This time, no slide whistle, happily
In late 1989, Metro Goldwyn Mayer was sold to the Australian broadcasting company Quintex, who then started negotiating a merger with Pathe Communication. That act would put James Bond into deep freeze for six years.
1990
Iraq took intelligence services by surprise with its invasion of Kuwait, a large international coalition being formed to defend Saudi Arabia and prepare to expel Saddam Hussein’s forces. Nelson Mandela was released from prison. McDonald’s opens for the first time in China and the USSR. The big event of the year was the reunification of Germany – the German Democratic Republic being absorbed into the territory of the Federal Republic, which remained an EEC and NATO member[1].
Cubby Broccoli had been unhappy with the way the Bond franchise was going, especially after the disappointing returns of Licence to Kill. He put EON’s parent company Danjaq on the market, then passed EON onto his stepson and daughter…
Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli – the second generation
Michael G. Wilson (1943-present) was the son of actor Lewis Wilson and Dana Broccoli, as she become on her remarriage. After graduating as an electrical engineer, he spent a brief term in that industry before moving into law and in 1972 was invited to join his stepfather at EON, initially in the legal department. However, from The Spy Who Loved Me, he become involved in the films, his responsibility increasing gradually – he co-wrote all five 1980s Bond movies and became executive producer, followed by full producer. 007 has been pretty much his entire film career and he made a cameo in Goldfinger, then further cameos in every film since Moonraker, although his Skyfall appearance was nearly all cut for timing reasons.
The other half of the Bond team at the moment is Cubby and Dana’s daughter Barbara (1960-present). She has basically lived pretty much her entire life with Bond – she entered the franchise at 22 as an Executive Assistant on Octopussy and became Associate Producer for The Living Daylights. She was the person responsible for Judi Dench becoming the first female M, a move that helped revitalise the series in 1995. Outside of 007, she produced a Golden Globe nominated TV movie called Crime of the Century and a musical version of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
Broccoli also parted company with Richard Maibaum and John Glen, who had long involvements as writer and director respectively in the series, looking for fresh blood. A number of names were considered, ranging from the director of Rambo to Gloria and Willard Huyck, who had written Howard the Duck – considered one of the worst films of all time!
A third Dalton film was in the early stages when Broccoli learned that the new chairman of MGM was basically planning to sell TV rights to Bond at below market rates for the rest of the century – a move that would badly affect the income needed for future films. With Danjaq still under the control him and his wife, he filed suit against the studio just days before its merger with Pathe on 23 October 1990. With the studio and EON now fighting it out in the courts, 007 could not hope to fight any baddies.
“Bond 17”, which got to second draft stage in 1993 before a page-one rewrite changed the entire plot to become GoldenEye, was planned to be set extensively in Hong Kong, with Bond going there after the destruction of a Scottish nuclear facility. A beautiful female Chinese operative was planned to turn up – something kept for another day… Tomorrow Never Dies in fact.
Elsewhere, John Gardner released Brokenclaw, with a Native American villain with a deformed hand – and ending with a bow and arrow fight. The BBC did a radio adaption of the novel You Only Live Twice starring Michael Jayston.
A top down shooting and racing adaptation of The Spy Who Loved Me was released for a variety of computers including IBM PC, Amiga and Spectrum. It was joined by Delphine Studio’s point-and-click game The Stealth Affair, the American version of that game being adapted to include Bond (the European version retained the original character John Glames), who had to find a stolen stealth fighter.
1991
After a few weeks of air strikes and a short ground war, the forces of Iraq were roundly defeated in Operation Desert Storm, which saw the full operational debut of the F-117A.The ‘Birmingham Six’, six men falsely convicted for an IRA bombing, were released after it was found police fabricated evidence. Slovenia breaks away from Yugoslavia in a ten-day war that is the least bloody of the Yugoslav conflicts – Croatia’s war started as well and would not finish until 1995. An attempted coup in the Soviet Union collapsed after 72 hours when the KGB’s Alpha Group refused to put down protests. In the aftermath, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the KGB and the USSR all ceased to exist.
