Jan 11, 2011

Tradecraft: MGM Plots Year-Long James Bond Anniversary Celebration For 2012

Variety offers a few additional intriguing details on today's earlier story about the long-delayed next James Bond movie (Number 23 in the official chronology) finally starting production.  Notably, the trade reports that "MGM, which received a cash infusion last month of $500 million, had been expected to move quickly to lock down Craig and Mendes for the project in order to take advantage of the 50th anniversary of the Bond franchise.  MGM has already been working up plans for a 2012 yearlong commemoration of the golden anniversary of the first Bond pic, 1962's Doctor No." I like the sound of that!  Presumably at the very least that "yearlong commemoration" will see the remaining titles finally released on Blu-ray, but what else does it hold? Theatrical re-releases?  New books?  (You can bet on that!)  More toys?  (Action figures, please!)  What else?  I can't wait to see! Hopefully they'll pull out all the stops. Variety also backs Sony as the most likely distributor for Bond 23: "Insiders believe MGM may turn to Sony for co-financing, as it did on Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, or sell off some major foreign territories." 

For all the details on today's announcement, see "James Bond is Back in Action!"
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4 comments:

FelixLeiter.com said...

At San Diego Comic-Con 2010, a representative from Factory Entertainment told me that EON Productions is planning for a lot of new replicas to be released next year in conjunction with the 50th anniversary. I was told to keep an eye out for the laser gun from MOONRAKER, the Fabergé egg from OCTOPUSSY as well as the Goldeneye disc from GOLDENEYE.

7:35 AM
Anonymous said...

I would hope they would finally release some action figures and vehicles, similar to the corgi prototypes that were shown a couple years back....

3:06 PM
Anonymous said...

I wait for gunbarrel in beginig, not end!!!

8:09 AM
Tom said...

You know what would be truly nice? A DVD release of all available screentests conducted since the beginning -- of Bond candidates, villain candidates, etc. So far all we've had -- as extras on various DVDs -- is Theodore Bikel testing for Goldfinger, Jan Werich testing for Blofeld, James Brolin testing for Bond (apparently when Broccoli was in re-negotiations with Moore) and Sam Neill testing for Bond before Timothy Dalton was hired. What a treasure trove if they still had other tests going back to '61 (!)

8:33 AM

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