Purvis & Wade On James Bond

The screenwriters of Die Another Day and The World Is Not Enough, Neil Purvis and Robert Wade, were profiled by the "S:2" magazine, which is a part of the "Sunday Express" two days ago. Thanks to Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang you can read the article on the internet.

The last interview they gave was in February 2001, and CBn is still hosting the article, which can be found here!

Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is reporting following;

---

Since they were last interviewed, in Screen International in Feb. 2001, the talented duo have stayed out of the limelight while they quietly worked on the new Bond screenplay. At the time of the Screen International profile, they had just finished the first draft of the screenplay for the then untitled Bond 20 and were both keen to demolish some of the more outlandish rumours about the film that had appeared on the internet and in the press.

[…]

Judging from the new Express interview, both Purvis and Wade, who are known as 'The Men With the Golden Pens', have been determined to continue developing the darker side of Bond, but also to give audiences the certain things they expect: the Q scene, the Moneypenny scene, new gadgets, and so on. Wade observed: "But making such scenes fresh is a tremendous challenge".

Forming Another Day
Wade also told the Express: "We started working on the film in the summer of 2000. The first few months were spent throwing ideas into the air and having brainstorming sessions with Michael and Barbara". Wade revealed that Barbara Broccoli had read about an ice hotel and that gave the screenwriters the idea for the film's ice palace.

Purvis added further comments to his partner's experiences on the new film by praising Brosnan in particular: "Pierce is very approachable. He's on first-name terms with most of the crew and often hangs out with them during breaks in filming. A lot of Hollywood stars aren't like that…".

The duo also revealed in the Express interview that they are happy with the way Die Another Day has turned out. Wade commented: "Its a grown-up Bond movie".

[…]

---

Be sure to pay a visit to Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang!

And to discuss this news visit this thread in the Die Another Day Forums!

Spy Report: Madonna's Cameo Finally Revealed

It's been one of the most discussed roles for Die Another Day and one of the most confusing as well. It has long been debated whether or not Madonna will have a role in the next James Bond film. Moreover, how she'll actually appear in the film has also been heavily speculated.

To date, the most popular theory has been that Madonna would appear in Die Another Day as the Scorpion Girl, a character who is involved in the torture of Bond. However, CommanderBond.Net has learnt otherwise.

Madonna's role in Die Another Day will be that of a fencing instructor. The scene that Madonna features in will take place at the Blades Club in London. The scenes at Blades do involve James Bond dueling villain Gustav Graves both inside and outside of Blades, however, audiences will only see Madonna inside. The singer recently filmed her cameo role at Pinewood Studio's outside of London.

We're told that Madonna's scenes in the film may have been cut down, possibly due to time restraints. Originally her fencing instructor character had a fair sized role in the Blades sequence. Rumours describing a scene where Madonna and Halle Berry's character, Jinx, kiss are all false. Berry is already back in the United States filming for the second X-Men film.

Despite the possibility of a smaller role, there is also the possibility of seeing Madonna outside of the Blades club. Director Lee Tamahori has previously revealed that Madonna was having a dress specially designed for her work in the film by fashion house Versace.

If you'd like to discuss the news please visit this thread of the Die Another Day Forums!

Thanks to 'Rupert' for helping out with this article.

Cover of Bond on Set Revealed

The front cover of 'Bond on Set' has been revealed by Amazon UK.

'Bond on Set', by Greg Williams, is a forthcoming release which will look at the making of Die Another Day.

While it can't be read, there does appear to be a sticker on the front cover. It's possible that it reveals that the cover is still tenative.

If you'd like more information on Bond on set, or on any Die Another Day merchandise, please visit CommanderBond.Net's merchandise list.

News and Pictures From The 2002 James Bond Celebrity Golf Classic

The 2002 James Bond Celebrity Golf Classic was the place to be again this year as it celebrated both the 40th Anniversary of James Bond and the forthcoming release of Die Another Day.

Kevin Collette was one of the people lucky enough to attend the event and has the following pictures to share with Bond fans. But before we get to those, here is a list of just a few of the celebrities in attendance!