John Gardner published The Man From Barbarossa, a prescient tale featuring an attempted hardliner coup against the USSR.. There was no further production on the film front, in a year that saw the death of titles designer Maurice Binder.
007 did however go animated… or rather his nephew[2] did in the children’s’ series James Bond Jr. that ran for 65 half an hour episodes. I’ve never seen it, so cannot really say anything about it.
1992
The US and the new Russian Federation declared the Cold War formally over both announced that they would “de-target” their missiles, so they could not be instantly fired on each other[3]. George Bush started the year by throwing up on the Japanese Prime Minister and ended it with defeat at the hands of Arkansas Democrat Bill Clinton. UN peacekeepers went to Somalia and the disintegrating Yugoslavia[4]. There was another split-up with no violence, with Czechoslovakia becoming the Czech Republic and Slovakia in the Velvet Divorce[5]. Stella Rimington became the first female head of MI5 – providing strong inspiration for a later Bond casting choice and becoming a spy novel writer after her retirement.
There was now a change at the top – MGM/Pathe came under the control of Frank Mancuso, with the new boss appointing John Calley (who had been at Warner Brothers when they had done Never Say Never Again as head of United Artists. Calley wanted to see Bond back on the big screen, but with a new actor – Broccoli wanted Dalton to complete the three-picture contract he had signed.
A video game of James Bond Jr. was released and Gardner’s novel of the year was Death is Forever.
1993
Six people were killed in a bombing at the World Trade Center in New York. After an alleged Iraqi plot to kill former President Bush on a visit to Kuwait, Bill Clinton drops a Tomahawk on Iraqi intelligence headquarters. Israel and the PLO signed the Oslo Accords, recognising each other. The US launched an attempt to capture two lieutenants of a warlord in Mogadishu that went spectacularly wrong.
There was now a victory for Cubby, as Giancarlo Peretti was removed as chairman of MGM/UA, his replacement being much more willing to work with Danjaq on his terms. Dalton hinted in a Daily Mail interview that the next film would start production in January or February 1994 with Michael France writing the script – the latter was true at any rate. With this sorted out and a heart condition having serious effect on him, Broccoli now stepped aside from day-to-day operations to allow his heirs to take over.
His likeness also appeared in the side-scrolling platformer The Duel – the final game published by Domark and the last appearance of Dalton’s Bond in any work. Gardner decided to Never Send Flowers, in a book where Bond meets a Swiss operative that he didn’t dump after one novel – indeed, he ends up proposing to her (it doesn’t last past the second novel, predictably).
1994
Eight people were killed in a sarin nerve gas attack in Tokyo and 85 people lost their lives in attacks on Jewish targets in Buenos Aires. Nelson Mandela was elected President of South Africa. The Provisional IRA announced its first ceasefire in August 1994 – it would last for 18 months. The existence of the Secret Intelligence Service was publically acknowledged for the first time.
The announced production start date came and went with no news or filming work being done. Then on 12 April, Dalton made it clear that he was done and that he would not be returning to the role as he felt it was time to move on – it had been five years since Licence to Kill. EON did not stop him. Brosnan was now available – Remington Steele was over and after nursing his wife Cassandra Harris through the terminal cancer that took her from him in 1991, his roles had been relatively middle-ranking, with the exception of his brief role in Mrs. Doubtfire. It was easy to bring him on board.
Pierce Brosnan – Suaveness for the 1990s
Pierce Brosnan was my ‘first Bond’ – I entered the franchise when he was the star and he remains one of my favourites. A suave Bond with a strong sense of grittiness at times, he is Connery for the modern generation.
