From Batman Bond To That $50,000 Bikini To … Kitty Galore?!
(By Kimberly Potts, Movies.com website)
1. The first
big-screen James Bond movie may have been 1962's Dr. No, but Bond's first
screen appearance was in a 1954 CBS TV movie adaptation of Casino Royale.
2. The character was called "Jimmy
Bond" — and was played by actor Barry Nelson.
3. Bond
author Ian Fleming is best known for his super spy series, but he also wrote
the book that became the Dick Van Dyke movie classic Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
4. Bond was named after an American bird
scientist who wrote a book that obsessive bird watcher Fleming kept in his
home. He said he chose the name because it sounded so ordinary.
5. In
Fleming's novels, he described Bond as looking like scrawny, craggy Stardust
composer Hoagy Charmichael.
6. Fleming was initially against the casting of
Sean Connery. He called him a "snorting lorry driver."
7. Five
years after leaving the Bond movie series in a money dispute, Connery returned
for 1971's Diamonds Are Forever, with a $1.25 million salary and 10% of the
gross, a payday that put him in the Guinness Book of Records.
8. When Connery's eventual Bond replacement,
George Lazenby, showed up for a casting meeting with producer Albert R.
Broccoli and company, he was actually wearing one of Connery's suits. Connery
had forgotten to pick it up from the tailor, and it was sold to car
salesman/male model-turned-actor Lazenby.
9. Avengers
star Diana Rigg played James Bond's only wife, Tracy
10. When Broccoli and his fellow producers had
to replace Connery again after Diamonds Are Forever, they toyed with the idea
of eschewing actors altogether and hiring a military man to play 007 instead.
They even went as far as putting casting call ads in military magazines, but
changed their plans when Equity, the British actors union, objected.
11. Though
movie Bond has become famous for his constant stash of cool gadgets, the first
007 flick, Dr. No, had Connery's Bond getting his spy groove on with nothing
more than a Geiger counter and a
(mildly) souped-up watch.
12. In an initial treatment for the Dr. No
script, the writers changed Fleming's book storyline to create a new villain
who carried a pet monkey with him everywhere. The monkey was named Dr. No,
which prompted Bond producer Broccoli to reject it and demand a rewrite.
13.
Goldfinger (1964) was the first 007 movie where the cars were a co-star,
including the famous Aston Martin DB5.
14. Then-Beatle Paul McCartney bought a
Goldfinger Aston Martin for himself immediately after seeing the movie, telling
an interviewer, "I'm quite a James Bond fan, you know."
15. Original
Bond girl Ursula Andress, whose emergence from the water in her teeny white
bikini is one of the all-time most memorable movie scenes, was cast as Honey
Ryder in Dr. No after producer Harry Saltzman saw a photo of her in a wet T-shirt.
16. Andress' famous bikini sold for more than
$50,000 to Planet Hollywood owner Robert Earl
in 2001.
17.
Goldfinger bad girl Pussy Galore was named after a 1950s madam in Saratoga,
N.Y. Producers toyed with the idea of changing the suggestive name to Kitty
Galore, but when actress Honor Blackman was photographed with England's Prince
Philip at a movie premiere, a newspaper captioned the photo "Pussy and the
Prince," and producers decided that meant the public would accept the
name.
18. When Live and Let Die (1973) was released in
South Africa
19. The Bond
movies make up the second most successful movie franchise in history, after
Star Wars.
20. The last Bond movie, 2002's Die Another Day
starring Pierce Brosnan, is the most successful 007 flick of all time, earning
more than $450 million in worldwide box office revenue.
21. The
search to replace Brosnan for Casino Royale reportedly resulted in a list of
200 contenders, including Clive Owen, Hugh Jackman, Eric Bana and Julian
McMahon.
22. Among the actors who were offered the role
of James Bond through the years but turned it down are: James Brolin, Burt
Reynolds and Batman TV star Adam West.
23. Casino
Royale's Daniel Craig is the youngest Bond ever — at 38, younger than the
series itself.
24. Craig told Premiere magazine that he was in
a Whole Foods grocery store in Baltimore Mediterranean ,"
Craig says. "I was in a f---in' Whole Foods."
25.
Hate-filled craignotbond.com (now offline) is just one of several websites that
fiercely have objected to the casting of blond Bond Craig.
26. After Casino Royale's big poker game, the
movie's final act features a torture scene in which Bond, captured by his
nemesis Le Chiffre, finds himself, and his, uh, little James Bond, in a
precarious position, as he's strapped to a chair with a hole cut in the bottom.
"From that moment on, when I sit in that chair, I'm hanging out from under
there, or at least - you know, I'm not giving myself that much praise, but it's
definitely down there," says Craig.
27. MGM
planned the first ever Bond movie spin-off, featuring Halle Berry
28. Bond girls have had somewhat of a
"pinup" reputation all along, but ever since Halle Berry
29. Fleming,
like James Bond, counts scrambled eggs as one of his favorite dishes. He even
included the recipe for making Bond's favorite eggs in a 007 short story.
