The little story of Goldeneye or the 007 of the 1990s which relaunched James Bond

Pierce Brosnan puts on the costume of the secret agent and relaunches a franchise in perdition. We tell you.

Goldeneye celebrates its 30th anniversary at the end of 2025. While waiting to blow the candles, this is an opportunity to see this evening on France 3 this episode of the secret agent in the service of His Majesty.

So we plunge back into the first archives. And during the summer of 2015, we had selected this film in our 40 -year blockbusters file in order to analyze its creation and its success. Here is the story of the James Bond which saved 007.

Bond agonized

Beginning of 90’s. A bit like ordering it in all the pre-generics of the saga, the 007 franchise looks at the barrel of a loaded revolver, straight in the eyes. Bond is on the edge of the abyss and no one can believe in their future. Long before the writers made it a cult dialogue, the secret agent is “A dinosaur”. The remainder of another era, from a time when Arnold did not yet ride jets ready to smash Miami and the box office but refined his silhouette in the Austrian gym clubs.

In the world in the 90s, Bond is a cheesy – six months after the release of Permit to killthe Berlin Wall has just collapsed, like the possibility for Jaaaames to be still a modern hero. At the Bond cinema is also exceeded. What can be worth derisory gadgets of the most famous secret agent of His Majesty next to the special effects deployed in the slightest subTerminator ? What public can still seduce this Gominé esthete, lover of Dom Pérignon, when you are overwhelmed by McLane-Like in Marcel or by the fatal beauty of Mel Gibson? Bond has one foot in the grave. The 90’s are pushing the rest into the pit …

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Let’s get back

Summer 89. Permit to kill is a major oven. With his nullissimo intrigue, his actor Falot who tries to bring back a little realism (to the detriment of humor and the sex appeal) but does more harm to the character than Blofeld, the 16th Bond is a disaster. A turning point in the franchise. The film brings only $ 34 million to the US (exploding by The fatal weapon 2) and becomes in constant dollars the worst leap in history. Producers are starting to ask questions. On the relevance of an outdated franchise (at the time of the CG, the ironic and postmodern blockbuster, the non -stop action and the flashy style); On the directions to be taken and the artistic choices to imagine. And the two or three years that come to aggravate the existential crisis.

Irony, less than two years after the release of License to killBond loses two of his compasses. Richard Maibaum, historical screenwriter of the saga (and in particular of Dr. No) disappears, followed a few months later by Maurice Binder, whose generic pop and psyche sequences are one of the trademarks of the saga. In mourning, production continues to move forward, but the MGM suddenly between bankruptcy. A battle of more than two years between the rights holders and the studio ended in the early 90s by a deal, not without having left the film in a standstill for almost 3 years. When the production resumes, it is to take a new blow: if Michael France wrote a script (now legendary) which announces the overhaul of the myth and the character, Timothy Dalton makes his license to kill and leaves the broccoli without a star. At the beginning of 94, Bond lost two of his fathers, his interpreter, almost lost his studio and appeared as an artistic and commercial anomaly. In general panic the craziest ideas germinate in the heads of producers (make a woman? Take a black actor? Make vintage films? Approaching Quentin Tarantino?). Finally preferring to play security, Eon will rely on a New Zealand filmmaker (Martin Campbell) and an Irish actor already approached to replace Moore (Pierce Brosnan). The two decide to return to the basics, to take over the Aston Martin and the Martinis, to … revolutionize everything.

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“The only thing we said to Martin is that we had to get Bond in the 90’s”Barbara Broccoli told us for the 50th anniversary of the saga. The smart script, Brosnan’s charisma and Campbell’s staging (totally involved in the design of the film) will actually bring 007 up to date. “We are in the middle of 90’s”will explain Brosnan on the set. “The cinema heroes are much more fucked up than Bond. I remind you that Mel Gibson puts the barrel of his revolver in the first fatal weapon. This guy was an animal and that’s what people want to see”. Brosnan, although we think twenty years later, brings a rascal charisma and a little deviant to the character. From the first minutes, he plays the ugly and ironic. He also finds the character’s flaws. If Sean Connery had made it a hardcore character, Brosnan moves away from Dalton austere and Shakespearean realism to humanize him a little, without however forgetting that Bond is first of all a caricature. It gives it a classic elasticity, elasticity and liveliness that hits the bull’s eye. Review the appearance of the character. The boots that slam concrete, breathing, the angel jump, the smile contained and his “I forgot to hit”. We naturally fell, immediately, totally, in love with 007. For the record, the first time we saw Dalton from the front in Killing is not playinghe was frightened by the appearance of a monkey.

