Sony Leaks Reveal the New Bond Film Is Riding a Very Expensive Struggle Bus

The original ending was apparently awful.

We don't necessarily need to be alarmed yet, but the reason the new James Bond film, Spectre, will cost somewhere in the mid-$300 millions might be because the original third act is awful. More Sony leaks reveal multiple rounds of rewrites were needed all the way up until November, just weeks shy of the first day of filming. 

The team of Neal Purvis and Robert Wade (screenwriters from Skyfall), and Jez Butterworth both took turns trying to revise the ending described by one executive as "rough rough rough." Apparently the villain played by Christoph Waltz isn't compelling, the romance with the new Bond girl doesn't make much sense, and the climax is centered upon suppressing one single document. Even the final action piece is described as "overblown and familiar." 

Here's the harshest email, from Hannah Minghella, the co-president of production at Columbia:


If this is the movie that resolves the last three films then the emotional significance of that idea for Bond seems only lightly served at best. He finds the Vesper tape but never watches it. He appears to fall in love again for the first time since Vesper but there's no real emotional vulnerability there - why this girl? Why now? When he leaves with her at the end of the movie and throws his gun in the river has he gone for good or is this just a well earned vacation as is so often the ending of a Bond film. Does he feel some sense of completion that he finished the last mission M/Judy left for him? It's hard to know what significance any of these final gestures carry.

Hopefully these problems are resolved now, or will be before production ends. Otherwise we're looking at a very expensive letdown come October 2015. 

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[via Defamer]

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