Brosnan's Done

[Moviefan1234]

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/topnews.php?id=5728

That's pretty interesting but doesn't come as a surprise. It's no secret he wasn't really wanted for the part anymore by the producers.

[quoth_the_raven]

How reliable is Entertainment Weekly?

I'm not surprised by this news after Dire another day, but it would have been nice to send him out on a high. Its like A View to a kill all over again ;)

[quoth_the_raven]

lookee here as well (http://www.joblo.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=80421)


now that's even scarier....what a shit idea that would be.

[sergiopauloferreira]

Yes, i just heard that. Too bad, he was pretty good at the part, and i have a felling that he will be missed (by the fans, not the producers.

Let's just hope that they drop the idea of a younger Bond. That has a very slim chance of being good and a large one of being atrocious.

Farewell, Pierce. You can leave the series with your head up, man.

[distorto25]

DAMMIT! The only thing that can save the Bond franchise now is Clive Owen or Christian Bale. We'll miss you Pierce...

[Ted Pikul]

I'll believe Brosnan isn't in Bond 21 when the credits roll.

Every Bond film Roger Moore ever made was his last & he played 007 seven times.

[optimus]

Being a James Bond fan I probably should know this, but why did the producers not like Brosnan?

I too will miss him and will NOT see the next Bond film if Bloom is in it.

[Ted Pikul]

"why did the producers not like Brosnan?"

Supposedly he bad mouthed Barbara Broccoli. Which given the quality of the films she's produced is perhaps not that surprising.

I still think Brosnan will appear in the next Bond however.

[Moviefan1234]

Originally posted by quoth_the_raven
lookee here as well (http://www.joblo.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=80421)


now that's even scarier....what a shit idea that would be.

I don't see how it can be true. Miramax doesn't have any rights to it, and I don't see MGM allowing them to do it. It has to be 100% BS.

[distorto25]

I'm not sure Bana would work as Bond. In my opinion he's too much brawn and not enough brain (though he was the best part of "Black Hawk Down"). I would much rather see Clive Owen, whose turns in "Croupier," "The Hire," and "The Bourne Identity" made a believe out of me. He's arguably the best choice since Brosnan's absence and would bring back a more Connery-esque Bond (more intensity and physicality). But my main concern for the Bond franchise is not the casting. If the films keep heading in the direction that "Die Another Day" was going than it doesn't matter who plays Bond cause they're just gonna computer generate him. What I'd really like to see is the oft-talked about Tarantino/Brosnan "Casino Royale" adaptation. With QT at the helm we could expect the best Bond film in years (or ever). That's what we really need: more espionage and fewer explosions. I want the anti-hero Bond. The alcoholic, sadistic, womanizing bastard that Fleming made him out to be. Bond is a complex character, and the franchise desperately needs someone who will understand his tortured soul. But we all know that will never happen, not with MGM in control.

[bob]

I agree that bringing in Clive Owen would be a FANTASTIC idea, and I think they should generally start changing Bonds around the age of 50, and getting them from their mid 30's to early 40s....each one would have about 4 good films in them.

And whatever happens, only British!

[Zing!]

James Bond Fired
------------------------------------------------------------------------
'I was fired'
Pierce Brosnan says Bond producers relieved him of 007's licence to kill
By BRUCE KIRKLAND -- Toronto Sun

Pierce Brosnan did not quit his most famous role as agent James Bond, he was fired. And there is no going back, the 51-year-old, Irish-born, four-time 007 says.

"It's over, it's over, it's absolutely over," Brosnan says this week in Nassau, The Bahamas, where he sits with media to promote his latest film, After The Sunset, a heist comedy which slightly parodies his role as a super-secret agent.

Brosnan says he was willing, even eager, to do a fifth and final Bond, adding that 007 producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson had asked him to return, although no contracts were signed. Brosnan's last Bond movie, Die Another Day in 2002, was the 20th official instalment in the franchise, which started with Sean Connery in Dr. No in 1962.

"They invited me back right before I went to present that film, before I went on the road with Halle Berry to sell the movie. They said: 'We're so happy with the success, we want you to come back!' I went on the road a happy man, you know. I thought we'd get a fifth and no more. That would be it, really.