30. Did you know there's a James Bond Jr.? He's
not 007's son, but his teen-age nephew, who starred in a short-lived syndicated
cartoon in 1991. Jr. was a British prep school student who hung out with I.Q.,
Q's gadget-happy grandson, and Gordo Leiter, son of Felix. 31.
Jr.'s catchphrase? "Bond, James Bond … Junior."
32. Fleming himself was an officer in the Naval
Intelligence Division, and even claimed that the casino storyline in Casino
Royale was inspired by an experience he had during a World War II trip to Lisbon
33.
Blofeld's volcano lair for You Only Live Twice cost more to build than the
entire budget for Dr. No.
34. 1979's Moonraker replaced For Your Eyes Only
as the post-The Spy Who Loved Me Bond flick because producers wanted to cash in
on the recent popularity of Star Wars by sending 007 into space.
35. Sheena
Easton performed the Oscar-nominated theme song for For Your Eyes Only, but she
was the producers' second choice. Blondie originally wrote and recorded a theme
song, but producers rejected it, and Blondie's For Your Eyes Only was relegated
to the band's 1982 album The Hunter.
36. Duran Duran's A View to a Kill theme song is
the only 007 theme to reach #1 on the U.S.
37. Welsh
singer Shirley Bassey is the only singer to have recorded more than one Bond
movie theme, performing the title tracks for 1964's Goldfinger, 1971's Diamonds
Are Forever and 1979's Moonraker.
38. Casino Royale's song, You Know My Name, is
performed by Audioslave and Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell.
39. 1983's
Octopussy was the 13th "official" Bond movie, produced by Cubby
Broccoli's EON Productions. It was released in the same year as Never Say Never
Again, the "unofficial" Bond flick that featured the return of Sean
Connery to the 007 role. Never, a remake of 1965's Thunderball, is considered
an unofficial Bond movie because it wasn't a Broccoli production.
40. The 22nd movie in the 007 franchise, known
by the working title Bond 22, is already scheduled for release on Nov. 7, 2008,
with Craig returning in the title role.
| Movie | Title | Year | Actor | Director | Total Box Office | Budget |
| # | (Worldwide) | |||||
| 1 | Dr. No | 1962 | Sean Connery | Terence Young | $59,600,000 | $1,000,000 |
| 2 | From Russia with Love | 1963 | Sean Connery | Terence Young | $78,900,000 | $2,500,000 |
| 3 | Goldfinger | 1964 | Sean Connery | Guy Hamilton | $124,900,000 | $3,500,000 |
| 4 | Thunderball | 1965 | Sean Connery | Terence Young | $141,200,000 | $11,000,000 |
| 5 | You Only Live Twice | 1967 | Sean Connery | Lewis Gilbert | $111,600,000 | $9,500,000 |
| A | Casino Royale | 1967 | David Niven | Lewis Gilbert | $44,400,000 | $12,000,000 |
| 6 | On Her Majesty's Secret Service | 1969 | George Lazenby | Peter R. Hunt | $87,400,000 | $7,000,000 |
| 7 | Diamonds Are Forever | 1971 | Sean Connery | Guy Hamilton | $116,000,000 | $7,200,000 |
| 8 | Live and Let Die | 1973 | Roger Moore | Guy Hamilton | $161,800,000 | $7,000,000 |
| 9 | The Man with the Golden Gun | 1974 | Roger Moore | Guy Hamilton | $97,600,000 | $7,000,000 |
| 10 | The Spy Who Loved Me | 1977 | Roger Moore | Lewis Gilbert | $185,400,000 | $14,000,000 |
| 11 | Moonraker | 1979 | Roger Moore | Lewis Gilbert | $210,300,000 | $34,000,000 |
| 12 | For Your Eyes Only | 1981 | Roger Moore | John Glen | $195,300,000 | $28,000,000 |
| 13 | Octopussy | 1983 | Roger Moore | John Glen | $187,500,000 | $27,500,000 |
| B | Never Say Never Again | 1983 | Sean Connery | John Glen | $160,000,000 | $36,000,000 |
| 14 | A View to a Kill | 1985 | Roger Moore | John Glen | $152,400,000 | $30,000,000 |
| 15 | The Living Daylights | 1987 | Timothy Dalton | John Glen | $191,200,000 | $40,000,000 |
| 16 | Licence to Kill | 1989 | Timothy Dalton | John Glen | $156,200,000 | $42,000,000 |
| 17 | GoldenEye | 1995 | Pierce Brosnan | Martin Campbell | $353,400,000 | $60,000,000 |
| 18 | Tomorrow Never Dies | 1997 | Pierce Brosnan | Roger Spottiswoode | $346,600,000 | $110,000,000 |
| 19 | The World Is Not Enough | 1999 | Pierce Brosnan | Michael Apted | $390,000,000 | $135,000,000 |
| 20 | Die Another Day | 2002 | Pierce Brosnan | Lee Tamahori | $456,000,000 | $142,000,000 |
| 21 | Casino Royale | 2006 | Daniel Craig | Martin Campbell | $594,293,106 | $150,000,000 |
| 22 | Quantum of Solace | 2008 | Daniel Craig | Marc Forster | $321,857,447 | $230,000,000 |
| $4,397,593,106 | $1,098,000,000 |
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