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.
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!).
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:
I’ve decided to make Fridays news/gossip day. This is where I’ll keep you informed about what’s happening in the writing world. Agreed, not as much fun as Clive Owen Wednesdays, but I do want to keep my readers up-to-date on works in progress and so forth.
On Monday, I submitted a three-page premise for a new thriller to my editor and she loved it. Whew! The story is pretty dark and creepy so I was a little concerned, but turns out that’s what she loved about it. And here is my agent’s take: “Just read the synopsis and am fighting the urge to jump from my chair and shake the heebie jeebies from my body. This is SCARY!!” Just the reaction I wanted. Yea!
In my spare time (hahahahahaha), I’ve been working on what I thought was a first-person mystery series set in Austin, Texas, but the first book has morphed into an urban thriller about voyeurism inspired by three legendary films—Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954), Michael Powell's Peeping Tom (1962), and Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow-Up (1966). Here is my one-sentence summary: “An insomniac writer searching for inspiration exploits a young filmmaker’s new voyeuristic pastime.”
As I reported last time, The Devil’s Footprints is in production and will hit the bookshelves on March 1, 2008. I’ve been collaborating on a trailer with the powerhouse duo of Lucas Amann (filmmaker) and Leanne Amann (my advertising guru), and we’re really hoping to come up with something special. I’ll keep you posted during production, maybe even have some snippets I can put up.
Texas Ransom, my next Intrigue, will be out in January.
And just because all this business stuff is a little boring, check out Jonathan Ross's interview with Daniel Craig promoting Casino Royale. So cute.
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?
I like to write about the dusty back roads and murky bayous of the South. About unsolved murders and the kind of dark, simmering secrets that destroy souls.
My books have been described as creepy and disturbing. Stories to be read with the lights on.
But, honestly, I'm just an ordinary person. Quiet and unassuming. Someone who might live next door to you...
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.
