Rumors about Nolan directing two period piece Bond films

There is so far no real solid source for this - at least none that I can find - but there are rumblings about Chris Nolan being in negotiation to helm two Bond films.

The most exciting aspect of the story to me is the idea of period pieces. I have long believed they need to do this, for a variety of reasons.
Primarily because that's the era the character belongs in. But also the novelty of it would give the franchise a much-needed kick up the backside creatively, in my humble opinion.

Salomé wrote:

The most exciting aspect of the story to me is the idea of period pieces. I have long believed they need to do this, for a variety of reasons.

That’s where the story falls apart for me. My understanding is that Eon want to keep Bond in the present day and have often rejected period-set Bond films, most notably from Tarantino. That said, period-set Bond films will enable the character to stay in tact.

Nolan, as I’ve often stated, is the antithesis of James Bond, so I’m hardly excited by that prospect.

Nolan wouldn't have been my first though for a superhero pic either (in fact I was outraged initially that Aronofsky got dumped from the BAT revival in favor of Nolan), yet he did very well with those (though the fights in BB weren't staged well and so the cutting was almost a precursor to Quantum at times.)

Nolan might be the only filmmaker who could push Eon to doing period films, and that has me very very excited. Taking a breather from contemporary world for Bond might be a breath of fresh air while waiting for the world to settle down or finish going to Hell, too.

I've got almost a quarter of the script for him already, if he really wants to do Cold War era Bond ...

I would be on board with that. Nolan has shown he can do a period piece convincingly. It also frees them from the obvious choice of making Klaus Schwab the next Bond villain.

The period piece thing is more exciting than the Nolan thing for me personally too.

I haven't yet seen Oppenheimer, but his post-Inception output hasn't really impressed me that much.
Of those films, I found Dunkirk to be the best. Interstellar was a letdown. The Dark Knight Rises was just bad. Haven't yet seen Tenet.

Nolan's films are unique in their own right, but they don't really scream Bond or Fleming to me. A lot of people thought Tenent was Bond-esque because... err... the blokes wore suits.

I mean, I think even Tarantino is more suited to capturing the Benign Bizarre of a true-to-the-novel adaptation. Yeah he'd probably make it too Tarantino-ish (an otherwise two second inner monologue on scrambled eggs will turn into Bond having a five minute neurotic breakdown over his eggs being overcooked).

I don't know, I remember that people at the time of Skyfall said that Mendes was kind of doing Nolanesque Batman through his framing/editing. There was at least some truth to it, I think.

I find it harder to believe from the POV of EON. Lets assume for arguments sake that Nolan is actually interested. He would the filmmaker who by far would require the most creative control and freedom. Two things that Babs & co aren't overly keen to give to whoever is helming their projects.

Nolan would make cerebral and intricately-plotted Bond films. And they would likely be refreshingly bereft of postmodern ideology. That said, I remember rumors that Nolan was going to purchase the Bond franchise, too, so I'll believe this when I see it.

As already mentioned, his insistence on complete creative control wouldn't sit at all well with EON. A pity.

Salomé wrote:

The period piece thing is more exciting than the Nolan thing for me personally too.

I haven't yet seen Oppenheimer, but his post-Inception output hasn't really impressed me that much.
Of those films, I found Dunkirk to be the best. Interstellar was a letdown. The Dark Knight Rises was just bad. Haven't yet seen Tenet.

I could not make head nor tail out of TENET, and furthermore, what is worse, I found I didn't even want to try. I've never given it a second go-through, which supposedly remedies a lot of viewer complaints, but for me I didn't want to see these characters in any timeline forwards or backwards ever again. Considering I've liked or loved all of Nolan's movies except his wintery remake and the whole middle stretch of TDKR, my take on TENET, matched by my wife who is much brighter than me, was a big surprise. But I'm still expecting to love OPPENHEIMER.

Salomé wrote:

I don't know, I remember that people at the time of Skyfall said that Mendes was kind of doing Nolanesque Batman through his framing/editing. There was at least some truth to it, I think.

