Go ahead, Blofeld : Make my day !

It was more or less known amongst film fans & movie historians that Clint Eastwood has been aproached to replace Sean Connery as James Bond in the 1970s ( Cubby Broccoli recalled the event in his memoirs ' When the Snow melts ' ) .

Director Guy Hamilton confirmed me on a couple of times that United Artists wanted a big US name to carry on the franchise .

They were even considering Burt Reynolds ( fresh from John Boorman's Deliverance ) to step into the British spy's shoes ...

At the times , Clint Eastwood was best known for his parts in the Sergio Leone so called Spaguetti Westerns ( where he played some sort of recurrent character , promptly nicknamed ' the man with no name ' by Critics & audience alike ) .

" I was offered pretty good money to do Bond , confirmed today the acclaimed actor turned director , this was after Connery left . My lawyer represented the Broccolis and he came and said ' they would love to have you ' . But to me , well, that was somebody's else's gig . That was Sean's deal . It didn't feel right for me to do it . I always like characters that are more grounded in reality . Maybe they do super things or more-than-human things - like Dirty Harry he has a knack for doing crazy things - but still they're not caped crusaders ...

Although it could be considered as pure heresy to have an American actor impersonnating Ian Fleming's creation, I for one think that some of the Dirty Harry's best lines & quips would have perfectly worked in a more serious Bond context approach ( à la Daniel Craig ) ...But not , I repeat NOT , for the tongue-in-cheek approach chosen by the film producers for the 7th entry of the Eon series , the comedy-enhanced Diamonds Are Forever ...

Many thanks to Tony Crawley for sending me the original info .

Back in Bond Age ...

Back in Bond Age !

Wonderful surprise in my mail box today : a big package ( so big it completely fullfilled my box ) was waiting for me .

The sender ?

Hodder & Stoughton - London.

After unwrapping the big brown box ( posted from...Switzerland ) , I feverishly opened it , to discover various pieces of interest inside .

- A signed harcover copy of Jeffery Deaver's The Burning Wire .

- A copy of Jeffery Deaver's Garden of Beast .

- An enveloppe , marked ' Private & confidential ' , with an instruction letter and a personnalized encoded badge ( ' for future development ' ) .

- A copy of Ian Fleming's From Russia With Love ( not signed . Damnit ) .

- A cd with a video intervention of Mr Deaver himself ( a real - and completely unexpected - threat ) .

Now, that's what I call intelligent marketing .

Makes you feel like Jim Phelps at the beginning of a new mission of the I.M.F ( fortunately nothing catched fire after I read the instruction message ) .

Almost nothing revealed on Mr Deaver's future blockbuster ( correction...Nothing at all , to be honest ! ) , but having definitly the journalist hooked for more !

Congratulations to all parties involved - and of course to Mr Jeffery Deaver for kindly autographing me a copy of his book and taking time to record that video message , even if I couldn't attend last month's London event .

Blisterin' barnacles : has James Bond copied Tintin ?

It's common knowledge amongst movie-goers that next year will be the Tintin year with the release of the Steven Spielberg produced first movie , directed by unknown New Zealand filmmaker Peter Jackson...

Thought it'd be interesting to go back to the first live action movie inspired by the adventures of Tintin , and pinpoint some interesting trivias with another world wide known hero...

Shooting of the movie ( titled ' Tintin & the Golden Fleece ' ) began on May the 2cd of 1961 ( at the times , a certain Ian Fleming was still trying to get 007 on the screen via a movie tentatively called ' Thunderball ' ) .

Locations chosen for that first adventure were : Istanbul , Macedonia ( proemently featuring the Meteora area ) , Greece and Yugoslavia...
Which will then be used again by Eon production less than 3 years later for their second James Bond film, From Russia With Love .

Amazingly , the Meteora location is just used for the scenery ...While there is indeed a 'climbing' sequence of some sort in the Tintin adventure ,when the reporter had to escape a huge tower in Istanbul by slowly descending along its wall using a tigh rope (see pic ) .
Further on in the story Tintin & Captain Haddock have to meet a priest up in the San Stefano monastery , and casually climb up using a small track along the moutain ...Which has obviously disappeared in 1981 when James Bond and his party decided to pay a visit to the very same area in For Your Eyes Only .
( See caption of the Tintin movie when they passed by the house where the winch is located in the John Glen flick .)

Interestingly , although the Eon team had to make do with irrate protesting monks during their shooting of the For Your Eyes Only final sequence, the monastery had welcome Tintin with open arms...