The only Bond so far not to hail from a Commonwealth country, Ireland having left before he was born, Pierce Brosnan OBE (1953-) was initially brought up by his grandparents, his father leaving him very young and his mother going not long after. When they died, he was passed around from relative to relative and even spent time in care. He moved to England in 1964, where he saw Goldfinger and also softened his Irish accent to avoid bullying. Starting off as a fire-eater and a busker, he got into acting and appeared in a variety of films before appearing in the miniseries Manions of America where he became a US star. He appeared in Remington Steele and had that aborted first casting as Bond, as we have discussed.
His 007 success kept him going with work during his role including appearing in Mars Attacks! and a remake of The Thomas Crown Affair (the rumour about being banned from wearing a tux was just that, but in that film, he does not do up the bow tie). On his departure from Bond, his roles have not been as successful, with his singing in Mamma Mia! getting roundly panned – he also appeared in a mediocre TV movie called Bag of Bones in 2011. He has two films currently in post-production.
****
SeaFire was released by Gardner – it would be his penultimate original novel in the series.
Elsewhere, a certain Austrian actor appeared in True Lies, which includes a homage to the pre-titles sequence of Goldfinger (removing a dry suit to reveal a tux).
1995
A Jewish gunman assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin at a peace rally, severely damaging the peace process. NATO launched Operation Deliberate Force against Serbian positions in Bosnia, ultimately forcing Yugoslavia to return to negotiations and sign the Dayton Peace Accords, ending this particular Yugoslav War – the year had featured a notorious massacre at Srebrenica. SIS moved into their current headquarters at Vauxhall Cross.
After six long years, 007 was back in action on the big screen…
GoldenEye (film)
“What, no small talk? No chit-chat? You know, that's the problem these days. No one bothers to take the time to give a really sinister interrogation.” – Bond
When the control system for an EMP satellite is stolen, 007 heads to the Russian Federation, where he goes up against the leader of a sinister criminal syndicate out for revenge on Britain…
· This is the first completely original Bond movie – with no elements from any Fleming tale.
· The film opens with one of the greatest stunts in cinematic history – the 722-foot (220m) bungee jump off the Verzasca dam, which is now something you can do commercially, albeit on a platform slightly further out from the edge[6].
· Daniel Kleinman took over as title designer – introducing a third dimension to his titles. This film also sees the debut of a CGI gun barrel.
· This is not only the debut of Judi Dench’s M, but also Samantha Bond’s more feminist Moneypenny and Michael Kitchen as Bill Tanner. Kitchen is best known for his starring role in ITV’s Foyle’s War, created by Anthony Horowitz[7].
· This film contains significant early roles for Sean Bean (who dies gruesomely as usual), Famke Janssen and Alan Cumming. Bean’s character is generally thought to be named after John Trevelyan, a former BBFC head who insisted on cuts to the early Bonds. Ironically, this film required trimming in places to get a PG-13/12.
· Tina Turner sings the title song – Ace of Base were originally planned to do so but their record label pulled them out. Their loss, I suppose.
· Faced with Pinewood being unavailable, EON converted an old Rolls Royce factory at Leavesden into studios and a backlot (used for the tank chase), giving it as a gift to the British film industry – the studios have since been used for the Star Wars prequels and the Harry Potter series among others. The producers later commented that Pinewood would have been too small for the very big film.
GoldenEye was the first Bond film I ever saw (on TV in fact) and is a highly enjoyable action thriller. The film had great reviews and even better box office – the best since Moonraker when adjusted for inflation and the fourth highest of the year.
****
Gardner novelised the film and a comic adaptation was planned (although only the first issue was ever released), but the year produced no video games.
NBC started a Donald P. Bellisario military adventure series called JAG, which ran for one season before being cancelled. It was then picked up by CBS, ran for another nine seasons before being ended, spun off NCIS (renewed for an eleventh season as of time of writing), which spun off NCIS: Los Angeles, which is looking to spin off another show through a backdoor pilot. Quite possibly the greatest ever escape from the stomach of The Cancellation Bear.
The BBC launched Bugs, a spy/science-fiction series that ran for a total of four seasons.
