CONFESSIONS OF A BONDAHOLIC

15 years ago today I formally became a James Bond fan. So, am I supposed to repeat telling the same story every five or ten years? The answer is probably yes; this is the price you got to pay for all the exclusive stuff I’ve been uploading. No hard feelings, I hope.

Yet, this time I won’t tell you the same story again. You know I became a Bond fan after watching GOLDENEYE on TV when I was seven years old. Oh God! Said it again!

THE LOST ART OF INTERROGATION - Daniel Kleinman Interview

What was the first James Bond film were Daniel Kleinman worked in? If you answered GOLDENEYE, you're wrong! It was LICENCE TO KILL. Actually, he didn't worked in the film per se, but in the music video for Gladys Knight's song for Timothy Dalton's swan song as 007 in 1989.

OLD DOG, NEW TRICKS – Bringing back the Aston Martin DB5 for GOLDENEYE

Pierce Brosnan poses with the 
Aston Martin DB5

With Aston Martin celebrates its centenary this week, we’ll be looking back at the Bond machine resurrection as James Bond’s trademark car in GOLDENEYE.

 When Desmond Llewelyn’s Q introduced it to James Bond portrayed by Sean Connery in GOLDFINGER, released in 1964, the Aston Martin DB5 –number plate BMT 216A– was equipped with lots of gadgets including the famous ejector seat device that saves Bond’s life later in the film. It’d make a re-appearance in 1965’s THUNDERBALL, too, getting the status of “the Bond car”.

THE LOST ART OF INTERROGATION - John Altman Interview

Welcome to The Lost Art of Interrogation. Here, we will practice this "lost art" with some people involved in the world of GOLDENEYE. Interviews have been done by private e-mailing and might have had some slight editing to fit the structure of the site, but the opinion of the interviewed remains, of course, untouched with its actual words.

Our first interviewed really needs no introduction. He's a famous composer, as famous as James Bond is in a way, and he was also responsible for making Pierce Brosnan a big star after suggesting director John McKenzie to cast him in a leading role in 1987's THE FOURTH PROTOCOL. Born in London in 1949, John Altman has composed and produced music of many famous films like the critically acclaimed TITANIC, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. 

TRIVIA FACTS ABOUT THE WORLD OF GOLDENEYE - Part 3

After a one year and a half hiatus, we proceed with the "trivia facts about GOLDENEYE" article. We've seen some trivia of the 1995 film in part 1 and the 1997 Nintendo 64 videogame in part 2 back in 2011. Now, in part 3 we'll explore some trivia facts of another videogame, Electronic Arts' GOLDENEYE: ROUGE AGENT, released in 2004.

GOLDENEYE: SOURCE - The True Ressurection for Rare's Game?

To be honest, I've never cared about GOLDENEYE: SOURCE. I've played some of COUNTER STRIKE or HALF LIFE in my early youth days, but this HALF LIFE 2 mod based on the Nintendo 64 1997 game never took my attention. It seemed so... unofficial.

PURVIS & WADE OUT OF BONDAGE

After writing two Bond films that ended with the Pierce Brosnan era (THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH, DIE ANOTHER DAY) and the three adventures that started Daniel Craig's era (CASINO ROYALE, QUANTUM OF SOLACE, SKYFALL), scribes Neal Purvis and Robert Wade confirmed they're leaving the Bond series, while John Logan has signed up as a sole writer for the 24th and 25th Bond films, set to be released in 2014 and (probably) 2016.

Neal Purvis & Robert Wade in 2006,
on the set of CASINO ROYALE

The writers, actually taking part in the Docca Tribal Film Festibal in Qatar, said: “We’re very happy to have done five Bond movies, I think we’ve gotten it to a good place. I know that John Logan and Sam Mendes have come up with a plot for another one, which takes the pressure off because these films take up a lot of time.”

They've also said that they've considered leaving the series with QUANTUM OF SOLACE, but they've felt tempted to retire in a better way with SKYFALL, one of the most (if not the most) emotionally deep screenplays in the whole Bond series.

In the Bond series, Purvis and Wade worked with writers like GOLDENEYE's Bruce Feirstein and Oscar winners Paul Haggis and John Logan.

NATALYA'S BIKINI FOR AUCTION

Izabella Scorupco as Natalya
Simonova in GOLDENEYE 

After many years of declining, Swedish actress Izabella Scorupco will be kindly selling the La Perla three-piece white bikini (top, bottom and sarong) she wore in character as computer programmer Natalya Fyodorovna Simonova, Bond's love interest, in 1995's GOLDENEYE. The costume can be seen in the film's climax in Cuba.

The bidding will take place on November 14th (World Diabetes Day). Those without an invitation will be able to bid via phone  (check out Auktionsverket.se for more info), and the money resulting from the auction will be in use for juvenile diabetes research.

Check out more details at From Sweden With Love, who kindly let us know of this important event.

RADIO INTERVIEW WITH THE GOLDENEYE DOSSIER

Last Saturday, October 27th, Argentinean radio hosts Sebastián de Caro and Diego Fernández put in practice the "lost art of interrogation" in their Metro 9.51 FM programme "Cómo Robar el Mundo" (How to steal the world) with our editor Nicolás Suszczyk, who talked about GOLDENEYE, SKYFALL and everything concerning the world's most famous secret agent celebrating it's golden anniversary this year. You can listen to an excerpt (subtitled in English) of the programme here.

