Which continuations would make good source material for future Bonds?

Most continuations I haven't read, just some of the Gardners. I think FSS would make a good Bond if it was beefed up something. Any ideas, do some scream adapt me?

Most of the Benson novels--horrendously written though they are--actually have solid core concepts. I wouldn't mind seeing EON borrow from them.

Haven't read most of Benson's stuff, just didn't appeal to me. But yes, he seemed to have a few ideas EON could have done with, HTTK faintly reminds of FYEO with its skin17 MacGuffin.

Used to like the idea of Licence Renewed being done. Or the part of I think it's For Special Services where Bond stops hijackers on a 747:

"We're okay...no thanks to Commander Bond."

Campbell4 wrote:

Most continuations I haven't read, just some of the Gardners. I think FSS would make a good Bond if it was beefed up something. Any ideas, do some scream adapt me?

I happen to think ICEBREAKER was probably one of Gardner's best novels simply because it allowed him to write about a subject he clearly had some interest in and knowledge of: World War II, Nazis, Fascism. It was also one of the most political of Gardner's novels, which gave it some backbone and spine that the others would end up lacking. You can tell in the latter books that Gardner's not as vested in the material as he is in ICEBREAKER.

ICEBREAKER would probably be my first choice. Why? Great title, great storyline, and the concept of Bond being part of a team that has competing agendas and doesn't necessarily trust each other makes for a much more dramatic movie. We're used to M not trusting Craig-Bond, but what about Craig-Bond not trusting The KGB, The CIA, Mossad...??? Also, ICEBREAKER has the equivalent of Bond's torture scene from CR, it's all in the snow and ice, and it covers a part of the world the Bond films don't bother going to.

The other storyline that I'm surprised EON never tried was NOBODY LIVES FOREVER: the concept of a contest where the world's best assassins and killers are in on a game to bring the head of 007 on a silver platter to SPECTRE is.....WOAH! You could even work in some old villains in this Craig-ret-con universe: maybe have Scaramanga working to kill Bond or be hired by someone as a consultant or part of a duo to get Bond.

The problem with adapting something like NLF is the need to balance out the villains. The concept works best when you have several assassins coming after Bond, but the more you have, the less screen time you will get to make each one interesting. It would be very easy to wind up with a cast of bounty hunters whose characterisation is limited to the type of weapon that they carry or their accent. So you aim for half a dozen iconic villains, and end up with half a dozen video game boss fights.

Prisoner Monkeys wrote:

The problem with adapting something like NLF is the need to balance out the villains. The concept works best when you have several assassins coming after Bond, but the more you have, the less screen time you will get to make each one interesting. It would be very easy to wind up with a cast of bounty hunters whose characterisation is limited to the type of weapon that they carry or their accent. So you aim for half a dozen iconic villains, and end up with half a dozen video game boss fights.

Well, it's fun to think about. How much better would SPECTRE be if NOBODY LIVES FOREVER was the basis of the plot? What characters from the past could we bring back? In the new ret-conned universe of Craig's Bond, these villains would be the first time Bond has encountered. My wish list:

Necros/Whitaker
Scaramanga
Bambi and Thumber (in updated, expanded roles)
Wint and Kidd (professional cleaners)
Mr. Big, Whisper Baron Samei

I think a lot of them would make good films with a little tweaking, both Gardner and Benson. A lot of smaller scenes from Gardner's books have already been worked into the EON films.

As nice as it would be to see, it will never happen. EON won't pay the extra cash to adapt the books when they can just hire their own writers.

It would only work post-SPECTRE. Blofeld has to exist and be aware of who Bond is in order to put a bounty on his head.

I think that it would also be a mistake to rely exclusively on existing characters from the old continuity to sell the idea. I can see why you're doing it, but I think the problem is that you run the risk of relying on the audience's knowledge of those characters as a substitute for actually developing them yourself. By all means, include some of them, but in order to really work, you would have to include original creations.

The other thing that it would need is some kind of framing device - why is Bond being targeted? For revenge? Or to keep him busy? And is Bond the only target, or are all of the Double-Ohs on a list? And if so, who else is on it? And why?