"I'd done it. You get bored. You get older. You give of yourself to something and then you have no more to give. But I thought a fifth would be good.

"And then one day the phone rang -- I was here (in Nassau shooting After The Sunset) -- and my agents told me that the goal posts had moved and that they had changed their minds." Brosnan says this with a weary tone, with a sigh.

"It's very hard to find the truth in that town (Hollywood) or in this business at times," Brosnan says. "But it was their prerogative to change their minds. They can do it!" And they might have done it "to go younger," Brosnan says.

"It was disappointing. It was surprising. And I accepted the knowledge (that his run as 007 was over for good) after 24 hours of being in shock."

Brosnan has been extremely reluctant to go on the record about the Bond issue. For TV interviews in Nassau, Brosnan had publicists order TV hosts to avoid the issue.

No such orders were given to print media. Then, pressed by the Sun, Brosnan says: "To bring up Bond ... (he frowns) ... I did my time in the trenches on that movie (franchise) ..."

But offered a chance to finally put his version of the events on the record, Brosnan did. Part of the story, he says, is that he always knew the end was coming.

"If you have that thought ruminating in your head -- knowing that things are going to change, knowing that you're going to get older, knowing it only lasts a certain amount of time playing a certain role -- then you clearly prepare yourself for what's down the road, even though you don't know what's down the road. But you prepare yourself emotionally.

"(So) you know something's going to be finished, it's going to be over. And it comes with a great disappointment but it also comes with a great satisfaction of having achieved the success with it that I had achieved."

Brosnan claims he harbours no bitterness. "None, none, none! It's not worth having. If I did, it would make all the great decade, the four films, the lovely success, meaningless. Bitterness against whom and for what reason?"

But he admits there is some satisfaction in seeing the franchise stumble, with the next Bond movie postponed for at least a year. "Go figure!" Brosnan says with a wry grin.

"One does chuckle at it all. You don't gloat or anything like that, because that's equally meaningless. It's such a game, such a game, this business. So there you go, that's the story, as much as I know."

STAR PICKS NEW BOND

With the next James Bond movie postponed for at least another year before it even gets filmed, the franchise producers have plenty of time to find their new 007. And Pierce Brosnan will be watching the process closely.

"Oh yeah," Brosnan says of having an emotional stake in the awkward decision. "There will be a few hurdles to go through here, of letting go, and seeing the next guy do the piece, and who is it going to be?"

The target list -- it's all speculation -- includes Britons Clive Owen, Ioan Gruffudd, Colin Firth, Hugh Grant, Gerard Butler, Jude Law, Dougray Scott and Ewan McGregor, and Australians Hugh Jackman, Heath Ledger and Eric Bana.

"I was on that list years ago and I was on it with a lot of other great actors," says Brosnan. "So I'm looking at the list and going: 'Hmmmm, he's interesting, no, he's interesting, no, no, no ... But there is one guy and it was 'Wow!'"

Unfortunately, Brosnan won't reveal who he's talking about but he saw him in a recent movie and was impressed. "He had a presence: Face, body, voice, the eyes. He would make a good one. But we'll see, we'll see."

[bob]

It's a shame to see him go; he really restored the class to this role that had been missing since 1967.

[Ted Pikul]

I never really liked Brosnan as Bond.

Granted he had to appear in some crappy movies (Goldeneye excepted) but he just wasn't manly enough to play Bond.

One thing all the other Bonds had in common was that they oozed machismo.

Bond is supposed to be unreconstructed.

Brosnan portrayed him as a wooly PC liberal. Prior to DAD's cigar he'd even given up smoking for chrissakes.

I think the decision to jettison him is one of the few good ones EON have made in recent years.

Now they just need to get Clive Owen in that tux.

[bob]

The only image problem I had with Brosnan in DAD when they had him with a full beard and mountain man hair.

Yikes.

[Ted Pikul]

Yeah, I thought they'd got Kris Kristofferson in for the role when I saw that uber hirstute look.

Still didn't make Brosnan look manly. ;)