I find it harder to believe from the POV of EON. Lets assume for arguments sake that Nolan is actually interested. He would the filmmaker who by far would require the most creative control and freedom. Two things that Babs & co aren't overly keen to give to whoever is helming their projects.

And yet she let Forster go artsy at times in QUANTUM and then, much worse, let Mendes do all sorts of terrible and unbondlike things in the two dreadful bond pics he made. I'd go into some detail, but I've only seen SKYMALL and SPHINCTER twice each and so I don't have the details burnished the way I do on most other Bond turkeys, all of which at least offer some measure of pleasure except the ones made post-Broz.

Nolan would be interesting but I doubt they would ever consider a period piece. They aren’t going to lose out on all that technology product placement. Also considering filming on NTTD wrapped 4 years ago and came out two years ago they haven’t seemed to have too much energy in pushing forward the next film. Add into that the actors strike I would be surprised if they were even this far along yet with the next movie.

The best thing about period piece films is that it allows for more faithful adaptations, and they can skip updating the sensibilities of the hero. They can even have him smoke 80 a day without the same backlash. He can slap bottoms again, too, saying "Mantalk.".

Moore wrote:

Nolan would be interesting but I doubt they would ever consider a period piece. They aren’t going to lose out on all that technology product placement. Also considering filming on NTTD wrapped  4 years ago and came out two years ago they haven’t seemed to have too much energy in pushing forward the next film. Add into that the actors strike I would be surprised if they were even this far along yet with the next movie.  

Yes, Babs' Bond enthusiasm is nowhere to be seen, and that's fine by me. They killed Bond. The decent thing to do is let him rest in peace.

I know, I know--Bond is a fictional character, but still.

Phantom Commander wrote:

The best thing about period piece films is that it allows for more faithful adaptations, and they can skip updating the sensibilities of the hero. They can even have him smoke 80 a day without the same backlash. He can slap bottoms again, too, saying "Mantalk.".

A period Bond could do those things, but only if Eon allowed it. Something tells me they wouldn't.

EON should just invest in a really good AI program, show it all their Bond films, and program it to "make a James Bond film two hours long", then screen it without even a preview before the premiere.

Or maybe they already did that?

Phantom Commander wrote:

EON should just invest in a really good AI program, show it all their Bond films, and program it to "make a James Bond film two hours long", then screen it without even a preview before the premiere.

Or maybe they already did that?

Even 'artificial' intelligence would be smart enough to realize that there's pretty much an utter disconnect between the character of Bond and what we got from Craig, so no, we gotta blame these last few on real people, not a confused HAL 9000.

I’m surprised by the support of a Nolan-directed/written Bond film. Seems to be a big consensus here and elsewhere to move away from the maudlin tone of the Craig films... but Nolan would more or less continue in that direction.

Well, I'll grant you that Nolan hasn't shown he can do the classic Bond turn-on-a-dime-from-fun-to-serious that was an earmark of most early good films in the series, but I can't think of many other folks who have shown that either. But since he knows the films, he should know what the expectations would be -- and I don't mean making babs happy! -- and part of the fun would be fulfilling those expectations for viewers long frustrated with recent Bonds winding up and then either not delivering the pitch or throwing it in the dirt.

That would also mean a drastic rethink on his part of filmscoring, because the hype-machine music of his Batflicks works fine there, but you need MELODY and orchestra as part of a good Bond movie. But the fact that he shoots film and doesn't fall prey to what other filmshooters do in terms of messing up the image with unmotivated lens flares and goofy shutter speeds means he could deliver a movie that looks like a Bond movie too ... although given Hoyte has already done one with mixed results, maybe that would be a hold-up, as Nolan doesn't like to change up his key people (I think he's still be shooting with Pfister if that guy hadn't stepped away to try his hand very badly at directing.)

