"Controversial casting choices" on Yahoo movie blog

[Kristatos]

Then why are any fans of Craig labelled as non-Bond fans by many anti-Craig fans?
Connery, Lazenby, Moore, Dalton, Brosnan and Craig, all great in the role of Bond. Even though this site is anti Craig, it should not be anti Bond fan.

As I recall, it was the pro-Craigers who were first to accuse the anti-Craigers of not being "true Bond fans", the argument being that Craig was Fleming's Bond, and if you don't like him, then you must hate Fleming and only be interested in double-taking pigeons and invisible cars.

[Mazer Rackham]

There is a difference between being a fan of the franchise and a fan of Bond. Some places can't see the difference. Mr White dares to crtitzie the quagmire of CR and Quark he is promptly besmirched by terriers loyal to the franchise.

The problem a lot of us have was caused when the keepers of the franchise jettisoned 40 years of history to then attack it. They handled Brozza badly causing a PR problem. They promised Brozza and Bond fans a fifth movie in all but a contract. What's the harm of another Brozza film, it would have been ready 2005 made everybody a lot of money, he'd have his swan song and be out on good terms. She still could have hired her boy lollipop to undermined the franchise fundamentals. We area talking maybe a year here. No the problem lies much deeper, more systemic. Just about any studio head would have done it this way the script for Bond 21 was ready late 2004, 2005 filming was a real possibility. The problem then as it will be once MGM is back on its feet is the heads at EON, Babs single-handedly screwed the pooch after DAD. They spent a year developing a Jinx spin off, while Brozza spent it trying to get Casino Royale made. After her mother dies Babs goes nuts, instead of getting Bond 21 rolling she starts a drawn out battle with studios heads, investors, and inside her own company. This will happen again, as I said the main delay for Bond 23 after funding is a looming battle of personalities.

Sony caved in to get Bond rolling even they they were not so happy about it, they approached Brozza about coming back a few weeks before Babs brought her darling boy to show and tell. If Sony hadn't been in a hurry to cash in on their rights to make Bond things wouldn't have gone down they way the did. For one thing the studio would have made sure they had a plan behind the reboot, something that lasted more than a year.

They will pay attention to this site, it is a thorn in their sides, the sites they have in their purse they don't need to pay attention to. Besides this place cost them millions of dollars, easily. It put the idea of not going to a Bond movie in fans heads and more than enough acted on it. Over 2m in America did go to CR, some places like Japan have yet to reach the Brozza attendance levels all this with bigger theaters and more screens.

Compared to DAD 2m people in America didn't go to CR, 4m americans abstained from Quark, joined by 8m of their fellow movie goers around the world who saw CR but didn't return for more Craig. A staggering loss in attendance. Historically for a franchise this pattern will continue, diminishing attendance until in Bond's case recast.

[katied]

I think a number of fan forums like MI6 went overboard to prop up Craig

Understatement of the decade. I mean of course they would. They're in EON's pockets, as much as that's denied Anti Craig sentiment was quelled then as it is now.

It was the pro-Craigers who were the first to accuse the anti-Craigs of not being true Bond fans,the argument being that Craig was Fleming's Bond,and if you don't like him, you must hate Fleming

The people who are frequently suggested for the next Bond are suggested more because they "look like Fleming's Bond" than anything else. So to say that attitude isn't prevalent is bulls***. This is the aspect of fandoms that pisses me off-you have to like every aspect of the fandom, otherwise you're not a true fan. Please. Then I'm a bad Bond fan, because there are more than a few of the Bond films that I don't like.

Mr. White dares to criticize the quagmire of CR and Quark he is promptly besmirched by terriers loyal to the franchise.

More like rabid Rottweilers, IMO.

[Captain Nash]

I don't expect anything other than you to believe that Mi6 are on the payroll of EON, but I really must ask why?
Okay so the site is predominantly pro-Craig, and pro-Bond for that matter.
But then so are other Bond sites.
I've rarely seen anything negative posted against EON.
But then why would they need or want to?
Mi6 is run by fans for fans. Other than the Mi6 magazine, it is a non profit site, having no advertisments or the like to fund the site.
I'd ask for any evidence you have to back up your claim?
Denial is not an answer, and I have never seen anything to suspect that they are paid by EON.
Just because no-one feels the need to bag Craig or slam EON continuously is hardly evidence of being on Eons payroll.
I've PM'd several other members and they tend to agree with me.

[Kristatos]

Compared to DAD 2m people in America didn't go to CR, 4m americans abstained from Quark, joined by 8m of their fellow movie goers around the world who saw CR but didn't return for more Craig. A staggering loss in attendance. Historically for a franchise this pattern will continue, diminishing attendance until in Bond's case recast.

