James Bond in Die Hard

Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace make up a story ark that has at least one more film in it.  “The Quantum Trilogy” sounds good.  Any more than three films could be overkill but Daniel Craig has more than one more film in him so where does Bond go from here? The simple answer is they either need some stand alone stories or start a new story ark.  Even if they do have a new story ark I would suggest a stand alone film to break them up and have a great idea for it.  It will never be made so this is  little more than a bit of fun but if it does get made tell everyone you read about it here first.

The idea is go back to original source material.  Having used little more than the title in the films Moonraker and The Spy Who Loved Me represent the largest un-filmed Ian Fleming stories remaining.  The Spy Who Loved could make a great Die Hard style film.  It was the tenth novel and fits in between Thunderball and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service although it stands alone without any baggage from the other books, it acts as an interlude in what has become known as the “Blofeld Trilogy”.  Bond isn’t really the main character in the book.  It is told in the first person by a young woman called Vivienne Michel rather than the usual third-person narrative concentrating on Bond.  Fleming didn’t want the film to be made and only sold the rites to the title but far worse things have been produced in Flemming and Bonds names.  A film like this would divide opinions of Bond fans but could be a real chance to make a completely different film.  For those who haven’t read the books below is a breakdown of The Spy Who Loved Me and how it could be made into a film:

The book is split into three parts “Me”, “Them”, and “Him”.  Me deals with Vivienne’s back story and can be dropped for a film version.

The second part of the book “Them” would be truncated.  Vivian is working in a motel as she travels through America.  At the end of the season the manager leaves her in charge for the night until the owner comes to shut up for the winter.  Instead a pair of thugs arrive on behalf of the owner.  Their plan; to burn the motel down placing the blame on Vivienne who will die in the fire allowing the owner to claim on the insurance.

The third section starts with Bond’s arrival it time to prevent the thugs from raping Vivienne.  In typical Bond style he kills the bad guys and sleeps with the girl.  This part of the film would be extended to form the majority of the film.  Probably sixty minutes in a ninety-five minute film.  I would suggest a larger number of the thugs/gangsters would be needed for the idea to work. If more material is needed a final act could be tagged on where Mr. Sanguinetti the gangster owner of the motel tries to get revenge on Bond.  A note of trivia one of the thugs is called Sol “Horror” Horowitz and was the basis for Jaws who was one of the few elements to make it into the 1977 film of the same name.  It may need an extra act such as the Bahamas scenes in Casino Royale to make it work as a film.  For this to work it would need to fit around the original text and within the context of a Bond film, in other words, how Bond got the motel rather than how Vivian got there.

A nice touch would also be to use an un-filmed short story as the pre-credit sequence the way they did in The Living Daylights (the opening sequence is based on a short story of the same name).  The one I would suggest is “From a View to a Kill” in which Bond investigates the murder of a motorcycle dispatch and the theft of his top-secret documents.  To do this he takes the place of a dispatch-rider, kills a would be assassin and tracks down their HQ.  This could be broken down to just the motorcycle action involving Bond and the Assassin.

Look out for a similar article based on Moonraker in future weeks.