Phantom Commander wrote:

The best thing about period piece films is that it allows for more faithful adaptations, and they can skip updating the sensibilities of the hero. They can even have him smoke 80 a day without the same backlash. He can slap bottoms again, too, saying "Mantalk.".

They'd have to make Moneypenny white and Q hetero, so fat chance.

CJB wrote:

Phantom Commander wrote:

The best thing about period piece films is that it allows for more faithful adaptations, and they can skip updating the sensibilities of the hero. They can even have him smoke 80 a day without the same backlash. He can slap bottoms again, too, saying "Mantalk.".

They'd have to make Moneypenny white and Q hetero, so fat chance.

Once a part of the Ummah...

trevanian wrote:

Well, I'll grant you that Nolan hasn't shown he can do the classic Bond turn-on-a-dime-from-fun-to-serious that was an earmark of most early good films in the series, but I can't think of many other folks who have shown that either. But since he knows the films, he should know what the expectations would be -- and I don't mean making babs happy! -- and part of the fun would be fulfilling those expectations for viewers long frustrated with recent Bonds winding up and then either not delivering the pitch or throwing it in the dirt.

For all his fanboying and crediting the series for inspiring the likes of Inception and Tenet, there’s still a gaping oversight of sex, humour and a joie de vivre in his films. Even his very first sex scene in Oppenheimer, which obviously in terms of sexuality doesn’t get more overt than that, there’s a mechanical joylessness about it. Even more striking about that is Oppenheimer was apparently a womaniser.

trevanian wrote:

That would also mean a drastic rethink on his part of filmscoring, because the hype-machine music of his Batflicks works fine there, but you need MELODY and orchestra as part of a good Bond movie. But the fact that he shoots film and doesn't fall prey to what other filmshooters do in terms of messing up the image with unmotivated lens flares and goofy shutter speeds means he could deliver a movie that looks like a Bond movie too ... although given Hoyte has already done one with mixed results, maybe that would be a hold-up, as Nolan doesn't like to change up his key people (I think he's still be shooting with Pfister if that guy hadn't stepped away to try his hand very badly at directing.)

I didn’t even think about his musical choices but you’re right and that makes my heart sink even more. As for his photography, well, his go-to blue/grey colour design again sings out to his clinical vision which I find at odds with Bond’s colourful world.

This rumour seems to be spreading, and is apparently based on some insider source from EON who leaked correct info about this and that in the past. Last claim I saw was that Nolan wants to make faithful adaptations of the first two or three Fleming books before taking over as a producer, overseeing the adaptations of the rest of the books. Also read that there is a difference
of opinion between EON and Nolan about having the films set in the 1950s or 2020s. Nolan also apparently wants to make the call about who gets cast as the new Bond, and the name of Aaron Taylor-Johnson was dropped in that same piece. I do not trust any of this, but they are fun speculations, and just maybe there is something to it?

Making another Casino Royale would only make sense if it was set in the 50s and followed the book as closely as possible. Personally I would love to see the books filmed in order and more or less transformed into movies as they are. There is no way you can be truly faithful to the source material without having them set in the 50s and 60s.

"Making another Casino Royale would only make sense if it was set in the 50s and followed the book as closely as possible. Personally I would love to see the books filmed in order and more or less transformed into movies as they are. There is no way you can be truly faithful to the source material without having them set in the 50s and 60s."

Yes, everything else gets remade these days, so why not? And how I would love to see an exceedingly faithful realization of "Moonraker"!

To be honest, I've always been in the 'one and done' camp when it comes to Fleming adaptations. Not remotely interested in seeing a new version of Dr No or From Russia With Love etc etc.

Thunderball Mk. II was bad enough...

Where you have a great divergence between source material and EON adaptation (e.g. Moonraker) I could be swayed, but I still wouldn't want them to keep the original name (i.e. take the plot of the Moonraker novel but call it something new... Sunmopper?)

Of course, I don't even need to rabbit on about how a modern studio and writing team would treat source material as "problematic" as Fleming's works. Leave them books alone.