You might have read our recent article about Skyfall director Sam Mendes stating that the upcoming 007 film 'Spectre' will be his final Bond movie, now the Oscar winning director has shared his initial reaction when he first heard about the news that Daniel Craig had been cast as the famed James Bond for the 2006 reboot of the franchise 'Casino Royale'.
For almost 10 years we have seen Craig play the famous secret agent, already cementing his legacy in his portrayal as one of the best Bonds ever in cinema. This wasn't always the case however, since his casting back in the day was met with criticism from fans of the franchise. As it turns out, Spectre director Sam Mendes was apparently one of those who thought Craig was not the right fit for the said role.
He recently told in an interview with BBC while on the filming location of Spectre about his first opinion during the time when Daniel Craig's name was floating around as being the new James Bond. Just as the fans who thought that a 'blonde' James Bond was not appropriate for the role, Mendes also had his thoughts about the proposal, considering that he has worked with Daniel Craig before in a previous film.
He explained that: " I had cast Daniel Craig in this film I made in Chicago called Road To Perdition about 15 years ago, and it was his first big American film. The role of Bond came up four or five years later and I was called by Entertainment Weekly, a showbiz publication, and they said 'your old friend and collaborator Daniel Craig has been suggested as Bond, what do you think?' and I said 'terrible idea – he shouldn't do it'. For me at the time I thought Bond had become the opposite of what Daniel is – a slightly disengaged, urbane jokey eyebrow-raising, you know, a pastiche in a way, and I felt Daniel's reality and his passion and honesty as an actor would not work. But of course the franchise adapted to work with Daniel and when I saw Casino Royale, I thought it was a fantastic piece of casting. And it was that that got me re-interested in Bond as a movie.”
It turns out that he thought it was a terrible idea because of his respect for Daniel Craig as an actor, and that the character of James Bond has been turned into a pastiche, a caricature of what the secret agent once was. The over the top plots and the ridiculous technology introduced during Brosnan's era was not something that the director wanted Craig to star in. Simply put, he thought Daniel Craig's talents would be wasted in the film.
Fortunately, Daniel Craig's outing as 007 in the adaptation of Ian Fleming's 'Quantum of Solace' was a big success. The movie brought the franchise back to its roots and made Bond into a gritty, action packed movie. And for the following years, the Bond franchise has gotten bigger and better, with Spectre boasting an international filming location that is promised to be the biggest Bond movie yet.
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