Crave Online: What was the decision to do this as a specific sequel, rather than shifting around, doing a stand-alone?
Barbara Broccoli: I think it just came out of the fact that when we completed Casino Royale, we felt that there was some unfinished business and that Bond was in a very interesting place. Emotionally, he’d had his heart ripped out, and he’d shut down, said, “The bitch is dead. It’s over. I’m never gonna feel anything ever again.” And there was a big villainous organization out there that had kind of turned the woman he loved. So we felt it was a really interesting place to start the next movie from.
Crave Online: Well, is it the first sequel? Because didn’t after On Her Majesty’s, he go after the people who killed his wife? And wasn’t there the Blofeld Trilogy, with consistent villains?
Barbara Broccoli: There have been, yes, the Blofeld things, but this is a direct continuation. I mean, this happens minutes after.
Crave Online: This is the shortest Bond film we’ve seen, too. Was it your decision that you wanted to bring this under two hours?
Barbara Broccoli: It turned out that way. It just turned out that way. Marc is very unsentimental about a director about his own material. He’s not an egotist about his own material. He just cut it. He goes for the movie the way it is and he felt this was the perfect length.
Crave Online: Is it true that Daniel Craig signed on for four more Bond movies after Casino Royale?
Barbara Broccoli: At least one more.
Crave Online: Except for the phone and the computer, there still aren't as many gadgets as in other Bond movies. Are you going to continue to avoid that?
Crave Online: Except for the phone and the computer, there still aren't as many gadgets as in other Bond movies. Are you going to continue to avoid that?
Barbara Broccoli: I guess the reality is, everybody today has so many gadget. You know, what are you gonna do to impress them? This Bond relies more on his own ability and wit. Occasionally we’ll have a gadget in it but it’s not driven by the gadgets.
Crave Online: Since Casino Royale turned out so well, do you ever imagine, “Wow, what if we’d tried this with Brosnan or Dalton?” Or even, what if they had started out with Connery doing Casino?
Barbara Broccoli: Well, they had always [wanted to.] I mean, my Dad wanted to get the rights to Casino Royale in 1961 when he did the original deal but unfortunately, they weren’t available because they had been done by CBS, later to be done by Columbia as a spoof. So we always talked about the Casino Royale rights as being the Holy Grail and we managed to get them in 2000. So the first opportunity we had to make the movie was when we made it. We needed to obviously cast a new actor, because it was the first story. So everybody had wanted to make it. I mean, Sean would have done well. Any of the actors would have been great starting off doing it. We were just very lucky that we got Daniel.
Crave Online: Is it gratifying that now yours is the Casino Royale everyone remembers and no one remembers that spoof one?
Barbara Broccoli: It is. I mean, I think it’s very gratifying. We felt it deserved to be made properly, because it’s the story that explains the Bond character.
Crave Online: Are you going to include Q and Moneypenny soon?
Barbara Broccoli: You know what’s interesting, is everybody’s always saying, “Oh, there’s so much formula. They’re doing everything by the formula.” Then when you change it, everybody’s like, “Well, where’s the…?” You can’t win. Casino Royale, Moneypenny and Q were not in the book so we didn’t have them in the film. And the sequel is a continuation. I think we feel that when, story-wise, we need to introduce some of those other characters, we will. And it will be based on the story, as opposed to the formula.
Crave Online: Would you ever consider going back and remaking some of the classic Bond films/books?
Barbara Broccoli: Why? I think, why? I mean, Goldfinger, how can you? Pretty tough to look at classic movies that have been remade and been made better, just in the whole history.
Crave Online: What are your favorite Bond movies?
Barbara Broccoli: Well, I have a favorite for each actor. So I would say Russia With Love. I loved On Her Majesty’s Service. The Spy Who Loved Me, Living Daylights, and Goldeneye.
Crave Online: Do you ever imagine what a third Timothy Dalton film might have been like?
Barbara Broccoli: Well, I mean, I think he was a fantastic Bond and I think he would have made a great third film. Unfortunately, we were in this terrible lawsuit with MGM at the time, and so he was sort of deprived of those films, as we were. Brilliant actor, yeah.
Crave Online: What is the process for starting the next one?
Barbara Broccoli: We’re gonna try and collapse in December.
Crave Online: Do you have any interest in producing non-Bond films?
Barbara Broccoli: Well, I think we’d like to do other things, but not at the expense of Bond. I think we feel like we have a responsibility and a desire to make these films as well as we can. It takes an awful lot of concentration. And I think we’d like to do other films, too. But as I say, not at the expense of Bond.
Crave Online: Will the films always say “Albert R. Broccoli’s EON Productions” or will it eventually become Barbara Broccoli's?
Barbara Broccoli: Michael [G. Wilson] came up with it, because we felt, when my father died, we felt very, very uncomfortable about taking his name off the movie because it was always his presentation credit. Michael came up with the idea of keeping it there, which is really important to us.
Crave Online: This is just a total fanboy musing, not a suggestion, so don’t take it that way. But speaking of updating Bond, I was just wondering, in this day and age, could you imagine a world where Bond has to face not only female seducers, but men in the espionage world, too? Has that ever entered your mind as a philosophical thing?
Barbara Broccoli: It hasn’t come up yet. We haven’t discussed it yet. Who knows?
Crave Online: He only sleeps with one Bond girl this time. Was there always going to be less emphasis on the seduction in Quantum?
Barbara Broccoli: I mean, you know, you start off with a man who’s mourning the loss of a woman he loved, the love of his life. So it didn’t seem appropriate to have him running around with lots of women. They have a very strong emotional connection, he and Camille in the movie. I think it’s very moving, when they say goodbye, because you feel as if they’ve both kind of moved on, emotionally. They’ve kind of put some of the ghosts to rest, and they’ve sort of healed each other. You get a sense that if it had been a different time and place, maybe they would have had more of a relationship. But she says goodbye to him, which I think is very moving.
Crave Online: What happened to the Pinewood stages after the fire?
Barbara Broccoli: It was rebuilt. They shot Mamma Mia on it before we got there.
Crave Online: Which scenes in Quantum were shot on the sound stages.
Barbara Broccoli: The big end sequence.
Crave Online: When did the Goldfinger image come in? Was that Haggis, or Marc Forster, or you guys?
Barbara Broccoli: It was in the screenplay and I can’t remember which of the writers contributed that. But it stayed in, so everybody takes credit for it, because it didn’t get cut out.
Crave Online: And because it’s awesome. So, is Bond in a better emotional place at the end of this movie?
Barbara Broccoli: I think it’s part of his evolution, you know, that this experience is a journey towards kind of regaining some humanity.
Crave Online: So you don’t think he’ll be up to his old misogynistic self in the next Bond?
Barbara Broccoli: Listen. When men change, maybe Bond will change. But let’s wait. I’m not holding my breath.
