James Bond Is To Sam Mendes What ‘Batman’ Is To Christopher Nolan

The trailers for the new James Bond movie Spectre, are doing what every movie trailer should do, which is to build anticipation for the new movie.

There is no doubt that when Daniel Craig was asked by a reporter if he would do another James Bond movie after this, his response generated even more anticipation.

“Now? I’d rather break this glass and slash my wrists. No, not at the moment, not at all. That’s fine. I’m over it at the moment. We’re done. All I want to do is move on.”

According to an article written for the Inquisitr, co-star Naomi Harris pointed out how Daniel Craig was being sarcastic when he made the statement and further pointed out, how he loves the part.

Despite the shocked responses to the actor’s statement, Daniel Craig’s James Bond fans would be happy to know that the success of the franchise’s current incarnation have more to do with Daniel Craig than only the fact he’s the leading man.

In the first place, the working relationship between the director Sam Mendes and the actor Daniel Craig goes further back to the film The Road To Perdition.

This ended up being helpful for Mendes’ career because as mentioned in a pre-Skyfall post on Deadline Hollywood, it was Daniel Craig who brought in the director to consult for the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, who were at the time filing for bankruptcy. As a result, it would be that working relationship that would resurrect the James Bond franchise with the highly-rated 2012 film.

In the second place, that relationship is also similar to other pairs in the industry who have committed themselves to film franchises such as these, like that of director Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale.

When there was talk about handing over the franchise to someone else, Bale pointed out that he would not do another Batman film with any other director. And though the same can’t be said for the new James Bond movies, it is obvious that the success of the third Bond film with Craig and the caliber of anticipation for it, needs no explanation.

So the commitment the actor has to the current phase of the James Bond series is far deeper than a glass shard could destroy.

The New York Daily News refers to some of the risky moments where the studio worked to hold onto their team for the third James Bond film despite the financial hardships.

Thanks to some smart decision making over time as The Daily Beast points out, the studio has been able to get back to producing at least eight films annually, mostly by focusing on remakes of its own previously produced films and able to rely on the streamlined direction of Sam Mendes.

Even the director acknowledged that the Dark Knight series of films inspired him in the making of Skyfall.

In late 2014, while the new film was under production and during the Sony hacks — who are currently one of the co-owners of the post bankrupt MGM — one of many emails was leaked, as reported by Softpedia that shows Sony was concerned that the new James Bond film would go over budget.

Now in hindsight, there are plenty of reports about where the budget went. While in the email, suggestions are made about vehicles and locations to save money, a estimated $36 million was spent on destroying Aston Martins according to The Huffington Post, which may or may not include the budget spent for the car company to make the ten DB10s, which were also destroyed like the DB5 at the end of Skyfall.

To make things even more interesting, the director-actor relationship would appear to have grown legs and evolved into a possible consideration that Nolan would direct a James Bond film. Whether this rumor has been created by social media, the director has acknowledged it in a recent interview the the BBC’s Newsnight.

But Daniel Craig has signed on for at least one more James Bond movie and given the parallels between both directors, it would not be a betrayal to have The Dark Knight director do Daniel Craig’s last James Bond movie. If anything, it would only be a heightened continuation of MGM’s success.

[Featured Image via Flickr by Ron Bailey is under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) License]