Skyfall (2012)
Skyfall is a 2012 spy film and the twenty-third in the James Bond series produced by Eon Productions. The film is the third to star Daniel Craig as fictional MI6 agent James Bond and features Javier Bardem as Raoul Silva, the villain, with Judi Dench returning as M. Directed by Sam Mendes and written by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and John Logan, the film has Bond investigating a series of targeted data leaks and co-ordinated attacks on MI6 led by Raoul Silva. It sees the return of two recurring characters, Miss Moneypenny (played by Naomie Harris) and Q (played by Ben Whishaw), after an absence of two films. Ralph Fiennes, Bérénice Marlohe and Albert Finney are among the supporting cast.RELATED:
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Mendes was approached to direct after the release of Quantum of Solace in 2008. Development of the film was suspended throughout 2010 after Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures (MGM) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which caused screenwriter Peter Morgan to leave the project. Production resumed in December 2010 after Purvis, Wade, and Logan were hired and a November 2012 release date was announced in January 2011. Principal photography began that November after the film’s title was revealed and lasted until March 2012, with filming locations including London, Shanghai, Istanbul, and Scotland.
Skyfall premiered at the Royal Albert Hall on 23 October 2012, and was released theatrically in conventional and IMAX formats in the United Kingdom three days later and in the United States on 9 November, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the first James Bond film Dr. No (1962). Skyfall received praise for Mendes’s direction, cast performances, action sequences, cinematography, and musical score. The film was nominated for five awards at the 85th Academy Awards, winning two, and received numerous other accolades. Skyfall grossed $1 billion worldwide, the fourteenth film to do so, and became the then-seventh-highest grossing film of all time, the highest-grossing James Bond film, the second-highest grossing film of 2012, and the then-highest grossing film released by Sony or MGM.
Plot.
MI6 agents James Bond and Eve Moneypenny pursue mercenary Patrice, who has stolen a hard drive containing details of undercover agents. As Bond and Patrice fight atop a moving train, M orders Moneypenny to shoot Patrice, despite not having a clear shot; Moneypenny inadvertently hits Bond, who falls into a river. Bond is presumed dead and Patrice escapes with the hard drive. Three months later, due to a public inquiry into M’s handling of the stolen hard drive, she is pressured to retire by Gareth Mallory, the chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament and a former SAS officer. Although she claims she is still useful, MI6’s servers are hacked, and M receives a taunting computer message moments before the MI6 building explodes.
Bond, who used his presumed death to retire, learns of the attack and returns to service in London. He fails a series of physical, medical, and psychological examinations, but M approves his return to the field, ordering him to identify Patrice’s employer, recover the hard drive, and kill Patrice. He meets Q, MI6’s new quartermaster, who gives him a radio beacon and a Walther PPK pistol.
In Shanghai, Bond follows Patrice but is unable to prevent him killing a target. The two fight and Patrice falls to his death before Bond can learn his employer’s identity. Moneypenny joins Bond in his investigation on orders from Mallory. Bond finds a casino token Patrice intended to cash in for the assassination, leading him to a casino in Macau.
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There, Bond is approached by Sévérine, Patrice’s accomplice. Recognising her tattoo, he concludes she was a sex slave “rescued” by a criminal who now employs her, a man Bond wishes to meet. She warns him he is targeted by her bodyguards, but promises to help if Bond kills her employer. Bond thwarts the attack and joins Sévérine on her yacht, the Chimera. They travel to an abandoned island off the coast of Macau, where the crew captures and delivers them to Sévérine’s employer, Raoul Silva. Once an MI6 agent, Silva turned to cyberterrorism and orchestrated the attack on MI6. Silva kills Sévérine, but Bond alerts MI6 reinforcements who capture Silva for rendition to Britain.
Development.
Development of Bond 23 began in 2009 but was suspended throughout 2010 because of MGM’s financial troubles. Preproduction resumed following MGM’s exit from bankruptcy on 21 December 2010, and in January 2011, the film was officially given a release date of 9 November 2012 by MGM and the Broccoli family, with production scheduled to start in late 2011. Subsequently, MGM and Sony Pictures announced that the UK release date would be brought forward to 26 October 2012, two weeks ahead of the US release date, which remained scheduled for 9 November 2012. The film’s budget is estimated to have been between US$150 million and $200 million, compared to the $200 million spent on Quantum of Solace. Skyfall was part of year-long celebrations of the 50th anniversary of Dr. No and the Bond film series. According to producer Michael G. Wilson, a documentary crew was scheduled to follow production of the film to celebrate the anniversary.
Pre-production.
