THE EIGHTIES

This is a confused decade for Bond pictures. Eon Productions began the eighties seeking to take Bond back to his roots, balancing the films uneasily between the realism of the early films and the wild slapstick of the seventies' films. The product was neither exciting nor funny enough to be wholly successful, and Bond fans were forced to content themselves with isolated moments in some wildly uneven films.

Before the release of A View To a Kill in 1985, it was announced that in the United States, 100% of moviegoers polled had seen a Bond film -- 88% of them having seen Goldfinger -- and that 1.5 billion people worldwide had seen one of the films. But Sean Connery and Roger Moore were getting too old to play believable 007's, and it was time for a change.

So in 1985, Irish/American TV star Pierce Brosnan was chosen to play James Bond. Unfortunately, his contract to play Remington Steele on American television prevented him from entering into Bondage at that time. The Broccolis didn't want Bond to be overexposed on television, and the producers of Steele refused to let Pierce out of his contract. So Eon went in a different direction.

Production stalled on the next Bond film, The Living Daylights, as EON searched for a new actor. Then one night, Cubby Broccoli and his wife Dana attended a theatre production in London starring Timothy Dalton, one of the stars of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Dalton had been unavailable for the role when EON was casting several months earlier because of stage commitments. In fact, Dalton had been approached to play Bond twice even before The Living Daylights -- once for For Your Eyes Only when Moore was threatening to quit, and even earlier in the seventies as a replacement for Connery. Dalton was then judged to be too young for the role. But he was now close to 40 -- the ideal age for Bond. While watching the show Cubby studied Dalton and discussed his performance with Dana. "The women flipped for him - and I remember he gave a good performance," Cubby later told Newsweek.

Both Cubby and Dana came to the conclusion that Timothy was the perfect actor to take over the mantle of James Bond, 007. They went back stage to meet Timothy and the deal was struck. (Dalton balked at having to undergo a screen test after all of the previous auditions, but he finally performed two scenes from On Her Majesty's Secret Service.) In 1986, Dalton became James Bond, attempting in his characterization to take 007 back to his more serious literary roots.

Entering the nineties, he seemed poised to make Bond relevant again.

FILM PROJECTS OF THE EIGHTIES

For Your Eyes Only

Octopussy

Never Say Never Again

A View To A Kill

The Living Daylights

Licence To Kill


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