What Would a James Bond Movie Look Like if Christopher Nolan Directed?
How to make a James Bond movie a smart, mind-bending thrill instead of just dumb fun.
via Christopher Nolan Won’t Make a Howard Hughes Film, But He Still Wants To Direct a Bond Movie | /Film.
A few directors have wanted to make films about Howard Hughes, even after Martin Scorsese made The Aviator. One man is Warren Beatty, whose latest film is about the bizarre and powerful aviation mogul. Another has been Christopher Nolan, and while Nolan has focused his energies in other ways in the past few years, fans have hoped he might get around to the Hughes film he once spoke of making.
Now it seems like Nolan is giving up that idea, having put his Hughes interests into the Bruce Wayne character in Batman. But he does still want to tackle another classic, powerful figure: James Bond.
Nolan’s Batman films are an artistic snooze fest for me. Batman requires a certain odd tone to it and the art direction of the Batman films is simply boring.
Carl Franklin directed Out of Time with Denzel Washington, a pretty smart and character oriented film. If Franklin did a Bond, we’d have fewer stupid chase/stunt sequences and perhaps a little more style and innovation and taut suspense.
What I’d really like to see is a Bond retro version done, set in the ’60s. Now that would be fun. The art direction, if done in a more sober but still conspicuous take on Austin Powers sensibilities, would be big-time fun.
In the end, it all boils down to great screenplays. If there’s nothing at the core, all the fluff in the world won’t help.
Nolan is the most consistently compelling direct working today, Every film he does commands attention and growing legions of interest and increasing critical respect. He has helped re-invigorate almost every genre he’s tackled, from film noir to action adventure. The proof is in, for example, how many other comic book series have had to emulate “Batman’s” example, and combine depth, character development with more memorable and literate scripts, and more suspensefully integrated action. The pay off? If done well, a reinvigorated franchise – if not, dump and await to re-pump (eg, “Superman”). With Christopher Nolan, the bar gets raised. Therefore I would love to see him do both a Bond and a Hughes biopic. Scorsese came close with “The Aviator,” and ought to have been rewarded. But it can still be done better.