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Ideas for how to reboot the Bond franchise?

pramod

Banned
My idea may sound "controversial", but it actually is quite simple.

Just redo/remake the Bond films, but adapt the original Fleming stories as much as possible.
We already have seen that the best received Bond films have been the ones that track closest to the original story/elements from the novels. For example Casino Royale, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger.

For example they can just remake Moonraker, which is actually considered one of the best 007 novels, and stick to the original story instead of some space fantasy with laser battles.
 

eddie4

Genuinely Generous
No Way Reaction GIF
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Modern people with zero attention span wont like it, but I liked the classic Bonds better. It was more about a suave spy with some hidden gadgets. Then somewhere in the late 80s it turned Bond into Rambo. Whichever film it was where suddenly he's driving tanks and shooting machine guns. And since then they made him a hunkier military kind of spy. A Splinter Cell Conviction vibe where one part he's sleuth and one part pulls out an assault rifle when needed.
 

EverydayBeast

thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
James Bond’s goal is to be better than the last bond and for most part Craig has been able to accomplish that.
 

poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
I think we all know the answer - Jane Bond. It would completely revitalize the franchise.
 
Modern people with zero attention span wont like it, but I liked the classic Bonds better. It was more about a suave spy with some hidden gadgets. Then somewhere in the late 80s it turned Bond into Rambo. Whichever film it was where suddenly he's driving tanks and shooting machine guns. And since then they made him a hunkier military kind of spy. A Splinter Cell Conviction vibe where one part he's sleuth and one part pulls out an assault rifle when needed.
I actually just watched all the Sean Connery Bond films and boy oh boy are they hilarious now after Austin Powers. Especially You Only Live Twice. I'm sorry, but Austin Powers ruined classic Bond, I'll never be able to take OG Blofeld seriously ever again.
 
Drop the self-awareness and self-referencing. Replace the entire MI6 crew and keep them in the office.

>implying they're not making another Craig movie that will be entirely sold on the mystery of his return
 

Tschumi

Member
Kick it off with a gritty growing up story for an antihero born in slums who becomes 007 halfway through the... ssssThird film. He's the next thing to a villain to start with, but he finds direction in the right places and, for one thing, unambiguously renounces and rubbishes any social ideas that got poured into his ear by negative algorithms. That's a good role model right there.
 
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IDKFA

I am Become Bilbo Baggins
When asked, the producers of the Bond franchise have said Bond could be non-binary.


Anyway, to reboot the franchise they probably won't go that far........yet.
 
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Kenpachii

Member
Last movie was a slog and frankly in my opinion the end of bond entirely.

Honestly i think the series is done unless they can ace the next actor and cast. I doubt they can.
 

FunkMiller

Member
Given the Bond franchise just loves to rip off the tone and style of the Batman movies, I confidently expect the next Bond to be an even more down to earth, gritty reboot… because The Batman is likely to do very well.
 

DKehoe

Gold Member
You could never actually do it. But an idea I had recently is that they don’t officially announce who the next Bond is. But you cast a bunch of the actors people have speculated could be the next bond (Idris Elba, Tom Hardy etc.). The next movie is based at some event, like a high stakes card game or a cruise on a luxury yacht, that Bond is infiltrating. The film follows the villain, who knows Bond is there but not what he looks like, as they try and figure out which one of the potential candidates is Bond.

Like I said, you could never do it since you probably wouldn’t be able to get a bunch of those actors to sign up to a Bond film where they aren’t the lead and the reveal would get out almost immediately. But it would be cool to sit down to watch it on opening day and try and figure out who the new Bond is.
 

jason10mm

Gold Member
For starters, they need to hire some folks with actual military/intelligence experience to craft a scenario where a single BRITISH agent would have reason to be involved. Unfortunately these days the brits have few overseas territories to justify exotic locations. Still, that is step one.

Step two is to tackle current issues but in a way that doesn't implicate an actual real world threat. So instead of going after muslim extremism directly it's a fanatical fictitious cult or something. Same thing with sex trafficking. Can't do real little girls being lured in to become prostitutes, but make it a group that kidnaps the children of nuclear scientists to brainwash them to kill their parents or destroy the plants. There are lots of real world issues that could get the four color bond treatment. Climate change, trade shortages, drone surveillance, etc.

