James Bond films

This last weekend SPECTRE finally broke the $200 million barrier in North America. While that is well behind Skyfall’s $305 million box office an article in the Wall Street Journal looks at Sony’s decision to keep on playing the latest Bond film to finally break through the physiologically important $200 million ceiling. The opinions expressed in the article […]

In this article we celebrate the life of Ken Adam, the man who was responsible for creating the distinctive look of the early Bond films in his role as Production Designer. Ken Adam’s contribution to the Bond movies has become the stuff of legends. Who can forget the sprawling lair of Dr No or the super […]

1965 was a turning point for James Bond. As well as seeing the publication of Ian Fleming’s last full-length novel, it also saw the self proclaimed “biggest Bond of all” hit the big screen. And in between the publication of The Man With The Golden Gun in April and the release of Thunderball in December, as Bondmania was reaching its […]

Released in 1995, Goldeneye proved to be a key entry in the James Bond series. Among the various reasons for its importance, not least was ensuring 007’s survival. The film heralded many changes for the James Bond series. First of all Goldeneye introduced a new James Bond in the shape of Pierce Brosnan. It also introduced a female […]

The latest James Bond cinema outing, SPECTRE, has received almost universal critical acclaim, so I am taking my life in my hands by offering here a completely contrary view. I saw the film with my wife, yesterday; she very much enjoyed it – I thought it amongst the worst films I have seen. I say […]

After being bitterly disappointed by Skyfall I was hardly jumping with joy when it was announced that Sam Mendes was on board for another film. However, SPECTRE is a whole lot better. Although Mendes is undoubtedly a talented director, there were too many elements of Skyfall that I disliked. While individually I would probably have been […]

A close look at how and why Casino Royale turned the franchise around.

Recently I crunched box office numbers for all the James Bond movies released by Eon Productions to date. The idea was to go beyond the inflation-adjusted figures that have been reported before and to find out the most successful Bond films based on other than simply the box-office take. Skyfall was the first Bond film to earn […]

An all-new line-up of special edition 007 Blu-Rays, DVDs and box-sets is due to be released on 15th September. The theme of the new release is SPECTRE, with six films featuring the shadowy organization headed by Ernst Stavro Blofeld, plus the three Daniel Craig movies to date, receiving a limited edition Steelbook release. These are […]

“The job’s done; the bitch is dead.”   James Bond’s pain over Vesper Lynd’s betrayal and suicide is palpable in the report he makes to M in the final minutes of Casino Royale (2006). The death inextricably alters Bond so-much-so the event is as important to the genesis of Bond’s character as the two sanctioned kills that […]