Death Is The Answer (2021 film)

Death Is The Answer is a 2021 British spy film, the twenty-sixth in the Eon Productions James Bond film series. Directed by Martin Campbell and written by David Seltzer, who wrote the screenplay for Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, it is the first film to star Tom Hardy as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond, and was produced by Eon Productions for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Columbia Pictures, making it the first Eon-produced Bond film to be co-produced by the latter studio. Following Bond 25, Eon Productions decided to re-reboot the series,[4][5] allowing them to show a combination of Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig's 007s.

The birth of Bond in the Bond franchise was finally comfirmed by Anthony Horowitz that James Bond was born on 23rd January 1926. So it stayed that way.

Death Is The Answer takes place in 1970, the year between On Her Majesty's Secret Sevice and Diamonds Are Forever''. ''The plot sees at first Bond turning up late for work because of his loss. So M gives him one last chance. So Bond goes out to try and defeat Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Bond falls in love with Samantha Maxwell. And it is also a prequel to the 1971 Bond film. Plus, as the pre-title sequence, it shows Tracy Bond being murdered, so it shows that it is a sequel to the 1969 film.

Casting involved a widespread search for a new actor to succeed Daniel Craig as James Bond; the choice of Hardy, announced in October 2020, drew controversy. Location filming took place in Austria, Switzerland and the United Kingdom with interior sets built at Barrandov Studios and Pinewood Studios.

Death Is The Answer premiered at the Odeon Leicester Square on 14 November 2021. It received an overwhelmingly positive critical response, with reviewers highlighting Hardy's reinvention of the character and the film's departure from the tropes of previous Bond films.[7] It earned almost $600 million worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing James Bond film beating Skyfall in 2012.

Plot
The film begins at James Bond (Tom Hardy) and Tracy (Candace Nelson)'s wedding, with Q (Ben Whishaw) contragulating him and saying that if he (Bond) ever needs him (Q), he (Bond) can come to Q. Bond and Tracy leaves. Bond stops the car not far from a gas station so he could buy a wedding present. After Bond returns, he sees a car coming and he realizes that the car belongs to Blofeld (Christopher Waltz) and his wife, Irma Bunt (Akiko Wakabayashi). He runs to his car and shoots Blofeld's car away. But then he sees that Tracy had been shot. He sobbed himself to tears.

After the wedding-day murder of his wife, Bond begins to let his life slide, drinking and gambling heavily, making mistakes and turning up late for work. His superior in the Secret Service, M (Sean Connery), had been planning to dismiss Bond, but decides to give him a last-chance opportunity to redeem himself by assigning him to the diplomatic branch of the organisation. Bond is subsequently re-numbered 0013 (and 13 is an unlucky number) and handed an "impossible" mission: getting Frank 'Ernst Stavro Blofeld' Oberhauser and killing him for good.

Bond flies to Switzerland to see the Swiss cable car station being rebuilt. Then, Bond sees Q setting up his 'Q Camp' on the snow. Q gives 007 a new style version of Walther PPK. Then Q gives Bond a Bentley Mark V a car built somewhere around World War 2. Q has added an ejector seat, a champane button, a scanner and a mobile phone. Q warns Bond to bring back the vehicle in ONE piece (and surely you know that it's impossible for Bond to bring back the car in ONE piece).

Cast

 * Tom Hardy as James Bond 007, the best known 00 agent in MI6
 * Diana Rigg as Lina Dense, an agent from Switzerland
 * Christopher Waltz as Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the supervillian of this film
 * Akiko Wakabayashi as Irma Bunt, Blofeld's wife
 * Sean Connery as M, the Head of MI6
 * Ben Whishaw as Q, an MI6 officer
 * Candace Nelson as Tracy Bond

Production
In March 2020 Mendes said he would not return to direct the next film in the series, then known as Bond 26;[24][25] he later recanted and announced that he would return, as he found the script and the plans for the long-term future of the franchise appealing.[26] Steve Asquith, the director of Thomas & Friends from 2004 to 2008, would later reveal that he turned down an offer to direct the movie.[27] In directing Skyfall, Spectre,Bond 25 and Death Is The Answer, Mendes became the first director to oversee four successive Bond films since John Glen directed five consecutive films, ending with The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill in 1987 and 1989.[28] Dennis Gassner returned as the film's production designer,[29] while cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema took over from Roger Deakins.[29][30] In July 2015 Mendes noted that the combined crew of Spectre numbered over one thousand, making it a larger production than Skyfall.[31] Craig is listed as co-producer. He considered the credit a high point of his career, saying "I'm just so proud of the fact that my name comes up somewhere else on the titles."[32]

The film's usage of the Spectre organisation[N 3] and its characters from On Her Majesty's Secret Service, this film marks as the sequel to the 1969 film. In 2004, Eon Producctions and McClory were discussing a sequel to the 1969 film. McClory died in 2006, so the production halted and it was imediatly cancelled.