1996
Israel blew up a Hamas operative with a mobile phone bomb in a year that saw Israeli raids on Lebanon, as well as the PLO dropping its call for Israel’s destruction in return for Israel accepting the fundamental existence of Palestine. A North Korean submarine runs aground on the South Korean coast, with all bar one of the crew killed by other crewmembers or the South Korean Army.
COLD (US title Cold Fall) was released. It would be Gardner’s final 007 novel – he was suffering from cancer and the following year he lost his wife. He retired from the series and did not resume novel writing until 2001, completing a number of further works before his death in 2007.
Another departure from the scene was Cubby, whose involvement with GoldenEye was minimal due to failing health and only got an exec producer credit. He had completed most of his autobiography When the Snow Melts (good read in fact) when he passed away – his funeral Mass being attended by Moore, Dalton and Brosnan.
Tom Cruise appeared in Mission: Impossible, a cinematic update of the 1960s series that pulled in more money that the previous year’s Bond film. It was clear that 007 was having competition on the spy scene… including from himself as McCrory resurfaced, stating that he planned to work with Sony to make another Thunderball remake to be called Warhead 2000. Sony had also acquired a new head, John Calley… who had been head of United Artists and worked in marketing GoldenEye.
There were no video games this year.
1997
The United Kingdom returned the colony of Hong Kong to China after the expiry of a 99-year lease. Diana, Princess of Wales was killed along with her boyfriend Dodi al-Fayed and their driver in a road accident in Paris that attracts conspiracy theories, including Dodi’s father Mohammed.
There were big developments in the video and literary franchises this year. In the video game world, Rare released a first person shooter adaptation of GoldenEye for the Nintendo 64. It became and remains a classic not only of Bond games… but of gaming in general, especially for its multiplayer mode and pioneering use of stealth. It sold 8 million copies and while Rare did not do another Bond game, they developed the Perfect Dark series as a spiritual successor, while some of its team left to do the similarly-styled TimeSplitters. Nearly every Bond game since has tried to emulate it.
It was not the only game released - a top-down RPG style (like Zelda) game called James Bond 007 appeared on the Game Boy. I’ve played this game and while you don’t get to kill chickens, it is good fun.
American author Raymond Benson took over as the official Bond author, starting with a short story in Playboy called “Blast from the Past”, continuing with original novel Zero Minus Ten (set around the Hong Kong handover) and concluding a relatively busy year with a novelisation of Tomorrow Never Dies.
Brosnan fell victim of the ‘difficult second movie’ curse:
· The eighteenth Bond film was planned to be set around the handover, but when the release date was set firmly for December 1997 (MGM needed a big hit in Christmas 1997 as the firm was in trouble), that plot was junked and a new one created.
· The script dragged and was only completed a week before shooting started – in essence the script got written around the action, never a good sign.
· Leavesden was booked for The Phantom Menace and new facilities at Frogmore had to be created, although Pinewood was also used.
· The Vietnamese government withdrew filming permission a month before the crew were due to go there, so EON had to go to Thailand instead.
· Brosnan needed eight stitches in his face after being hit by a helmet during a fight scene.
· There was serious concern that the film would miss its scheduled release date, but it ultimately was done in time.
· The film was going to be called Tomorrow Never Lies, but a typo on a draft script was kept.
Compared to all that, dealing with the fact that Teri Hatcher was pregnant during her shoot was simple.
Tomorrow Never Dies (film)
“Mr Wallace[8], call the President. Tell him if he doesn't sign the bill lowering the cable rates, we will release the video of him with the cheerleader in the Chicago motel room.” – Elliot Carver
A media mogul plans to start a war between the UK and China, so he can make billions from the coverage.
· The pre-titles sequence where Bond does interesting things to an arms fair required the trucking in of extra snow.
