Recently came the tenth anniversary of “Skyfall,” Daniel Craig’s acclaimed third outing as James Bond and still the highest-grossing 007 film to date.
That film was directed by Sam Mendes who returned for the 2015 follow-up “Spectre” which… wasn’t so well received. Mendes left the franchise after that and directed the films “1917” and the soon to open “Empire of Light”.
Speaking to THR about his Bond tenure, he says the big difference between the two as far as he was concerned was how much time he had to work on each. Namely, the financial woes that MGM were in just before “Skyfall” began production led to nearly a year of downtime before shooting.
That gave Mendes plenty of time to really work on the film’s script and get what they wanted out of the material. Such luxury was not afforded him when it came time to do “Spectre” though:
“These movies are very difficult to write. Those 10 months of downtime, that’s when the script really turned around, because we had the time to go down blind alleys and try things like the [Bond/Silva team-up]. That time was not afforded to me when we made ‘Spectre’. And you can see the difference in the script.
[With ‘Spectre’], I felt there was some pressure. Certainly [producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson] exerted some pressure on me and Daniel to make the next one, so that makes a big difference. People saying: ‘We want you to do it,’ and passionately wooing me to do it, was a big thing.”
Script issues were at the heart of Craig’s other most criticised entry in “Quantum of Solace” with the problems there being due to the writer’s strike. Despite its problems, there are still elements of “Spectre” that work fine and the film went on to earn over $880 million worldwide.