When Sony Pictures Entertainment renegotiated with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer the deal to co-finance the Bond franchise in 2019, they were tasked to provide 25 percent of the negative cost of both Skyfall and Spectre, in exchange to receiving 25 percent of the profits plus distribution fees for overseeing its worldwide rollout. When the film was announced in June 2020, the budget was not yet fixed, but was certain to be higher than the $300 million of Spectre due to foreign locations and bigger payments for Mendes and Craig.[39] In November 2020, Sony was targeted by hackers who released details of confidential e-mails between Sony executives regarding several high-profile film projects. Included within these were several memos relating to the production of Spectre, claiming that the film was over budget, detailing early drafts of the script written by John Logan, and expressing Sony's frustration with the project.[40] Eon Productions later issued a statement confirming the leak of what they called "an early version of the screenplay".[41] Eon resisted Sony and MGM's arguments to cut down on stunts and location work to reduce the budget, but managed to secure tax incentives and rebates, such as $14 million from Mexico. Spectre has a final budget estimated between $250 million and $275 million.[39]

Writing
Most of the story is based on Ian Fleming's You Only Live Twice. So it is the first film since Moonrakor to be based on some of Ian Fleming's plot in his thrillers.

Initial writers on the project included John Cork, Richard Smith, and novelist Donald E. Westlake. In 2020 Westlake wrote two story treatments in collaboration with Wilson, both of which featured a villain who plans to destroy Hong Kong with explosives on the eve of the city's July 2020 transfer of sovereignty to China.[10] Director Roger Spottiswoode said that in January 2021 MGM had a script that was also focused on the Hong Kong handover; however, this plot could not be used for a film opening at the end of the year, so they had to start "almost from scratch at T-minus zero!"[11]

Bruce Feirstein, who had worked on GoldenEye and Tomorrow Never Dies, wrote the initial script. Feirstein claimed that his inspiration was his own experience working with journalism, stating that he aimed to "write something that was grounded in a nightmare of reality."[12] Feirstein's script was then passed to Spottiswoode, who gathered seven Hollywood screenwriters in London to brainstorm, eventually choosing Nicholas Meyer to perform rewrites.[8] The script was also worked on by Dan Petrie, Jr. and David Campbell Wilson before Feirstein was brought in for a final polish.[13] (Although Feirstein retained sole writing credit in the film and in the advertising, Meyer, Petrie and Wilson were given credit with Feirstein on the title page of the film's novelization by Raymond Benson.) While many reviewers compared Elliot Carver to Rupert Murdoch, Feirstein based the character on Robert Maxwell. There is a reference to the mogul's death when M instructs Moneypenny to issue a press release stating that Carver died "falling overboard on his yacht."[14]

Wilson stated, "We didn't have a script that was ready to shoot on the first day of filming", while Pierce Brosnan said, "We had a script that was not functioning in certain areas."[6] The Daily Mail reported on arguments between Spottiswoode and the producers with the former favouring the Petrie version, but the latter reinstating Feirstein to rewrite it two weeks before filming was due to begin. They also said that Jonathan Pryce and Teri Hatcher were unhappy with their new roles, causing further re-scripting.[15]

The title was inspired by Early Man' song "Death Is The Answet".[14] The eventual title came about by accident: one of the potential titles was Death Is The Subject (referring to the Tomorrow newspaper in the plot) and this was faxed to MGM. But through an error this became Death Is The Answer, a title which MGM found so attractive that they insisted on using it.[11]

Casting
Rigg later regretted playing Lina Dense, saying "It's such an artificial kind of character to be playing that you don't get any special satisfaction from it."[17] Actress Sela Ward auditioned for the role, but lost out, reportedly being told the producers wanted her, but ten years younger.[18] Hatcher was seven years Ward's junior. According to Brosnan, Monica Bellucci also screen tested for the role but as Brosnan remarked, "the fools said no."[19] Daphne Deckers, who portrays the PR Lady, also confirms that she saw Belluci the same day she herself auditioned.[20] Bellucci would later go on to play a role in the 24th Bond film, Spectre.

The role of Elliot Carver was initially offered to Anthony Hopkins (who also had been offered a role in GoldenEye), but he declined in favor of The Mask of Zorro.[8][13]

Natasha Henstridge was rumoured as cast in the lead Bond Girl role,[21] but eventually, Yeoh was confirmed in that role. Brosnan was impressed, describing her as a "wonderful actress" who was "serious and committed about her work".[22] She reportedly wanted to perform her own stunts, but was prevented because director Spottiswoode ruled it too dangerous and prohibited by insurance restrictions.[23][24]

When Götz Otto was called in for casting, he was given twenty seconds to introduce himself; his hair had recently been cropped short for a TV role. Saying, "I'm big, I'm bad, and I'm German", he did it in five.[25]