· This is the first film in the series to be credited as “Alfred R. Broccoli’s EON Productions presents…”
· Elliot Carver is based on a number of RL media figures – while Rupert Murdoch, who was trying to break into Asia at the time and ultimately failed, is often cited today, the writers were going as much for Robert Maxwell, who ‘fell off his yacht’ when pension fraud at Mirror Group was exposed by Private Eye (who framed the final libel writ they got from him) and William Randolph Hearst, whose “yellow journalism” has been cited as a cause of the Spanish-American War of 1898 – although the line " You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war" is generally believed to be apocryphal.
· This is the Western debut of Michelle Yeoh, who plays Chinese operative Wai Lin and is best known for her Hong Kong action films.
· David Arnold took over as composer – his credits are extensive, including the theme tune to Stargate and the music for the London Olympic Games. John Barry was approached, but terms could not be agreed - he endorsed Arnold as his replacement.
· Michael Kitchen was unavailable, so Colin Salmon was cast as Charles Robinson.
· Teri Hatcher, best known these days for Desperate Housewives, took the role as Paris Carver so her then husband could say he was married to a Bond girl.
The rushed scripting means that this is one of the weaker Brosnans – although it does have some good scenes in it. The box office was slightly down on GoldenEye (going against Titanic did not help), but the film was still a sizeable hit.
****
John Calley’s switching of sides had annoyed MGM – he annoyed them even more when Sony stated that McClory was entitled to a share of the $3bn gross for the franchise to date, acquired some of his rights and then announced plans for their own 007 series, as they also owned the rights to Casino Royale. At that point, the lawyers got involved.
Over the pond, Joel Surnow created a spy series for USA called La Femme Nikita, based on a 1990 French film – the series ran for five whole seasons. One of the consultants on that film was Robert Cochran. The two would work together in the following decade.
In addition, Austin Powers was released, a spoof of 1960s spy films (especially early Bond) that spawned two sequels with rather rude titles.
1998
223 people were killed and 4,000 injured in dual suicide bombings at US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya linked to al-Qaeda, resulting in Osama bin Laden entering the FBI’s most wanted list and staying on it until a year after his death in 2011[9]. However, another long-running terrorist-inspiring issue, Northern Ireland, came to a sort of end with the Good Friday Agreement that ended the military activities of the Provisional IRA, although various splinter groups carried on their activities – including killing 29 people in an attack in Omagh, the deadliest bombing of the entire ‘Troubles’. Pakistan detonated its first nuclear device.
A pretty quiet year – with only Raymond Benson’s Facts of Death coming out this year.
1999
Portugal returned Macau to China. NATO engaged in an air campaign against Yugoslavia to stop expulsion of Kosovar Albanians from Kosovo – during the campaign a F-117 stealth fighter was shot down mostly due to poor US tactics and the wreckage probably got inspected by the Russians – which ends in a peace treaty that sees Yugoslav forces leave Kosovo. India and Pakistan fought a brief war. Former Moscow Centre officer Vladimir Putin succeeded Boris Yeltsin as Russian President.
Glidrose, holders of the 007 literary rights, changed its name to Ian Fleming Publications in another busy year for Benson, who produced “Midsummer Night’s Doom” for Playboy, another short story for TV Guide called “Live at Five”, an adaptation of this year’s film and an original novel called High Time to Kill[10], the last being the first of a trilogy of novels focussed around a terrorist group called ‘The Union’.
Tomorrow Never Dies got a third-person shooter adaptation, but only for the PlayStation.
Meanwhile, the Sony-MGM court battle came to an end, with an out of court settlement – MGM basically swapped their Spiderman rights for Sony’s Bond ones, unifying 007 under one studio and allowing for Casino Royale to get a proper adaptation, but not yet. It’s unclear whether Sony actually seriously wanted to do their own Bond or just wanted the lucrative rights to the Marvel character.
Meanwhile, with the Millennium fast approaching, 007 was about to have a close encounter with the Millennium Dome…
The World Is Not Enough (film)
“I'm looking for a submarine[11]! It's big and black and the driver is a very good friend of mine!” – Valentin Zukovsky
When an oil magnate is killed in an attack on MI6 headquarters, 007 is sent to protect his beautiful daughter from the terrorist that killed him.