John Barry
Don Black
Maryam D’Abo
Samantha Bond
George Lazenby
John Cleese
Rick Yune
Robert Wade
Neil Purvis
Rosamund Pike
Lee Tamahori
Barbara Broccoli
Michael G.Wilson
Shirley Eaton
Billy Zane
Peter Jandson – Smith
Raymond Benson
David Arnold
Caroline Munro
John Glen

And on to the pictures;

Kevin Collette and John Cleese

Kevin Collette interviews John Glenn

Neil Purvis and Robert Wade

Kevin Collette with the lovely, and tall too I'm told, Rosamund Pike

Kevin Collette with Samantha Bond

Kevin Collette with the Aston Martin V12 Vanquish

Some fantastic pictures there from what looked like a great dat! A big thank you to Kevin for sending them in to us! And also a big thanks to Logitech for giving Kevin the use of their new credit card sized digital camera!

Jordan Charter has also posted some of his own pictures of the event in in this thread of the CommanderBond.Net Forums.

Primadonna – Or why Madonna is causing problems…

British newspaper Sunday Mirror is reporting about Madonna's Cameo being rewritten by – her husband.

Here's the entire article:

---

SHE'S renowned for her diva demands and getting her own way, so why does it not surprise me Madonna is rumoured to be making life difficult for James Bond film bosses?

Ever the perfectionist, the 43-year-old star has demanded the script is changed for her cameo role in Die Another Day.

But it's proving a major headache for the production crew as she's insisted her husband Guy Ritchie rewrites it.

A source said: "It's a major hassle, especially as we're on a tight schedule and can't afford to overrun on anything.

"Some of the production staff are doing their nut. But at the end of the day, it is Madonna and she's a major coup for us. Whatever she says goes." Madonna, who also sings the film's theme tune, is due to start shooting scenes opposite 007 Pierce Brosnan and co-star Halle Berry today at London's Pinewood Studios.

The source added: "It should be interesting as all Madonna's scenes must be shot on Sunday, including her speaking parts, because of her theatre commitments." It is believed Madonna only agreed to sing the title theme tune if she was given a part in the film which is due out in November.

Because of the dramatic script change, it's not clear what scenes she's in but expectations include a lesbian kiss with Halle Berry and high energy sword-fighting.

The fighting scenes shouldn't be too gruelling though as mother-of-two Madonna is extremely supple from yoga and pilates. And the lesbian clinch won't be a problem either as she's had a number of her own experiences with the same sex.

Madonna went through a lipstick lesbian phase years ago when she French-kissed model Naomi Campbell for her raunchy book Sex and allegedly had a fling with American comedienne Sandra Bernhard.

And in her current play Up For Grabs, which is on at London's Wyndham Theatre, she snogs co-star Megan Dodds.

I saw the show on Thursday night and thought her performance was brilliant, as did Dame Shirley Bassey who was watching in the wings.

Unfortunately the same can't be said for Naked Chef Jamie Oliver and his wife Jules who last month left during the interval.

It's no wonder Madonna prefers rival chef Marco Pierre White.

---

Well, the lesbian kiss has been denied so far and it was thought that Halle Berry scheduled working on "Die Another Day" already. So is this article true? Who knows.

Anyway, if you want to discuss Primadonna, please do it in this thread of the Die Another Day Forums. And thanks to Forum User 'solitaire' for letting us know.

'Moonraker': The Evolution Of An Ad Campaign

An ad in Variety announces that MOONRAKER is the next James Bond film (and not "For Your Eyes Only", as promised at the end of TSWLM).

The early Moonraker logo and artwork appear on this unspecified teaser.

The Eon/Moonraker letterhead gives us a first look at the new logo.

The stunning Advance A poster is one of my all time favorite Bond posters.

An Advance B poster takes it a step further…

I’ve heard this called an international advance sheet.

The US one sheet promises a mega-Bond experience indeed (and the return of Jaws!)

A second style one sheet is introduced during the film's record breaking run.

Yet a third style US one-sheet, the very rare “Review Sheet”, pitches the critical success of Moonraker.

The Thai poster uses some unique original art.

Interestingly enough, the unused Moonraker logo and art appears on the U.S. novelization.

Moonraker comes to T.V…

All that wonderful art to choose from, and this is what we get when Moonraker comes to DVD.