Terence Young himself used to say that the James Bond movies were really only Tintin adventures for grown ups .
The man who created the screen 007 obviously knew what he was talking about ...

Back to the Future : Goldeneye 2010

Ok , no new film on the horizon but two new ' virtual adventures ' lined up for the end of the year ...

On a personnal level , I just find the idea of using the title of a Pierce Brosnan movie for a Daniel Craig game version totally...Hideous , but I can easily understand the marketing behind that unholy decision.

Find it rather tedious though to hear exactly the very same orchestration of the James Bond Theme both for the Blood Stone AND Goldeneye wii games - the one used by Eon to introduce viewers to Daniel Craig's 007 in Casino Royale in the official movie trailer that is .

Is it an obligation from Danjaq , or merely a cruel lack of inspiration from both Bizarre creation and Eurocom ( developpping the new Goldeneye instalment for Activision ), I wonder ?

Come on people : watch again the inspired teaser trailers from the classic movies ( ' This man has a Licence To Kill . It means he can kill whom he chooses , where he chooses , when he chooses ' ...) and come up with something a little more original...

" Ever wanted to be a 00 agent ? "

" A Licence to play "

" For Your Wii Only "

Tales from the Crypt

Distinguised members of the World Press and 007 fans alike were invited today by the Ian Fleming Publication company to briefly meet the new James Bond author , Mr Jeffery Deaver .

Location of the event was the gothic Hammer-like crypt under St Andrew church in Holborn, London .

A place which would have seem more suitable for a meeting with, say, J.K Rowlinds or Dacre Stocker... Very cloak and dagger atmosphere.

Lucky attendees were introduced one by one to Mr Deaver, and then disposed of twenty minutes each to ask their questions to the writer .

No press kit was made available at the time as a reminder of the meeting .

Wild guess : what about the official book launch at Buckhingham Palace next year ?

Stone Bleeding : Blood Stone , the newest James Bond videogame

Activision has finally announced its new James Bond game, helmed by Project Gotham Racing and Blur developer Bizarre Creations. Featuring an original story by Bruce Feirstein (who penned the screenplay for GoldenEye , worked on revisions on both T.N.D and Twine , and created the script for 2003's Bond game, Everything or Nothing), James Bond 007: Blood Stone features a mix of third-person cover-based shooting, hand-to-hand combat and "adrenaline-fuelled driving sequences" on land , sea -- and air , with various nods to past movie Bonds stunt sequences.

Daniel Craig will reprise his role as suave spy guy ( his videogame avatar looking particulary bland) alongside Judi Dench, who once again plays stern boss lady "M." Grammy award-winning singer Joss Stone will be playing Blood Stone's obligatory gun-toting secret agent colleague and temptress . Miss Stone also provides the game's original theme song, "I'll Take it All," with a little help from Dave Stewart from the Eurythmics.

Judging from its visually inspired credits sequence , very reminiscent of the Casino Royale and Die Another Day ones , the script of the game - and its title - seems to refer to those famous ' conflict diamonds ' hinted at during 007's 20th cinematographic mission...

The game was officially introduced to the World Press on wenesday, July the 14th , Activision held the "Bond Event 2010" at the One Marylebone conference venue in central London, parking an Aston Martin outside the doors to let invited guests know they were at the right place ( what else is new , then ) .

Bizarre's James Bond 007: Blood Stone is set to launch on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 this holiday season. N-Space is developing a DS version for the same time frame.

Bond 23 officially pronounced dead ?

In a tragic case of History repeating , the Bond 23 production future is beginning to look more and more like the ill fated Bond 17 one...
Various sources quoted the Eon crew - which was supposedly working on the pre-production of the movie before the official April announcement of the delay due to the MGM financial troubles , had been now told that the film was ' officially canned ' .

The situation now seems to mirror the way the third Timothy Dalton movie - advertised at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival under the code name ' Bond 17 ' - is repeating itself .

Another nail in the coffin of the ill fated Bond 23 production is the fact that strictly no annoucements , news or Press release regarding the mere status of the movie have been made during the whole latest 63rd Cannes International Film Festival . Not a whimp, not even gossips . Utter ( and defeaning ) silence...

It should be noted however that no official Press statement has been yet issued so far by Eon, MGM or Sony to confirm the definitive halt regarding production of this third Daniel Craig 007 movie.

Fingers crossed...

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