Deleted Scene: Bond Gets Taken For A Ride

It's a hot topic in the CommanderBond.net Forums at the moment (don't forget to visit the link to see the current discussion); they are the deleted scenes from James Bond.

Lets take a look at a deleted scene from 1999's The World Is Not Enough. At the climax of the Pre-Titles Sequence our venerable hero, James Bond, falls from a hot air balloon. Landing on The Millennium Dome Bond damages ligaments in shoulder.

As a result for part of the movie Bond is incapacitated and subsequently can't drive his Aston Martin DB5.

Why this scene ended up on the cutting room floor is unclear. One theory states that BMW requested that Bond drive no other car than the BMW Z8 in the film.

By now I'm sure a mild form of confusion may have set in. If Bond can't drive his DB5 due to injury why would any scene be filmed with him in the car at all? Well it's quite simple; someone was driving the car for him.

So who is the mysterious person? It's none other than Miss Moneypenny.

The picture above comes from the 007 Newsletter, Issue 20 that was published in August 1999. The variety of photos were taken from behind the scenes, however, the one we're most interested in is the one on the far left. Below is an enlargement.

Looking very carefully at the image you'll note that actress Samantha Bond, who has played Miss Moneypenny for all of the Pierce Brosnan Era so far, is behind the wheel. It seems the character of Miss Moneypenny was originally intended to drive Bond to the funeral of Sir King.

So there you have it. A fantastic look at a deleted scene from The World Is Not Enough. Stay tuned for other deleted scenes as we're hoping to bring you more soon!

As a side note on the 007 Newsletter, most back issues can be purchased from the International Fan Club Web Site at http://www.thejamesbondfanclub.com. Finally, a big thanks to John Cox who was kind enough to send in a scan of the above photo.