Australian author Matthew Reilly did something similar with his novel Scarecrow - the protagonist was the target of an international bounty hunt. He was one of a dozen people with a $20 million price on his head, and the main thrust of the narrative was that he had to try and figure out why he was being targeted while everyone was trying to kill him. My main concern is that a bounty hunt-themed Bond film would amount to two hours of constant action and fighting, with no real story except "kill James Bond!". That, I think, would be the biggest hurdle to overcome.

It might work if it was spliced together with HIGH TIME TO KILL and/or FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE with a dash of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK - the villain engineers a plane going down or a ship running aground containing a MacGuffin of extreme importance to MI6, something so imperative that M is willing to send Bond after it even though they know it's a set-up. What they don't see coming is the way it has been set up, with bounty hunters and assassins lying in wait. All of them have different tactics, with some being lone wolves and others being small paramilitary groups. The real danger would be Francisco Scaramanga, who is going around killing the competition before he takes a run at Bond. The Bond girl would be an assassin that tries to seduce Bond, but he figures out her intentions and ends up having to protect her from Scaramanga because she can lead him back to whoever set up the bounty hunt.

Good call on ICEBREAKER, I remember that read much like one of the better Bond films. NLF is also great idea. But they could do with a bit more story, it's pretty much going from one action scene to the next inIB and NLF, Bond doesn't find out a lot on his own.

Gravity's Silhouette wrote:

ICEBREAKER would probably be my first choice. Why? Great title, great storyline, and the concept of Bond being part of a team that has competing agendas and doesn't necessarily trust each other makes for a much more dramatic movie. We're used to M not trusting Craig-Bond, but what about Craig-Bond not trusting The KGB, The CIA, Mossad...??? Also, ICEBREAKER has the equivalent of Bond's torture scene from CR, it's all in the snow and ice, and it covers a part of the world the Bond films don't bother going to.

I think Icbreaker is better on a conceptual level than an actual read, but I agree it contains the germ of a great Bond novel.

And, I have to say, I'd love to see Bond go up against a cult of some sort. Not quite like Scorpius--a dreary novel, even in abstract--but something along those lines would be interesting.

Gravity's Silhouette wrote:

The other storyline that I'm surprised EON never tried was NOBODY LIVES FOREVER: the concept of a contest where the world's best assassins and killers are in on a game to bring the head of 007 on a silver platter to SPECTRE is.....WOAH! You could even work in some old villains in this Craig-ret-con universe: maybe have Scaramanga working to kill Bond or be hired by someone as a consultant or part of a duo to get Bond.

It's a great hook, to be sure. Maybe EON could do something like that as a follow-up to SPECTRE.

Prisoner Monkeys wrote:

It would only work post-SPECTRE. Blofeld has to exist and be aware of who Bond is in order to put a bounty on his head.

I think that it would also be a mistake to rely exclusively on existing characters from the old continuity to sell the idea. I can see why you're doing it, but I think the problem is that you run the risk of relying on the audience's knowledge of those characters as a substitute for actually developing them yourself. By all means, include some of them, but in order to really work, you would have to include original creations.

The other thing that it would need is some kind of framing device - why is Bond being targeted? For revenge? Or to keep him busy? And is Bond the only target, or are all of the Double-Ohs on a list? And if so, who else is on it? And why?

Australian author Matthew Reilly did something similar with his novel Scarecrow - the protagonist was the target of an international bounty hunt. He was one of a dozen people with a $20 million price on his head, and the main thrust of the narrative was that he had to try and figure out why he was being targeted while everyone was trying to kill him. My main concern is that a bounty hunt-themed Bond film would amount to two hours of constant action and fighting, with no real story except "kill James Bond!". That, I think, would be the biggest hurdle to overcome.

It might work if it was spliced together with HIGH TIME TO KILL and/or FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE with a dash of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK - the villain engineers a plane going down or a ship running aground containing a MacGuffin of extreme importance to MI6, something so imperative that M is willing to send Bond after it even though they know it's a set-up. What they don't see coming is the way it has been set up, with bounty hunters and assassins lying in wait. All of them have different tactics, with some being lone wolves and others being small paramilitary groups. The real danger would be Francisco Scaramanga, who is going around killing the competition before he takes a run at Bond. The Bond girl would be an assassin that tries to seduce Bond, but he figures out her intentions and ends up having to protect her from Scaramanga because she can lead him back to whoever set up the bounty hunt.

