Why the Quantum of Solace script was not up to scratch
Like many big budget films the scripts for the James Bond films go through many drafts and can require a full string of writers. For the more recent Bond films Neal Purvis and Robert Wade have been involved with writing early drafts, with the scripts polished by other writers later on for the shooting script.
That process was followed for the 2006 film Casino Royale, which was polished by Paul Haggis, the well known Canadian screenwriter and director of Crash. He worked on the early draft of the movie script and rounded out the plot and polished dialogue to give us the film that was such a smash on release in 2006.
When the follow up was published the writer Haggis was once more asked to provide the polished draft of the script. Nonetheless though he did work on the script he had a tight deadline as a fast-approaching writers strike would suggest he would do not work on it.
The result was a half finished script that was a compromise. Actually Daniel Craig has gone on record recently as asserting Quantum of Solace wasn't planned to be such a close follow up to Casino Royale, but their had was forced by the writers strike.
He and director Marc Forster were the only members of cast and crew that were allowed to work on the script and that was very much a unfinished work as shooting was underway. Maybe this is one of the explanations that Forster chose to shoot and edit the film so that it raced along – like a bullet, he announced; and maybe it is also why it is the shortest ever Bond film.
The result generally disappointed audiences, who had great expectancies after the victory that was Casino Royale. Next year’s “Skyfall” will mark a 4 year break since the prior film and Bond fans around the globe are hoping that this time they get it right – they have certainly had time to do so.
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Tags: algerian love knot, casino royale, Daniel Craig, Movies, Quantum of Solace