Then you need a real stunt team and real locations. Bond can't, IMHO, exist with greenscreens, CGI cartoon battles, and studio Backlots aside from interior stuff. A cinematic atrocity like Jungle Cruise with all of its CG would not work for Bond, for example.

I don't think it's that hard, it just requires getting an enthusiastic team together that isn't overly cynical and keep them off social media so the harpies can't get to them.
 

Wvrs

Member
If it were up to me I'd have them do a full reboot and set it in the proper time periods, and lock in an actor who will stay with the role for an entire franchise.

First film can be him in WW2. Go from there to the Cold War.
 
I'd like to see them go back in time a few decades and turn down the technology stuff. I loved the Daniel Craig movies, overall, but I'm tired of stories with computers that can just do anything the writers think of.
 

TheGrat1

Member
Does it even need a reboot? The stories seemed so self-contained.

Bond is an Irishman in a British Civil War. He was trained by MI6 before the hostilities started. He does espionage for the side that seeks to abolish the monarchy while the monarchists send foxy women to try and take him down. The queen and every member of the royal family has an eyepatch, even the children.
 
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Drizzlehell

Banned
I'd be okay with remaking the old movies to make them less goofy and without all that cringeworthy sexism and exaggerated machismo. But he also needs to be a cool muthafucka again, without all that moping that annoyed me about Daniel Craig's movies. You watch Bond because you wanna vicariously experience his cool adventures and be a suave, cold-blooded badass like him. Not watch him be old and decrepit. I swear the kind of "deconstruction" of the character in Skyfall and Spectre was even more painful to watch than old Indy acting like a confused old man in Kingdom of The Crystal Skull.

The first three Connery the two Dalton films are kinda how I imagine a perfect Bond movie to be. Goldeneye was also alright because Brosnan was cool in it and Bond wasn't either moping or goofing around.
 
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pramod

Banned
If it were up to me I'd have them do a full reboot and set it in the proper time periods, and lock in an actor who will stay with the role for an entire franchise.

First film can be him in WW2. Go from there to the Cold War.
Yeah at this point it's the only direction left that hasn't been properly explored. They've already gone the full blown action blockbuster route, the Bourne route, and then finally the deconstruction route. Maybe the historical period piece route is the only one left. It will be so different and maybe not make that much money but it won't be expensive to make either.

I wouldn't even mind if they just made a TV mini series that just faithfully adapted all the Fleming novels.
 
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Husky

THE Prey 2 fanatic
I kinda expected that they'd go the prequel route, show an inexperienced Bond who fits into the same timeline as Daniel Craig. Probably not the sorta direction that'd generate much enthusiasm. If they go for a hard reboot then Daniel Craig gets a continuity all to himself, which is nice, since he's far and away my favorite Bond.

A period setting sounds the most fun, but I dunno if the studio would have difficulty incorporating product placement, a big mainstay of the series. Would car companies pay to have Bond drive one of their antiques?
 

Dream-Knife

Banned
Craig was a reboot.

I didn't like Craig as bond. I feel like Bond actually doesn't make a whole lot of sense in modern movies, and should honestly just give it a rest. Craig's Bond followed the mod 2000s edgy Borne style, which didn't fit 007 IMO. The more modern a Bond movie gets, the worse it is.

TWINE was the last Bond movie I actually liked.
 

Konnor

Member
The correct answer is don't. Hollywood is going to ruin it, they're completely incompetent and love smelling their own farts nowadays.
 

jason10mm

Gold Member
I doubt they will go retro as then it makes all that product endorsement a lot harder and eats up budget that isn't getting funneled into stunts and salaries. Maybe a little one off film about the current M being an agent himself back in the day, assuming Fiennes gets replaced.

But Craig's run was so long, any reasonable flashback would still be set during his tenure :p

I say embrace the "Bond as cover ID" patterned after Craig's backstory with Skyfall and then bring in new agents as 007, flesh out the other 00s more, and just make fun globe trotting stunt spy flicks. This formula isn't hard.
 
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