007?

As I've mentioned before, I'm a big James Bond fan, and since the reboot of the franchise with Casino Royale, I've even started visiting some of the message boards. The latest buzz is that the upcoming Bond film (November, 2008) will be called 007. It's just a rumor at this point, but it makes a lot of sense in the context of the reboot. Casino Royale was all about Bond earning his license to kill and the next film will be about Bond becoming Bond, i.e. 007.

It some respects, it's a bold and controversial choice, much like the casting of Daniel Craig in the role, and I have to say, I love where the series seems to be headed. And that includes hiring Mark Forster (The Kite Runner, Finding Neverland, Stranger than Fiction) as the director. In an interview, he sited the exotic locales as one of the reasons he thinks Bond was so popular back in the 60s. But nowadays lots of people travel and so the setting is not quite the draw it once was. According to Forster, the most interesting place for Bond to go now is deep inside himself.

I agree, and I find that to be the case with the characters I create, especially my villains. I want to know what makes them tick. I want to know specific incidences in their childhood that made them become who and what they are today. Very little of their background may end up in the book, but that's not the point. I need to know. Because the most interesting--and often scariest--place for a writer to go is deep inside his character's head.

Becoming Bond

It's been a year since the fabulous Casino Royale premiered at Leicester Square in London with the queen in attendance, and I thought it might be fun to look back at some of the crap poor Daniel Craig had to put up with after signing on to become the sixth James Bond.

Bond fans claimed he was too blonde, too short, too frail to be a convincing 007 (see photo). Not handsome enough, not suave enough, not James Bond enough (again, see photo). And God knows, he'd never be able to pull off wearing a tux (see video below).

Then came the rumors from the set--he'd gotten two teeth knocked out the first day of filming and he couldn't handle the Aston Martin's stick shift (both rumors totally bogus). A website run by disgruntled Pierce Brosnan fans called for a boycott of Casino Royale and all future Bond films staring Craig (and that boycott worked, too, because the movie only earned a measly $600 million worldwide, the highest grossing Bond film of all time).

Critics predicted Craig would be a miserable failure in the role and he'd end up being a one-picture Bond, just like George Lazenby (note: according to the Daily Mail, Daniel Craig recently signed a record-breaking, $60 million deal to play James Bond for four more films--I should be such a miserable failure!).

The rest, as they say, is history.

Blond Bond Here to Stay (and I couldn't be happier)

Ha! How appropriate that I posted that interview with Daniel Craig this morning. Just in from MI6: According to trade paper The Hollywood Reporter, James Bond star Daniel Craig has extended his contract to play 007 for four new films following his record-breaking debut in "Casino Royale" (2006).

This news, if true, makes me very happy as Craig's performance in Casino Royale brought me back to the Bond franchise, which I'd all but given up on. Give a clicky for my take on that film.

Check him out here with Catherine Tate in a Comic Relief spot:

MI6

I've discovered a cool new site for James Bond fans called MI6, which contains all the information you could ever hope to find on our favorite secret agent, including up-to-the-minute news on the movies, the actors, the literary James Bond, reviews, photos, fan art, speculation about the next bond girl and--my favorite part--a production diary for the upcoming (as yet untitled) feature film in 2008 starring Daniel Craig.

I'm currently reading Casino Royale, which was published in 1953. If you're only familiar with James Bond through the movies, I highly recommend that you become acquainted with Ian Fleming's 007.

Bond...James Bond

If you’ve been working too hard this summer, you need to take a break and go rent Casino Royale, the latest James Bond movie. Have you seen it? I resisted for a long time because I wasn't sure about the new guy. I wanted to see Clive Owen in the role and my second choice would have been Hugh Jackman. And, too, I'd gotten a little bored with the franchise.

Now that I’ve had a chance to see the new Bond in action, here’s my take...Clive, who? Hugh Jack-what?

I’ll just say it. Daniel Craig is the best James Bond ever. I said...ever. He is Ian Fleming's James Bond. Dark, driven and, at times, utterly vicious--the Bond that is described in both the movie and the book as ‘a blunt instrument’. This installment required a real badass with a side order of nasty and, boy, does Daniel Craig serve it up. I can’t even imagine (and don’t want to) any of the other Bond portrayers doing what he did in this movie.

Casino Royale is the beginning of Bond’s 007 career, before he becomes the suave, sophisticated secret agent of his later years. He’s realistic and gritty and doesn’t resort to the usual bag of silly gadgets and tricks that had begun to make the character cartoonish. And there's a pretty wonderful love story to boot.

It is the love story—and the resolution—that creates the smooth, rakish (sometimes chauvinistic) Bond of the future.

Still not convinced? Watch this clip and tell me this isn't one of the most romantic scenes in recent movie history?