However, positive reception to Royale - specifically Craig's rugged-yet-empathetic performance that would redefine the iconic spy - quickly reset the narrative.

1 spot at the box office in its opening weekend to Happy Feet, marking the first and only time to date that James Bond has lost in a fight with a group of dancing penguins.

In an astonishing show of how far the brand had fallen Stateside, Royale lost the No. It was one of the first instances of toxic fandom dominating the popular discourse, now an unfortunately common occurrence.Ĭritics were just as dubious as the fanboys leading up to the release of Casino Royale on Nov. When Craig was announced as the new James Bond, at a rather disastrous 2005 press conference, the backlash was swift and severe. Their answer came in the form of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed British actor named Daniel Craig, who was known at the time largely for his work in domestic indie cinema, notably Mathew Vaughn's searing gangster satire 2004's Layer Cake and his collaborations with the late and especially great Roger Michell, who directed Craig in 2003's The Mother and 2004's Enduring Love. Their next step was to find a Bond unlike any that preceded him. Wilson decided that for 007's next outing, the effects would be accomplished in-camera as often as the budget (not to mention health and safety) allowed. First to go was the reliance on CGI that hobbled the Brosnan entries.

Veteran Bond producer Barbara Broccoli knew that Bond needed to evolve with the times or risk being lost in a new age of quick-cuts and whip-pans. From that moment forward, action cinema has never quite been the same. In 2004, Paul Greengrass entered the Bourne franchise and turned the style up to 11 with The Bourne Supremacy. The director, Lee Tamahori, reestablishes the series' ominous pop sensuality.')Ī few months before Die Another Day hit theaters, Doug Liman's The Bourne Identity introduced audiences to a visceral new style of action filmmaking that made Tamahori's work appear quaint when his Bond installment made it to screens six months later. (EW raved in its A– review that Die Another Day was 'the savviest and most exciting James Bond adventure in years, because there's actually something at stake in it. Four increasingly daft (though nominally fun) Pierce Brosnan entries had culminated with 2002's Die Another Day, famous for its confusion between Greenland and Iceland but nonetheless the most innovative and consistent of the Brosnan entries.

When Casino Royale was released in 2006, James Bond was something of a joke.

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