MOVIE NEWS – The American filmmaker is clear about what his approach would have been if he had been given the keys to the saga for at least one film. Quentin Tarantino believes the next era of James Bond should not revisit the franchise’s old movies, but return to Ian Fleming’s original novels.
We have known for weeks that Amazon & MGM are searching for the new James Bond after Daniel Craig’s farewell in No Time to Die. The choice will be crucial: they do not simply want an actor for one film, but someone capable of leading a whole new era with potential spin-offs. It has also been confirmed that Denis Villeneuve will direct the first film of this new phase. The question is the approach, and Tarantino has a suggestion.
For Bond’s Future, We Must Return to Ian Fleming
It is well known that the American director behind works such as Pulp Fiction and The Hateful Eight was once interested in taking over the Bond franchise. That attempt did not come to fruition, but he made it clear that he is a great admirer of Ian Fleming’s novels. Therefore, when he was asked a few months ago what the tech giant should do with James Bond, he did not hesitate to share his strategy.
“What I think they should do [after Daniel Craig], and I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, is that many of the books have truly classic titles and very classic adventures. And in most cases, in many of them, they never adapted the book. They never adapted the real stories. They took the premise and maybe the Bond girl or the villain, and then went their own way. (…) I think they shouldn’t remake the films, but adapt the books directly, but doing them exactly as they were written. And all those films would be completely new.”
In short, Tarantino believes the time has come for Bond, 007, to secure his future by looking not to his cinematic past, but to his literary one. In his opinion, there is enough unadapted material there, so different from what we have seen on screen that the saga would even feel refreshing in today’s landscape. “They are very, very tough stories,” the director of Inglourious Basterds goes so far as to say. The question is whether Amazon will want to follow this path, taking advantage of having someone of Villeneuve’s calibre at the helm.
Steven Knight is in fact writing the screenplay. He is a screenwriter known for his hard-hitting stories and hits such as Eastern Promises, while he is also the creator of Peaky Blinders. In recent statements, he made it clear that he understands the character’s mythology and what James Bond means to millions of viewers around the world. We will see what comes of it.
Source: Deadline
