Meet Authors Of 'James Bond: The Legacy'

Great news for Bond fans within reasonable distance of Los Angeles. John Cork and Bruce Scivally, the authors of “James Bond: The Legacy”, will be signing copies of their publication at Borders on Westwood Blvd. on Wedenesday 11th of December at 7:30pm.

If you don’t already own a copy of the book it will be available for purchase at the event, and obviously you can get it signed too. Each book purchased will come with a a free Johnny Lightning James Bond car with each book sold (while supplies last). If you do already own a copy, the authors will be more than willing to sign it.

Aside from the signing at the event, there will also be a range of terrific prizes on offer. The prizes will be available through “The World’s Easiest James Bond Trivia Contest”. Amongst other things, one prize will be 3 free James Bond posters (the Die Another Day advance 1 sheet, the Bollinger Die Another Day poster, and the James Bond DVD poster).

Other prizes include:

Bollinger champagne
Norelco 007 electric razor
Radio controlled Aston Martin V12 Vanquish
Bond DVDs from MGM
Sony Playstation James Bond Games
12″ Bond and Dr. No figures from Sideshow Toys
James Bond music CDs
Bond novels by Raymond Benson
New Penguin editions of the Ian Fleming Bond novels SIGNED by the cover designer Richie Fayhe

James Bond: The Legacy is an essential purchase for James Bond fans. John Cox’s review of James Bond: The Legacy is available, and Daniel Dykes’ is available here.

Brosnan Wants Bond In Australia

He’s an International jet-setter, but the cinematic James Bond has never ventured to Australia and only author Raymond Benson sent him on a mission there. Pierce Brosnan has, however, professed a desire to see a future James Bond film set in Australia.

Melbourne based newspaper The Age reports:

Brosnan to Bond in Australia
Tuesday 10 December 2002, 08:30AM

The latest Bond flick, to the admission of the screenwriter and director, is more of the same – a sexy man who saves the world, gets the girl and drives the hot cars.

But the next one, the 21st in the series and Pierce Brosnan’s fifth as the irresistible British spy, could be set against a backdrop of two Australian icons, the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge.

Brosnan is keen, as is screenwriter Robert Wade’s wife.

But Wade was not so sure. “I mean it’s wonderful, full of Australians though,” he stumbled.

“No I mean it’s something about Australians … you’re too nice to have explosions going off around you,” he said as he tried to recover from the gaffe.

Bond was a little more endearing: “I’m up for it, I’d love it, sure, great town, great place.”

Despite Brosnan’s and Wade’s comments on Australia, the ‘desire’ is similair to Brosnan’s desire to film Die Another Day in Ireland.

Pierce Brosnan, Rosamund Pike and Robert Wade have all spent the past few days touring Australia to promote the impending release of Die Another Day to the Australian market. News.com.au  have published a similair article, here, which includes a picture of Brosnan and Pike.

Be sure to discuss the news in this thread of CBn’s Bond 21 Forums!

NightFire Patch Is Coming

The official NightFire web site has announced that a patch is coming for the PC version of NightFire to fix various errors in the game.

No date has been given for the actual release of the patch.

'Bond Films'

At first Bond Films: Virgin Film, co-authored by Jim Smith and Stephen Lavington, looks simply like a brief outline of each of the James Bond films. However, delving deeper reveals that compiled within the Bond Films is actually quite a wealth of information from a variety of sources.

Bond Films: Virgin Film

Each film has a standard set of sections devoted to it, which are all discussed in the books introduction. Some of these sections include information on fashion decisions in the films, the advancements of particular continuing characters including M and Miss Moneypenny, the box office returns for the films, award nominations and film trivia. The most interesting sections, and those which make this a successful book, are those which discuss scenes cut from the film, source to screen information, real world influences and parallels, product placement details, critics responses to the film and social references in the film. It is the latter which may prove to be the most interesting to Bond fans as they summarise information which hasn’t previously been made readily available.

Despite some ‘gem’ sections there are two which could easily have been left out. The first is ‘quotes’, everyone enjoys particular quotes for varying reasons and it seems unnecessary for the authors to attempt to define which are the best of a particular film. Also unnecessary is a section called ‘The One With’; a section that informs you how to remind a friend which film you mean. For instance, The Living Daylights is given as “The One With: the rock of Gibraltar, the milkman and the cello”. Some may find the section interesting, the ‘hardcore’ Bond fan will find it a statement of the obvious.

It is obvious that a lot of work has gone into summarising material to include in the book, particularly for some of the aforementioned sections.

