coming back to it now you lose some of the impact it made.As others have said though, it’s a hell of a debut, and without doubt a singular vision.
I’m just picturing a 15 minute screed, expanding on the line from Goldfinger about how drinking an unchilled Bollinger is worse than listening to The Beatles without earmuffs, where we learn that apparently Bond feels The Kinks to be the far superior band.
Also, I assume Tarantino would write himself in as the Felix Leiter-esque associate role, but you know, profane and unpleasant, like most of his roles.
“When you drove up, did you see the sign in font that says ‘Dead Henchmen Storage?’ That’s because there is no sign in front that says ‘Dead Henchmen Storage!’”
Enter Bond, Q’s office.Miss Moneypenny sits at her desk, leaning back in her chair, her feet laid bare on her desk…
I remember Sean Connery weighing in on Bond around the mid nineties. He had kind things to say about every actor who followed him but he thought the franchise needed a drastic transfusion and suggested Tarantino as the best man for the job.I don’t think we’ll see any kind of radical take on Bond until enough of them flop in a row that the Broccolis get desperate. I confess I wish they would try one set in the sixties again. They could keep it light and fun, sexy and smart, and pair Bond with a woman agent every bit his equal or even better. Christ, Edinburgh is crawling with breathtaking women of mixed ethnic heritage. Do a casting call. Put Diana Rigg in it as M and if it made any money they could spin off the woman agent with her own franchise and let 007 go back to being tired and dreary for the dudes in an era when James Bond movies are utterly pointless.
I think you just described the Austin Powers movies.
“spin off the woman agent with her own franchise”I have thrown out the idea before of an Olga Kurylenko spin-off as an underfunded Bolivian agent who has to improvise and self-finance. Equal parts Bond, Macgyver, and Leverage. Plus, an excuse to have 15 minutes of Felix Leiter in every movie when the Americans blunder though on cross-purposes.
“Quarterpounder. With cheese, no pickles.”
Tarantino was talking up a Casino Royale movie with Brosnan before during and after Craig’s first outing, I think it could have been great…if they got a producer to reign in Tarantino a bit.I’m enjoying the trend right now for people to record commentary for movies on YouTube – it’s one of my favourite features on physical media and they are happening less and less – cabin fever Kevin Smith has been great, because he’ll start crying at any given moment.
I feel like someone to rein in Tarantino a bit on all his movies would be a plus. I’ve never been a Tarantino fan but revisiting his work now. (Calling it a Quarantino binge.) And I will admit that I am enjoying his work more than I did and more than I expected to. He is undeniably talented. But I still have the overwhelming feeling that his movies are compromised of great individual scenes, concepts, and performances that often inevitably end up not working as a whole because they teeter into self indulgence.
I think the problem with revisiting his work is that a lot of its impact has lessened over the decades.He changed the language of American cinema, and the years of homage or copying has dulled them a tiny bit.Pulp Fiction for sure, by design is a series of great characters and scenes that incidentally make a movie, and most great film making usually devolves into indulgence.
Yes, that’s a fair point, though what I find overly indulgent with Tarantino is usually what also comes across as written by a gleeful 12 year old, and it just strikes me as a really weird juxtaposition with the quality of other aspects of his movies. I’m just learning to accept that as part of the aesthetic.Still, revisiting his movies has been a good exercise for me, especially since I spent years ignoring his work. Even all the imitators making his work seem less fresh doesn’t dull the impact of when he’s really knocking it out of the park. That opening 20 minutes of Inglorious Basterds is just astoundingly good, probably one of the best scenes I’ve ever watched in a movie, period, and 11 years having elapsed doesn’t dull its impact, at least for me.
The opening of that film is probably an example of one of the finest scenes in American cinema, it’s tight, well written, fantastically acted and directed with a restraint Tarantino rarely deploys.
Agreed on all counts! It made me realize I’d been unfair to write him off completely. It also made me really curious to see a short play from him because that’s what it reminds me of.
That movie, had it been made, might have been awesome or it might have been a disaster. Either way, I would have bought a ticket on opening day.
As a fan of both franchises (though a bit less so since 2009 or so), Tarantino needs to go and make his own original retro 2-1/2 hr, talky, curse-laden, over-violent science fiction and spy movies. Stop using my childhood as his drunken plaything.