Saving James Bond

Amazon MGM Studios has tapped the new producers for the next iteration of James Bond: Amy Pascal and David Heyman. 

Pascal has been involved in films ranging from Groundhog Day to The Social Network, from a League of Their Own to Spider-Man: Homecoming. Heyman produced all of the Harry Potter movies and worked on films such as Once Upon a Time in Hollywood to Paddington.

Their bigger box-office successes may be essential to the Bond franchise’s future.

The reason is simple. Amazon spent $1 billion on Bond, and anything but a robust ROI is unlikely to be acceptable in Seattle. Bezos doesn’t want to lose money, to say nothing of losing face if the decades-long franchise falters.

One of the hurdles ahead is the problem almost any movie has nowadays – how much it makes at the box office. The largest-grossing Bond film, adjusted for inflation, is 2012’s Skyfall, at $1.5 billion. A solid number, but second is 1965’s Thunderball, at $1.4 billion.

Here’s the kicker. The production budget for Skyfall was at least $170 million, or nearly $100 million more than Thunderball’s budget of $74 million. 

What’s more, of the top 10 grossing Bond films, adjusted for inflation, Daniel Craig stars in three — Skyfall, Spectre (2015) at number four, and Casino Royale (2006) at number eight. Sean Connery played Bond in four top-10 films: Thunderball, Goldfinger (1964) at number three, You Only Live Twice (1967) at number six, and Diamonds Are Forever (1971) at number 10.

The three Craig films grossed an adjusted $3.6 billion, while the Connery films raked in $4.6 billion.

The remaining three films in the top 10 have the Roger Moore Bond of the 1970s: Live and Let Die, The Spy Who Loved Me, and Moonraker.

Audiences didn’t love a tormented Bond

While some likened Craig’s Bond to Christian Bale’s turns as Batman, bringing a sense of grittiness to the role, the box-office appeal of that interpretation clearly was mixed. Perhaps the audience didn’t want to wallow in darkness. 

Of the 25 “official” James Bond movies, those that have used the character in a more engaging and less distant way are the ones that propelled the character through the decades. (We won’t include 1967’s Casino Royale, a comedic goof, and 1983’s Never Say Never Again. Connery notwithstanding, it wasn’t produced by Eon Productions, so it is considered non-canonical, and it wouldn’t be a bad thing were it to be considered non-existent.)

Those who wrote, directed and produced the Bond films from 1962’s Dr. No walked a thin line between serious and silly. This was never truer than in the seven Roger Moore Bond outings. Timothy Dalton reeled it back in, and the humor became more about banter between Bond and Q (Desmond Llewelyn) and the toys, like an Aston Martin V8 that lives up to the long line of Bond-mobiles with something absurd. Think The Living Daylights’ outrigger skis.

Pierce Brosnan followed. Brosnan came to Bond after playing the eponymous con man in NBC’s Remington Steele. As such, he had a deliberate lightness of touch which he brought to the Bond role.

Realize that in the four Brosnan Bond films the plots were potential contemporary crises. There was a hack of the global financial system in GoldenEye; a media mogul orchestrating a war between the UK and China for ratings in Tomorrow Never Dies; an attempt to monopolize the oil supply in The World Is Not Enough; and preventing a war between North and South Korea in Die Another Day. Yet Brosnan’s Bond, while put upon and beaten, always recovered with savoir faire, which is as much a characteristic of Bond as the tuxedo is his uniform and martini his beverage.

Profits dipped along with Bond’s moods

But then there was Daniel Craig. And now, the challenge for Pascal and Heyman.

The first Craig Bond, 2006’s Casino Royale, finished ninth at the box office that year, according to Box Office Mojo, bracketed between the animated Over the Hedge and Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.

In 2008 it was Quantum of Solace, again in ninth place, this time between Twilight and Horton Hears a Who! Bond gained box-office traction in 2012 with Skyfall, ending the year in fourth place, this time between The Hunger Games and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn-Part 2.

Spectre, in 2015, fell out of the top 10, landing at 11 between Cinderella and Mission: Impossible-Rogue Nation. No Time to Die brought things back in 2021, finishing seventh, between Eternals and A Quiet Place Part II.

While none of these is a flop, none is particularly spectacular. 

Bringing back that Bond magic

Remember that David Heyman, via his Heyday Films, produced the eight Harry Potter films. Like Bond, Potter began as a character in a series of books. Of course, the sales of Ian Fleming Bond books are the equivalent of a rounding error compared to the sales of J.K. Rowling’s Potter books.

Of the eight Potter movies, the lowest-performing was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, which finished 2010 in seventh place. However, when Part 2 was released the following year, it topped the box office, just as the first film in the series, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, did in 2001. The other films finished in the top 5. 

A Harry Potter film likely has a wider potential audience than a James Bond movie. But considering that the early Bond movies performed well compared to later outings, it is undoubtedly incumbent upon Pascal and Heyman to bring Bond back from dour to delight.

One of the most memorable lines in Pascal’s A League of Their Own is “There’s no crying in baseball.” There should be some smiling in Bond films—on the screen, as well as in the theater.

And that’s how you save James Bond.