It’s good to see areas dedicated to the majority of Bond films, Never Say Never Again included. While 1967’s Casino Royale is included in the book it is disappointing to see that the 1954 version of the book is not. While, admittedly, it was only a telemovie it is undoubtedly an important part in the history of the cinematic James Bond.

Bond Films, co-authored by Jim Smith and Stephen Lavington, isn’t the best Bond book ever, but it’s obvious that the authors never intended for it to be. They had an intention from the start, stuck to it and in doing so successful created an interesting source of information.

Buy: Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com

MGM Clarify DVD News

MGM have commented on details of the Die Another Day DVD to The R2 Project.

Despite an earlier list of extras, MGM have revealed that features on the DVD are still being created and as a result cannot be confirmed at this stage. Sources have told CommanderBond.Net that some features are ‘definites’ on the DVD, so parts of the previously released list may still be found on the final product.

MGM have revealed that the Region 2 DVD is expected to have a retail price of £24.99 and that it will be released in May 2003, though no date has been confirmed yet.

If you’d like to discuss the DVD please visit this thread of the Die Another Day Forums. Thanks to SeanValen00V for the news alert.

International Take Nears $100m

Die Another Day is continuing to perform strongly outside the US market, despite the fact that the film is yet to open to 70% of the International market.

Fox International, who are distributing the film to foreign markets, have reported that Die Another Day earned an estimated US$32 million internationally this past weekend, playing on 3,115 screens in 19 markets.

In individual markets Die Another Day has earned $37 million in the United Kingdom, $16.9 million in Germany and $7 million in Spain. The film gave both Fox International and a Bond film its biggest debut in South Africa, earning US$449,000 in its opening weekend.

If you’d like to discuss the current performance of Die Another Day, please visit this thread of the Die Another Day Forums.

Source: Box Office Mojo and Yahoo News.

Brosnan Hates Product Placement

Pierce Brosnan has admitted that he hates product placement.

Brosnan is currently in Australia promoting Die Another Day, which opens in the region on December 12, and revealed his dislike for product placement during a press conference. The actor did admit there was little he could do about product placement in the film and that the level of placement came as a complete shock to him when he first saw GoldenEye, his first outing as James Bond in 1995.

Die Another Day is reported as having the most product placement and tie-ins, with over 100 companies using the film, and the James Bond brand, for product promotion.

If you’d like to discuss this news, please visit this thread of the Die Another Day Forums. Thanks to Jamie007 for the news alert.

Return To #1 In Third Week

Die Another Day is moving from strength to strength at the United States Boxoffice, returning to the number one spot in its third week of release.

Die Another Day made an additional $13.3 million at the US Box Office last weekend, driving its total US intake to $120.36 million.

Analyze That, starring Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal, failed to knock Bond from it’s top spot, earning $11.3 million in its opening weekend. Harry Potter and the Chamber Of Secrets dropped to third place, after winning the Thanksgiving Weekend, with an intake of $10 million.

Die Another Day faces more competition next week with the release of Star Trek: Nemesis, the tenth movie in the Star Trek series. Pierce Brosnan’s ‘Evelyn’, which United Artists is promoting as an Oscar contendor, will also open.

If you’d like to discuss this news, please visit this thread of the Die Another Day Forums.

Bond 21: Who Will Be The Director?

While Die Another Day is running the 3rd week in the United States and isn’t out in many countries in the world, the first rumours about Bond 21 surface.

Dark Horizons report that Hong Kong filmmaker Tsui Hark (“Black Mask”, “Zu Warriors”) is in talks to direct the 21st Bond movie.

The 51 year old Hark is the 2nd director mentioned in connection with Bond 21, which is due to be out in either 2004 or 2005. Pierce Brosnan himself wants Die Another Day director Lee Tamahori back.

Be sure to discuss the topic in this thread in CBn’s Bond 21 Forums! And thanks to ‘[dark]’ for the alert!

Korean Audiences Not Fond Of Bond

Die Another Day, which doesn’t open in South Korea for another few weeks, has generated strong criticism from some Koreans for its depiction of the peninsula and its residents, the Zap2it Website reported. The Korea Federation of University Student Councils (Hanchongnyon) is crusading against the 20th James Bond movie.

The controversy led one of the country’s leading actors, Cha In-pyo, to turn down a role in the movie.

Of concern are three scenes in which North Korea is perceived as being part of “an axis of evil” and South Korean-set scenes showing outdated images of the country, such as a local farmer walking a cow in the countryside and a scene in which Bond (Pierce Brosnan) makes love to a woman in a Buddhist Temple, a serious taboo in their culture, the Web site reported.

Please discuss this news in this thread of CBn’s Die Another Day Forums!