After the release of Quantum of Solace in 2008, producer Barbara Broccoli commented that Skyfall, untitled at the time, may continue the plot of the Quantum organisation, introduced in Casino Royale and continued in Quantum of Solace. In August 2011, the Serbian newspaper Blic stated that Bond 23 would be titled Carte Blanche and would be an adaptation of the recent continuation novel by Jeffery Deaver. On 30 August, Eon Productions officially denied any link between Bond 23 and Carte Blanche, stating that “the new film is not going to be called Carte Blanche and will have nothing to do with the Jeffery Deaver book”. On 3 October 2011, fifteen domain names including jamesbond-skyfall.com and skyfallthefilm.com were reported to have been registered on behalf of MGM and Sony Pictures by Internet brand-protection service MarkMonitor. Skyfall was confirmed as the title at a press conference on 3 November 2011, during which co-producer Barbara Broccoli said that the title “has some emotional context which will be revealed in the film”.
Casting.
The main cast was announced at a press conference held at the Corinthia Hotel in London on 3 November 2011, fifty years after Sean Connery had been announced as James Bond in the film Dr. No. Daniel Craig returned as James Bond for the third time, saying he felt lucky to have the chance. Mendes described Bond as experiencing a “combination of lassitude, boredom, depression [and] difficulty with what he’s chosen to do for a living”. Judi Dench returned as M for her seventh and final time. Over the course of the film, M’s ability to run MI6 is called into question, culminating in a public inquiry into her running of the service. Javier Bardem was cast as the principal villain, Raoul Silva, a cyberterrorist seeking revenge against those he holds responsible for betraying him. Bardem described Silva as “more than a villain”, while Craig stated that Bond has a “very important relationship” to Silva. Mendes admitted that he had lobbied hard for Bardem to accept the part, and saw potential for the character to be recognised as one of the most memorable in the series.
He wanted to create “something [the audience] may consider to have been absent from the Bond movies for a long time”, and felt that Bardem was one of the few actors able to become “colourless” and exist as more than just a function of the plot. In preparing for the role, Bardem had the script translated into his native Spanish, which Mendes cited as a sign of his commitment. Bardem dyed his hair blond for the role, after brainstorming ideas for a distinct visual look with Mendes, which led some commentators to suggest a resemblance to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Bérénice Marlohe was cast as Séverine, saved from the Macau sex trade by Silva and now working as his representative. Marlohe described her character as being “glamorous and enigmatic”, and that she drew inspiration from GoldenEye villain Xenia Onatopp (played by Famke Janssen).
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Writing.
Peter Morgan was originally commissioned to write a script, but left the project when MGM filed for bankruptcy and production of the film stalled; despite his departure, Morgan later stated that the final script was based on his original idea, retaining what he described as its “big hook”. Mendes denied this as “just not true”, insisting that Morgan’s approach had been discarded once he had agreed to direct. Robert Wade later said that “Neal and I were pretty steeped in Fleming. I think Peter was more interested in Le Carré. It just didn’t work.” Morgan cowrote the treatment Once Upon a Spy with Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, which had M being blackmailed by a Russian oligarch, who would be a former KGB agent she had an affair with while stationed in West Berlin during the Cold War. The script would have ended with Bond being forced to kill M. Mendes disliked most of the script but asked to keep the ending with M’s death.
Purvis and Wade then wrote a new script drawing from You Only Live Twice (1964) and The Man with the Golden Gun (1965), in which Bond is presumed dead after an accident and travels back to London to an uncertain MI6. The original screenplay would have more closely followed the literary series’ story arc with Bond become an amnesiac and unknowingly impregnating his lover Lily in Turkey, who would have tracked him down to London after he returned to MI6. It would have featured Bond tracking down a Francisco Scaramanga-esque villain into the Andes Mountains, and would have had a “Heart of Darkness feel.” The screenplay was delayed because of MGM’s financial problems. At the end of 2010, Purvis and Wade completed a draft titled Nothing is Forever in which a villain called Raoul Sousa kills M with a bombing aboard the Barcelona Metro and leaves a bureaucrat named Mallender as the new M. They still disliked the third act, and so later revised it to include the ending in Scotland.
Box office.
Skyfall earned $1.109 billion worldwide and was the highest-grossing film worldwide for Sony Pictures at the time of release, and the second highest-grossing film of 2012. It made $80.6 million in its opening weekend from 25 markets. In the UK, the film grossed £20.1 million in its opening weekend, making it the second biggest Friday-to-Sunday opening behind Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. As of November 2012, the film earned over £57 million, becoming the highest-grossing film of 2012 and the highest-grossing James Bond film of all time in the UK. 40 days after release, the total UK gross was £94.28 million, making Skyfall the highest-grossing film in the UK. By 30 December 2012, it became the first film to gross over £100 million ($161.6 million) in the UK. Skyfall’s box office performance made it only the 14th film and the first Bond film to gross over $1 billion, becoming the seventh highest-grossing film ever made at the time, surpassing the inflation-adjusted figure of $1.047 billion. earned Thunderballs.RELATED:
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