· The 14-minute pre-titles sequence is the longest in the series (Skyfall’s is about ten). The original plan was to go to the title sequence after the Bilbao sequence, but test audiences wanted more action and the superlative boat chase (which used 35 boats) was moved up before Garbage’s song.
· Maria Grazia Cucinotta, who played the Cigar Girl, auditioned for the role of Elektra King (which went to Sophie Marceau), but her English wasn’t felt to be up to the part.
· This is the final appearance of Desmond Llewellyn as Q. While he probably would have retired (his scenes seem to be a finale for the character), any further appearance was rendered impossible when he was killed in a car accident shortly after the film was released.
· Robert Carlyle’s career has included everything from his role in Stargate Universe to a psychopathic hard man to a male stripper in the classic British comedy The Full Monty.
· 32 minutes of the film was cut between press screenings and cinematic release.
· Yes, this is the one with Denise Richards playing a nuclear physicist – she got a Worst Supporting Actress Razzie for her portrayal, with her and Brosnan nominated for Worst Screen Couple. Generally speaking, scientists don’t look like FHM cover girls (although there are exceptions to every rule).
· This is the first time that Bond shoots a ‘Bond girl’. Speaking of Bond girls, the love scene between Brosnan and Sophie Marceau had ten unusable takes because of visible female nipple.
The first film in the series that I saw in cinemas (in New Jersey, in fact) and one of my personal favourites – although I admit Dr Christmas Jones is nothing more than a distracting bauble [Yes, that is a Christmas joke – Ed]. Reception was mixed (this is a divisive entry in the canon), but the box office was again very good.
The 1990s were a decade of change for Bond. From perceived redundancy to be filed in the same bin as the Warsaw Pact, he was now a modern action star, still packing the old charm and bringing the punters.
As the 21st century begun, the series would change again as new threats made the world of cinematic espionage much harder…
[1]There was a significant public concern, embodied in some now pretty much forgotten thrillers, that a reunified Germany would seek to regain the territory it had in 1937 (now in the USSR and Poland) or worse seek to take over Europe again. To mollify these fears, final status negotiations fixed the 1945 borders, got an agreement from Germany to move towards monetary union and prohibited NATO troops or nuclear weapons from the former GDR area. Germany did not seek military conquest, although some say it decided to do it economically instead.
[2]Bond has no brothers or sisters… although did unknowingly father a child in the novel You Only Live Twice.
[3]It just takes c.15 minutes instead.
[4]There would remain a state of that name covering Serbia, Kosovo and Montenegro until 2003 (although it was not allowed to inherit the UN membership of Yugoslavia, unlike the Russian Federation that took the permanent Security Council seat of the USSR), when it took that name for a short-lived existence – in 2006, Montenegro seceded peacefully and with widespread recognition. In 2008, Kosovo also declared independence, but only half of UN members recognise it.
[5]A reference to the ‘Velvet Revolution’ of 1989. Both countries get on very well with each other – joining NATO and the EU at the same time.
[6]Personally wouldn’t do it either way…
[7]Who also wrote the Alex Rider series of spy novels for younger readers – Stormbreaker got a cinematic adaptation, but did not do that well.
[8]Wallace is played by Michael G. Wilson, in one of his few cameos with lines.
[9]It takes time for the FBI to change the list as there is an extensive process to get someone on there. Bin Laden was replaced by Eric Justin Toth, wanted for possessing and child pornography.
[10]The short stories are available in an anthology of Benson’s final three novels (and Zero Minus Ten) called Choice of Weapons. The ‘Union Trilogy’ is available with “Blast from the Past” as another collection.
[11]The submarine is a Russian “Victor III” nuclear-powered attack submarine, which was a serious improvement in the noise department on the “Victor II” thanks to information passed from John Walker.