How much do you think this loss in attendance, particularly QOS's lacklustre DVD and Blu-Ray sales, contributed to MGM's current financial woes, Mazer?

[Captain Nash]

Compared to DAD 2m people in America didn't go to CR, 4m americans abstained from Quark, joined by 8m of their fellow movie goers around the world who saw CR but didn't return for more Craig. A staggering loss in attendance. Historically for a franchise this pattern will continue, diminishing attendance until in Bond's case recast.

How much do you think this loss in attendance, particularly QOS's lacklustre DVD and Blu-Ray sales, contributed to MGM's current financial woes, Mazer?

I'll grant you that the casting of Craig has had an effect on those figures, and he's not to everyones taste. Though then again only Connery seems to be the Bond accepted by all.
I seem to recall the figures for LALD were non to special after DAF, and the follow up of TMWTGG was an all time low for the series at the time. Yet Roger Moore was not recast. Nor do I think Craig will be. QOS was a poor follow up to CR, it had so much wrong with it (we know the issues, so I'm not going to list them), yet Craig for all but the members here, was not the biggest fault with Quantum Of Solace. But as I said he does have to shoulder some of the blame, in the loss of attendance.

[katied]

Nash, I don't know why it's so important for you to swear up and down that MI6 *isn't* in the pockets of EON.There wouldn't be anything wrong with that...save for the fact that any sort of anti-Craig sentiment is frowned upon there.

[Capt. Sir Dominic Flandry]

I was aghast at the casting of Daniel Craig in 2005 as I had seen him in numerous roles and thought him highly unsuitable and was 99% certain he would be woefully miscast: I therefore found it hard to wait and see and "give him a chance".

I thought I may be wrong when everyone proclaimed Casino Royale and Craig a triumph; a visit to the cinema to watch CR proved I was right and - for a while -the World had gone insane.

[bjmdds]

The madness of Cr-egg as Bond has come full circle. Mumbles will be gone. He is a putridly poor non-Bond actor with extremely limited ranges in acting beyond playing odd-ball characters. He is dull, boring and is DEVOID of charisma. Eon and Sony did not cast this loser as Bond. Broccoli did, probably from some crush on a bad boy she had as a teenager carrying over into her adulthood. Just look at him as a man and Hugh Jackman as a man. Cubby would have grabbed up Jackman right after Brosnan was allowed to do his 5th Bond film. Firing Cr-egg now would be a blow to Ms. B's huge producer ego so someone with more clout must cast her aside in the buyout and restore sanity to the Bond world, or else you will get more of Cr-egg's hideously ugly face and profile and cropped up hair once again in another Bond flop. Enough.

[katied]

Cropped up to hide a bald spot, according to a post on another thread. Danielcraigisnaotbaldbond.com anyone?

[Omega]

Hold on a second I thought the trend was for sequels to make more money than first? Iron Man, Batman, Bourne, The Matrix, Harold and Kumar, Lord of the Rings

[Mazer Rackham]

Hold on a second I thought the trend was for sequels to make more money than first?

Healthy franchises getting started usually expand early on. They continue to expand eventually reaching their saturation point, once the numbers start to decline they usually continue on that arc - losing audience. The Harry Potter series makes good money but has sustained consistent audience loss since the first movie.
Some franchises get punished for bad entries: Pirates of the Caribbean, The Matrix. Likely Spider-man 4 and Bond 23 would get some sort of backlash for their last entries. Spidy was rebooted which may mitigated the circumstances, unless the audience feels taken advantage of seeing "reboot" as a ploy for the stupid.

Compared to DAD 2m people in America didn't go to CR, 4m americans abstained from Quark, joined by 8m of their fellow movie goers around the world who saw CR but didn't return for more Craig. A staggering loss in attendance. Historically for a franchise this pattern will continue, diminishing attendance until in Bond's case recast.

How much do you think this loss in attendance, particularly QOS's lacklustre DVD and Blu-Ray sales, contributed to MGM's current financial woes, Mazer?

It helped some but the real culprit is Hollywood accounting. MGM lists half a billion as income after covering minor overheard they then ended in the red for 2010. I need to double check that after the theatrical release of Quark MGM got all the rights and monies back for home video. I believe they did, Sony's involvement ending with the theatrical run.

For Bond the studio needs home video and television to make money on it. Going over old reports MGM was thrilled by DAD, selling like gangbusters on DVD and VHS, demanding good TV prices, at the time one executive said once all was said and done MGM would make more off DAD than any other movie in the Bond franchise.