Finally, artist Jeff Marshall produced this excellent special edition Moonraker poster;

'Licence To Kill': The (Tragic) Evolution of an Ad Campaign

LICENCE TO KILL
The (Tragic) Evolution of an Ad Campaign

The first piece of promo art for Bond 16. The provocative title (the first non-Fleming title) suggested "License Revoked" would be a very special Bond movie indeed.

Every effort was made to come up with a fresh new ad campaign that told the audience LICENSE REVOKED would be a different kind of Bond movie. Some of the results;

It looked like this poster by Bob Peak — of TSWLM and Star Trek fame — would be the teaser;

But then "License Revoked" campaign is junked in favor of a teaser poster reminiscent of The Living Daylights. Nice poster, but the title change to 'Licence To Kill' suggested trouble ahead…

Trouble indeed. MGM/UA implodes and the Bond marketing campaign is handed off to the guys at Kinko’s. The result, this abominable one-sheet.

International distributor UIP goes their own way and creates their own campaign — which is not really much of an improvement.

But then there's this variant poster used in the UIP campaign that I think is pretty sharp.

Outside of the UK Bond is dressed in a tux in the UIP campaign. It's an improvement, I think.

What was supposed to be a very special, groundbreaking Bond film looks like the most generic of the batch when it reaches DVD. And isn’t that a pic from TLD?

It started off as a promising campaign and it's quite obvious how it ended.

Peter Lamont talks "Die Another Day"

Peter Lamont, Production Designer of "Die Another Day" attented at a School for Film and TV in Munich, Germany, yesterday. German 007-Website all time high had an insider in Munich, who passed on information that Peter Lamont revealed…

Unfortunately most students asked for "Titanic", at the end some other wanted to know about the new James Bond film. The most surprising information – the 1st unit is still shooting and has not ended filming, as formerly reported. In the next days there will be filming somewhere in England, and according to Peter Lamont scenes will be shot where Spoiler Warning (Highlight To Read) Pierce Brosnan will fall into an ice lake.

Lamont also talked about a scene where they filmed the Green Jaguar. First it should be shot with Blue Screens, but they decided to take a 360° panorama shot on location in Iceland. They used this shot as backdrop, and it looked great, according to the Production Designer. So it was decided to do the scene without Blue Screen.

Finally he revealed that there is a big time pressure. So they had to shoot scenes with the model of an Spoiler Warning (Highlight To Read) Antanov, but it didn't look well, so they had to edit the model, which meant more loss of time. Post production will last until mid-October.

Be sure to visit this thread in the "Die Another Day" Forums to discuss this news!

Aston Martin Upside Down

It seems a strange title for an article, but you better believe it.

The Sun have published a great photo from Blue Egg Studios in Gloucestershire were scenes for the Iceland car chase are currently being filmed.

The Aston Gives Bond A Different Perspective Of Iceland

So what's going on? Well Spoiler Warning (Highlight To Read) as CommanderBond.Net revealed earlier this year, a part of the ice ballet will see Bond’s Aston Martin flipped onto it’s roof. So how does it right itself again? Bond hits a button and the ejector passenger seat engages throwing the car the right way up again.

Just in case the stunt went wrong, three other Vanquish's were on hand.

If you'd like to discuss this news please visit this thread of the Die Another Day Forums! See you there!

Official Site Takes A Look At Hovercrafts

The official James Bond site has had another major update today, this time taking a look at the Hovercraft sequence that was filmed in Aldershot.

Specifically, the filming took place in Long Valley which hosts a military base. That alone created problems for the crew as Chris Corbould reveals, “This area is the army test ground and it’s very abrasive on vehicles. They say if a tank can last two weeks here you can take it to any terrain in the world and it’ll keep going which is why they come here. The sand is all spikes when you look at it under the microscope so we had a lot of trouble with bearings and all sorts of things in the early days. However, we’ve ironed out the problems and they are working really well now”.

The article is worth a read if only for the two pictures of the hovercraft sequence being filmed.

If you'd like to discuss the article please do so in this thread of the Die Another Day Forums.

Finally, a big thanks to 'M_Balje' for letting us know about the update!