Martin Campbell On The 'Casino Royale' DVD And Turning Down 'Bond 22'
In an interview posted at Hollywood In Hi-Def, director Martin Campbell sat down to discuss the success of Casino Royale on DVD (and its eventual special edition release with even more extras), how James Bond and Blu-ray work well together and turning down Bond 22.
‘I was impressed. It does look phenomenal; you can’t get away from it. It’s simply staggering, the difference,’ said Campbell of the Blu-ray disc of Casino Royale–which was the first high-def title to sell more than 100,000 copies.
‘I watched the whole film from top to bottom, which is unusual; I don’t normally. But I watched it because the quality was so terrific. I think that just about every scene transfers wonderfully. Even on the dullest scenes, you know, like office scenes, which are normally pretty boring to actually shoot and really they are functional scenes. They stand out incredibly. You see detail.’
When asked if he had worked on any of the special features that will accompany the eventual special (ultimate perhaps?) release of Casino Royale, he said: ‘All I’ve done is watch the movie. I’m fascinated by the quality of it. But that’s about as far as I’ve gone. I’m sort of busy at the moment looking at other projects.’
‘Certainly I have to OK the scenes that have been cut out. That’s good. I think people are fascinated by scenes that are cut out and I put most of them back into the disc. I hope there’s going to be an extended documentary because they (documentary film crews) are with us all the time, doing interviews all the way through. The documentary on the existing movie (DVD/Blu-ray discs) is just a little short. I just wanted more. Whether anybody else wants more, I don’t know. It fell a little short for me. They are there every day so it could just be a little longer. Even the Goldeneye, I think, one was more detailed and longer. So I hope they are going to extend that.’
Campbell also commented on the marketing strategies to release a bare-bones DVD and then eventually follow up with a more substantial release. ‘Bond is peculiar in that they release every other title, just before Casino Royale came out, they released, in England anyway, a sort of silver suitcase, with all the digitally remastered Bond films. They all looked fantastic, by the way. So they have editions and then special editions and special editions of the special editions. So they milk them, and why shouldn’t they? People buy them and that’s great.’
And what about Daniel Craig’s return as 007? ‘I feel that after the Pierce Brosnan one, I sort of said that was it, I didn’t want to do anymore. Then, because it his was based on the book, this one, and it meant there was a change of tone, then I did this one. But, really, the problem is, you sort of then start to repeat yourself. The character’s pretty much set and you just feel you’re sort of doing the same thing again, only different, you know. How Sam Raimi does Spider-Man is beyond me.’
Be sure to head over to Hollywood In Hi-Def for the complete interview.
Stay tuned to CBn for all the latest Casino Royale and James Bond coverage.