Matthew Reilly's work was suggested to me by someone on this board (can't remember who). I read SCARECROW, but found it hard to get through. First of all, I don't like to read action sequences in a novel; I like to see them on the big screen. Secondly, this novel had not just action, but mammoth, gargantuan action set pieces that would rival just about any Bond production. Reilly should be writing for EON. Thirdly, with that much action, it was hard to get into the characters. I pushed through the book and gave SEVEN DEADLY WONDERS a shot; about 1/3rd of the way in I gave up. That was the first time in decades that I can recall quitting a book. But Reilly work's reads more like a movie novelisation than an actual book. He should be doing screenplays instead.

That was one of the problems with SCARECROW - constant action. Things that should have been exciting were instead boring because they followed other big, bombastic action sequences and the story had no opportunity to breathe. A bit like the first half of QUANTUM OF SOLACE, really. Still, it highlights the major problem an adaptation of NOBODY LIVES FOREVER would face - if the world's best bounty hunters and assassins are after Bond, then they're all going to take a run at him at some point. So there's the potential for constant fights and action and no real story to show through.

Perhaps the only real way to do it would be to have it as a subplot running across several films.

I think you could deliver a Nobody Lives Forever scenario without straining too hard. You have the "background" baddie who hired the hit (presumably established in the preceding franchise installment), one world-class major assassin ala Scaramanga, and then a a few other minor heavies that show up at different points to take their shot.

Only the major assassin would get real development as he's the major foe (and he'll be shown to pick off some of the lesser assassins throughout the film, like Red Grant at the gypsy camp). The rest are just figures primarily defined by a gimmick, which strikes me as fine provided that the gimmick is memorable enough to sustain their appearance.

The story could involve the world-class assassin laying some sort of master-trap (perhaps, like Scaramanga, he has an interest in 007 beyond just being paid to kill him and wishes to confront him to prove his superiority), while Bond attempts to locate the "background" baddie to stop the hit.

I think it needs a little bit more than "James Bond must die" in terms of the story. Every villain tries to kill Bond at some point, so there has to be a reason that sets this one apart.

Prisoner Monkeys wrote:

I think it needs a little bit more than "James Bond must die" in terms of the story. Every villain tries to kill Bond at some point, so there has to be a reason that sets this one apart.

Naturally. But it isn't too hard to fill in that blank, especially if the big bad is Blofeld.

I'd be inclined to write it so that the big bad planned to kill Bond for the sake of saying that he killed Bond, possibly as some kind of internal SPECTRE/Quantum power struggle. However, Scaramanga takes offence to this, as the big bad hasn't actually done anything, but intends to take the credit for it, and so kills him. By this point, Scaramanga has come to appreciate that Bond is more than the average target, and the film delivers what TMWTGG started promising - a conflict between Bond and Scaramanga to see who really is the best.

Colonel Sun would be a good call if updated.

I think the trouble with COLONEL SUN today is the fact that its title character is a Chinese officer. The market over there is huge, and no one in Hollywood, even EON, would be ballsy enough to try selling it there.

Should be noted that EON did want to use the character name for the main villain in DIE ANOTHER DAY, but changed it to avoid paying royalties. I guess that's a recent enough example to figure that they'll never want to pay royalties when they can just hire their own screenwriters.

I don't think it would work at all. For one, the plot hinges on a third party exploiting the delicate balance of power during the Cold War to trigger an actual war, and I cannot think of any entities in today's society that exist in such a state. Although I suppose that it could involve a villain trying to tear NATO apart by playing factions off one another.

Secondly, it uses the abduction of M as a plot device, and that has been done before.

Thirdly, and this is a big one for me, Sun's plan is very complex. And while complex plans are not necessarily a bad thing, they can easily degenerate into a situation where a villain is able to anticipate a series of highly-specific actions from the hero, and not only put in place countermeasures to stop them, but to integrate those actions into their plan.

About the only thing that is salvageable is the Greek Islands.