James Bond GunsBond S GunJames Bond StyleBond PistolJames Bond MoviesPistol That'SAuto Pistol10 HandgunsHandguns Rifles ShotgunsForwardWalther PPKs - James Bond's Gun (I used to have one too, THAT's why its cool)Sign in to wikis by WikiFoundry All James Bond Photos All James Bond Videos Yahoo! News on Bond All James Bond News Actors - Connery to Craig All James Bond Discussions Frisky and risky Bond girls We're sorry, search is currently unavailable. Please try your search again later. Please check your link or return to the home page.The casting of the next 007 is a contentious issue for cinephiles around the world, especially for those in Bond’s native United Kingdom. He’s among the most iconic fictional people to ever be fictionalized—Bond fans are more protective of him and his legacy than perhaps any other fervent fan group is of their precious heroes (save, maybe, One Directioners). Accordingly, the internet has stirred itself into a hilarious frenzy over which actor will be blessed with the opportunity to don the famous tux and shoot people in beautiful, remote, locations.
Below is a temporal record of this never-ending brouahaha. October 2012: Skyfall, the third Bond film to star Daniel Craig, premieres. Craig suggests that Steven Gerrard, the Liverpool football star, succeed him as the next James Bond. November 2012: Craig is rumored to be on contract for two more Bond films after Skyfall. Fall 2012: The Idris Elba rumors begin. January 2013: Craig suggests that Robert Pattinson, an actor best known for his role in the vampire franchise Twilight, be the next James Bond. July 2013: Skyfall director Sam Mendes announces that he will return to direct the next Bond film. Summer 2013: Will Smith, Ryan Gosling, Daniel Radcliffe, boxer David Haye, and One Direction’s Niall Horan are all rumored to be the next James Bond. September 2013: Three-time Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis is rumored to be the next James Bond. Three-time Oscar Winner Daniel Day-Lewis shoots down rumors that he will be the next James Bond. Fall 2013: Tom Hardy, Damian Lewis, and several other handsome white British actors are rumored to be the next James Bond.
January 2014: Idris Elba says there is no truth to the rumors that he will play James Bond. “It’s a rumor that’s gotten out of control,” he says. Spring 2014: A twist! Kevin Spacey and Chiwetel Eljiofor are rumored to be the next Bond villains. Neither rumor proves to be true. September 2014: Denzel Washington says he’d like to be the next James Bond. December 2014: Sony reveals the cast of the next Bond film, called Spectre. Leaked Sony emails reveal that former Sony Pictures head Amy Pascal supported the idea of Idris Elba as the next James Bond. The Idris Elba rumors begin once again. American conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh says James Bond cannot be black. February 2015: Former Bond star Pierce Brosnan endorses Idris Elba for Bond 2016. March 2015: Eighty-seven year old former Bond actor Roger Moore says Bond should be “English-English.” April 2015: For some reason, there are more Ryan Gosling rumors. June 2015: British oddsmakers give Damian Lewis the best chance to become the next James Bond.
August 2015: David Oyelowo announces he will voice Bond in an upcoming audiobook, becoming the first “black James Bond.” The internet later begins to wonder if he should play Bond on screen, too. September 2015: Anthony Horowitz, an author of James Bond novels, says Idris Elba is “too street” to play Bond. Horowitz apologizes the very same day. Tom Hardy becomes the bookies’ favorite to play Bond, ahead of Lewis and Elba. Rumors swirl that British soccer legend David Beckham could be cast as the next Bond. Beckham laughs, but the internet is serious. Brosnan predicts the next Bond will be white, and, unfortunately, he’s probably right. (After all, big studios still love casting dweeby white kids as superheros.) Craig says that Spectre will likely be his last Bond film, despite reportedly being under contract for one more. Last night, I paid $14 to see a 100-minute long commercial in 3D. I’m far from alone. So far, people across the country have paid more than $185 million for the same privilege, which has made The Lego Movie the most popular movie in America for the past three weeks.
It has also received near universal critical acclaim. After I left the cinema it seemed funny to me that as the rise of native advertising in online media prompts more outcry at a dying industry supposedly selling its soul and misleading its readers to save its bottom line, the biggest movie of the year is an overtly branded vehicle made with no regard to the boundary between content creator and brand. The Lego Movie is not subtle in its embrace of the corporate spirit, but who cares? It's native advertising for miniature blocks on an epic scale starting with the title. I assumed that, and a few dozen real world marketing tie-ins and product launches, would be the end of it. But the film is loaded with brand messages about the transformative power of Lego and the power of creativity. I won’t spoil the plot such as it is, but the ending breaks the fourth wall to directly spell out these brand themes in real life and show how Lego brings families closer together. It's an advertisement that plays out its plot at movie-length rather than 45 seconds.
Some might defend the branded content piece of the equation by arguing that Warner Bros. execs decided on their own to make a Lego Movie and Lego, naturally, is simply playing along for commercial gain. Before the film’s release, Bloomberg profiled the exhaustive back and forth during the development of the movie between Dan Lin, producer, and Jill Wilfert, Lego’s VP for licensing and entertainment. Massaging Lego’s brand image was key to the entire endeavor. “If we tell a great story, it can have a halo effect for your brand,” Lin recalls telling the Lego execs. Wilfert too speaks in fluent corporate-speak. “The focus is first and foremost on the brand and delivering quality content that is communicating our values,” she says. Lego and Warner Bros. debated everything from whether Lego characters could kiss to how edgy the jokes could be to make the movie more entertaining to an adult audience. Lin tells Bloomberg the Lego team was "very influential on story, script, every major casting decision, every director decision.”
The rub is, it’s actually a fun film. I'm nearly 30 and it played off my own nostalgia for Lego, making good use of Lego’s dizzying array of product licenses to rope in characters like Batman, Superman, Shaquille O’Neal, and Abraham Lincoln into a silly, yet sharply written cultural pastiche. The creators of the Lego Movie worked with Lego to tell a story about its brand in the same way as every publication from the New York Times to Buzzfeed is working with their advertisers. The result was executed on a much larger scale and stage and was something that people wanted to see and pay for. The key, is openness. No one was tricked or misled. There was no mystery this morning why I felt favorably toward the Lego corporation. Through being so open in its motivations the Lego Movie is less insidious than something like last year’s ‘Man of Steel,’ which pocketed $170 million from over 100 product tie ins or Heineken paying $45 million for James Bond to drink their beer instead of a Martini in ‘Skyfall.’