Martin Campbell for his part takes up the mythology of the character he infused with a completely cinema grammar from his time. With digital effects, more violent scenes and above all a set up faster. “The old leaps really took their time”says the filmmaker at the time. Him, no. His leap was finally going to become thrilling, nervous. And it felt as soon as the film was promoted, which left the codes of marketing in Dad to enter a much more contemporary teasing era. We remember the first overexciting trailer -and innovative since it was one of the first cinema teasers to sell only non -stop action, without bothering dialogues and storytelling. Chaining the action scenes, clearly manufactured for the stammering internet (a modern blockbuster we tell you), this explosive editing set the tone for the film, its economy and its philosophy.

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Like the pregeneric

007 which runs away, under the fire nourished by the Soviets (the action takes place before the fall of the Berlin Wall). Hunting, it ends at the end of a track on which a biplane is about to take off. 007 catches him, opens the door on the passenger side and begins to fight with the pilot. The two fighters fall from the plane continuing straight ahead. Taking advantage of the confusion, 007 getting on an abandoned motorcycle and resumes the pursuit. The track ending suddenly at the edge of a cliff, the airplane takes off on its momentum, before diving in a vacuum. 007 follows the same path, joins the plane in free fall, opens the door, rises to the controls, seizes the broom handle and when the spectator says that the crash is inevitable, manages to miraculously straighten the machine, just a few centimeters from the rocks. Unlike his predecessors, Brosnan should no longer only save the world, he has just saved the franchise.

Campbell + Brosnan = success

In 95, James Bond therefore married the modes of the moment (in terms of Character design and Decinema) and aligned with the standards of the most efficient blockbusters. Even if he did not quite have the budget of a Schwarzy (the film did not exceed $ 100 million but remained below 65), he had the ambition. Without however denying its specificities.

The genius of Campbell, and what saved the franchise, was that he understood what a James Bond film was. 007 has never been just an idea, a promise, an unfulfilled fantasy, a quest perpetually defeated, for the producers but also the directors concerned, obsessed with the question of what a leap and what a good leap should be. With Goldeneyethe filmmaker sought to answer the first question. He knows that he needs more than an infusion of hysteria or pulpfictionesque postmodernism to relaunch Bond to the cinema. He first endeavors to find the “Bondien charm”. He assumes the politically incorrect side (erased in the two Dalton), Macho and Pulp of the character by ideas of scripts or fantasy achievements (M is a woman, the pursuit in tank is astounding, the cemetery of the statues). Better still, it resuscitates the Pavlovian reflexes of the spectators who can mentally check the list of elements of the DNA of the saga well present on the screen. Super cool pregeneric? Check (the opening angel jump). Theme that we retain forever? Check. Memorable nasty? Check (Sean Bean, perfect). Unforgettable Bond Girl? Check (Famke Janssen). Shocking betrayal? Check. Over the top waterfall? Check, check, and still check.

Pierce Brosnan returns to his shock departure from the James Bond saga

And then he update The spectacular. Retrospectively, Goldeneye is the first leap that works as a pure cinema show. In the mid -90s, a plan of the pyramids is no longer impressive while a type that plunges from a cliff to an airplane in the process of crashing against a mountain, to straighten the broom handle, yes. Before our eyes, Bond became modern again and managed to seduce new spectators – it is no coincidence that, for a whole generation, Goldeneye The film will be intimately linked to Goldeneye video games, a First Person Shooter Released two years later on N64, which made the gamers of all countries crazy and did a lot for the rehabilitation of the commander.

But all this will not have lasted long. One film actually, that one, which was to redefine the myth and relaunch the franchise. Afterwards, Brosnan took the saga to the borders of the Z (an invisible car, a fencing fight against Madonna, Denise Richards and “Christmas in Turkey” …) and it was not until Daniel Craig to reinvent a new leap (once again under the aegis of Campbell). But in 1995, Bond was again at the top. That year, he would be burst by toys (Toy story) and a latex batman (Drill), but it was a historic card for the saga (the first film to exceed US $ 100 million and the 300 million world) and a new hope for fans. Bond had become cool again.
Bond had resurrected.

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