by Kristatos » Tue Jul 17, 2012 11:17 am
I think we did a thread like this before, but it was a long time ago and I can't find it, so I'm starting another one. So here's the scenario: Skyfall is the box-office bomb we all want it to be and Sony decide they can no longer work with EON Productions. So instead of Babs and Mikey producing the next film, the job goes to...you! The film is a soft reboot, not starting the continuity afresh like CR, but replacing most of the key cast and crew, a la GE or LALD. It's your job to cast the key recurring roles (Bond, M, Q, Moneypenny) and archetypes (main villain, henchman, love interest, bad girl), and also pick the main crew members. You can also say a little about your picks afterwards, as I will do later on in this post. So without further ado...
Bond: Henry Cavill (of course)
M: Geoffrey Palmer
Q: Tom Baker
Moneypenny: Isla Fisher
Villain: Robert de Niro
Henchman: Vinnie Jones
Love interest: Sophia Myles
Bad girl: Janet Montgomery
Director: Vic Armstrong
Screenplay: Steven Moffat & Mark Gatiss
Music: David Arnold
Production design: Denis Gassner
Director of Photography: Andrew Lesnie
Costume designer: Lindy Hemming
Arnold, Gassner and Hemming have all done good work on the series, so I would retain their services. Armstrong, as I have said in the past, is the sort of person who would probably be directing Bond films if Cubby was still in charge; no auteur, but a competent action director who has worked his way up the ranks in the old-fashioned way ("old-fashioned" is meant as a compliment in this case). Lesnie is a friend of Armstrong's who did sterling work on the Lord of the Rings trilogy, among others.
The casting of Myles, who played Mme de Pompadour in the Doctor Who episode The Girl in the Fireplace, is pure personal bias on my part - of all the "celebrities" I follow on Twitter, she's the only one who's ever followed me back. Montgomery played a master criminal in Human Target, but her character quickly degenerated into airheaded comedy relief. I'd have her character closer to what it was in her first couple of appearances in the show. And Moffatt & Gatiss are both Bond fans who reimagined Sherlock Holmes intelligently and could probably do the same for Bond.
OK, your turn.
"The whole idea of the Bond films--and I don't know if they haven't lost a bit of that now--was that they were paperback films, as it were." - Peter Hunt