Titles such as Never Send Flowers, Death Is Forever, Brokenclaw, Nobody Lives Forever, Icebreaker. These titles have been circulating around for a while, however, I must denounce them as all false. Most of them are titles to Bond novels and EON would never use them.
First off let’s debunk some rumours that have been floating around. Some people may have noticed some rumoured titles floating around that were dubious to say the least, well some of them are actually existing books. Richard compiled a nice list for us.
Never Send Flowers – 1993 by John Gardner
Death Is Forever – 1992 by John Gardner
Brokenclaw – 1990 by John Gardner
Nobody Lives Forever – 1986 by John Gardner
Icebreaker – 1983 by John Gardner
Well there you have it. Thanks to Richard for the list 🙂
Quite a few people have e-mailed us about the Trade Ad that surfaced a few days ago and they have raised various issues in relation to it. It was something that we were pondering about as well, so now we pose the question, is it real?
There are a few points that I notice. For instance a trade ad normally contains a lot more information on it, this doesn’t even mention James Bond it just has a very bad version of the gun logo. The idea of a trade ad is to drum up promotion for the movie, this trade advert doesn’t even clearly state that it is a James Bond movie. Previous James Bond Trade Ads would indicate it should say something such as “The 20th James Bond Adventure Due From MGM/UA Christmas 2002”. On this point we can pretty much say that either the image is a fake, or a flop for advertising.
Also it features only the UA logo, and it makes no reference to MGM (UA is owned by MGM). And where has the UIP Logo disappeared? It’s appeared on all the earlier trade ads and it also appears on the TWINE Poster. The UA logo did not appear on the TWINE Poster indicating that MGM doesn’t want to associated the two companies or something along those lines. The TWINE Teaser Poster had the UA and UIP logo’s and mentioned MGM for reference. After discussing this point with quite a few people it would seem that United Artists no longer has anything to do with James Bond, in fact all future films will solely use MGM for release and distribution. From this point we can assume that the image is a fake.
Well they are the two main arguing points as to why the image is a fake. I posed the question to some other people in the know. James Rumley, editor of 007 News, says that it looks fake to him and “If there was going to be one, it would definitely be with the MGM logo”. Garth Franklin, editor of Dark Horizons who also published the image, tends to agree with my theories. He thinks it’s of a poor quality and because of the lack of information it definetley is not a trade ad “then again if this is a licensing show poster its pretty much what they do show.” Michael “Icebreaker” Kersey of 007 Forever, thinks along a slightly different line, he believes that the image could contain the font used in future promotions but he states that this is not a teaser poster.
So what is my conclusion? I dont’ have one. I’m just as confused as you. Is it real? Perhaps. If so it’s a mock up of an official picture that is yet to be released.
Dark Horizons has posted up this news from ‘NeoRangorn’ which we must say we cannot authenticate, still it makes an interesting read:
“I recently had a small chat with Michael G. Wilson, current producer of the James Bond series. While it was brief, I tried to get what he knew about it out of him. He brought up Brosnan’s interest in having Bond travel to or have the plot centered on Ireland, and said there was an idea being tossed around about an Irish-American gangster who heads a SMERSH/SPECTRE type group, who solely try to go after 007 after he causes a problem to a previous operation of theirs [similar to the villains’ goal in Fleming’s “From Russia With Love”]. He mentioned if this idea is chosen, he (and Barbara Broccoli) have their eyes on Denis Leary to play the part. The casting choice might seem far fetched, but I actually think Leary could pull off a Bond villain. He’s proven he can act, and he’d be a ruthless villain in the style of Robert Davi’s Franz Sanchez. I also quickly asked him about the rumors of Fleming’s Casino Royale being the center of Bond 20 and he said he didn’t think audiences today would go for it.
He could have been screwing with me for all I know, but I was just glad he even talked to me. Not often I stir up the guts to ask someone I recognize something. I don’t think he was lying, but I don’t think it’s sure to happen — he said “one idea being tossed around”, and as proven in the past, the people behind Bond go through numerous ideas. Bond news this early on IS pretty shaky.”
Even if false, it’s still an interesting read.
A short article has appeared in “The New York Times”. They have reported that Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, producers of the Bond films, are after Brian DePalma as director for the upcoming movie; of course this clashes with reports that Michael Apted, director of the World Is Not Enough, will direct.
Short! We’ll have to wait and see. Personally, I don’t believe it.
Dark Horizons have released a poster with the notion that if may actually be the trade ad/teaser poster for Bond 20. Impressive and good looking it is, but it is also merely fanart. The biggest give away, the small little United Artists Logo in the bottom right hand corner. As of TWINE MGM will distribute all James Bond films, and not United Artists.
Despite this I’ve spoken with Garth from Dark Horizons and he is convinced that the poster is in fact a ‘Trade Ad’ and not the actual teaser image. He claims that his source who sent him this has always been reliable in the past and he has no reason to doubt them.
Quite a few people have written in to us asking why they are still finding articles in magazines about Edward Woodward replacing Dame Judi Dench.
To begin with, these reports are still incorrect. EON Productions have already announced that such news is false.
Why are they still printing this news? Most of the magazines that are still publishing this news went to print before the news was confirmed as false.
Pierce Brosnan has announced that he will not film a James Bond film that invovled the IRA or any such political situation that is so precariously balanced.
Good point, like I pointed out in my original thoughts on the news. I’m so proud…
Pierce Brosnan has announced that he will not film a James Bond film that invovled the IRA or any such political situation that is so precariously balanced.
News from an Irish newspaper has come out today and it reinforces earlier specualtion that James Bond may travel to Ireland for his next mission in James Bond 20. The paper also reports that a squad of Bond producers have travelled to Dublin to scout out shooting locations for Bond 20.
Furthermore they have details on the plotline. The plot line would see Bond attempting to keep the IRA peace process alive, after splinter groups from the IRA attempt to kill the British Prime Minister. To stop the assassination attempt Bond will have to ask for the help of ‘straight’ IRA personell who are serious about the peace process.
While CommanderBond.Net hasn’t been able to source the original news article Aint It Cool News posted it here and the Sunday Times’ reporting of the news is available here.