Our editor wants to deeply thank the producers and hosts of the show who, besides showing there are still some hopes of having a decent Bond chit-chat with the Argentinean media, gave him the SKYFALL soundtrack and one sheet poster as a gift, plus the chance of drinking a Vesper Martini!

007 LEGENDS: Mission Round-up

All the 007 missions were revealed in the last months with trailers for each movie plot adapted and updated to fit with the Daniel Craig era. MOONRAKER, ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE, LICENCE TO KILL, DIE ANOTHER DAY, GOLDFINGER and possibly SKYFALL are the six missions that PC, XBOX360, Wii U and PS3 users will be able to play.

No GOLDENEYE? well, I'm afraid we can't complain since we've had four games re-adapting the story!
007 LEGENDS will be released on October 16th worldwide.

GOLDENEYE RARE CONCEPT ART PUBLISHED

The recently released book "James Bond: 50 Years of Movie Posters", features a concept art of what might have been the theatrical poster artwork for GOLDENEYE. It shows Bond surrounded by Xenia and Natalya (in totally different poses than in the final designs) plus the 007 gun logo as well as the image of Pierce Brosnan running and the Severnaya MIG planes, which get a more prominent ubication than in the final result.

Thanks to Marcos Kontze from James Bond Brasil for the scans.

WIN A GOLDENEYE POSTER SIGNED BY THE PRODUCERS

The official 007 Twitter account (twitter.com/007) has opened the usual weekly signed poster contest for GOLDENEYE.

By tweeting an imaginative message, or posting photo related to the film, you can win an A3 reproduction of the GOLDENEYE poster signed by producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson.

Good luck!

PIERCE: "BOND WILL FOLLOW ME FOR THE REST OF MY DAYS"

In Venice, promoting his new film ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE, the fifth 007 actor and star of GOLDENEYE, Pierce Brosnan, told the BBC that James Bond will "follow him of the rest of his days."

After being cool-as-cucumber about his relationship with 007 since he was left out of the franchise in 2004, two years after his last role as Bond in DIE ANOTHER DAY, the Irish actor also claimed that he could identify with the secret agent's grief after the death of his wife Cassandra Harris who played Countess Lisl in 1981's FOR YOUR EYES ONLY opposite Roger Moore's Bond) in December 1991.

Source: BBC.co.uk

GOLDENEYE ON BLU-RAY: More details & Steelbook!

THE GOLDENEYE DOSSIER can now confirm what it seemed obvious: the Blu-Ray edition of the 1995 film will contain the same cover atwork as the DVD reissue set to be released in October 2012.

The release, as Play.com has just confirmed, will also contain an exclusive "steelbook" which includes a classic shot of Pierce Brosnan as 007, and the US poster artwork.

It is most likely that the Blu-Ray extras will be exactly the same than the 2006 Ultimate Edition DVD release. The Blu-Ray edition is expected for October 2nd.

Special thanks to Alan More, CommanderBond.net and Play.com for the alert.

GOLDENEYE GETS DVD REISSUE (And probably Blu-Ray, too)

As SKYFALL is getting closer to its release date, Twentieth Century Fox will reissue all the Ultimate Edition DVDs with brand new cover artwork. The first 20 Bond films from DR. NO to DIE ANOTHER DAY, including GOLDENEYE, will arrive on October 1st on the UK for  £ 9,70  each. 

It is most likely that the Blu-Ray individual releases of the films will also feature the same artwork, as it was shown in MI6-HQ.com

Thanks to JamesBondBrasil.com for the alert. 

YATCH MANTICORE IS FOR SELL

The Northen Cross yatch, which doubled for Janus' Manticore Yatch in 1995's GOLDENEYE, is up for sale now.

In the Martin Campbell film, Xenia Onatopp, an absolutely handsome Russian assasin played by Famke Janssen and linked to the Janus Syndicate, seduced and killed Admiral Farrel (Billy J. Mitchel) in order to gain access to a French warship where the super secret Tiger helicopter was being shown. As we all know, Xenia and General Ourumov (posing as the pilots they've recently shot) stole the helicopter and took it in direction of Severnaya, Northern Russia.

The price is of 4,950,000 euros. More details here.

THE SILOHUETTE MAN IS BACK - Daniel Kleinman returns for the main titles of SKYFALL

After the rather disappointing vectorized main title sequence for QUANTUM OF SOLACE in 2008, by designers MK12, Daniel Kleiman returns for the SKYFALL opening credits.

Photo credit: Julian Hanford

Kleinman was hored to design the opening credits for GOLDENEYE after his work on Gladys Knight music video for the 1989 Bond film LICENCE TO KILL, starring Timothy Dalton.

He continued his association with 007 with TOMORROW NEVER DIES, THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH, DIE ANOTHER DAY and Daniel Craig's debut as a rebooted James Bond, CASINO ROYALE. 

When Marc Forster took the helm of the 22nd James Bond film, QUANTUM OF SOLACE, he hired his usual main title designers, MK12, who worked in other Forsters productions like STRANGER THAN FICTION and THE KITE RUNNER.

Thanks to our friends at MI6-hq.com for the alert.

IAN FLEMING IS BACK! (on screen)

Nearly one week before the 104th anniversary of Ian Fleming's birth, British director Duncan Jones has announced he'll be directing another Fleming biopic, based on Andrew Lycett's book "Ian Fleming, The Man Behind James Bond".

The announcement was made during the Cannes Film Festiva, where Duncan said: "Fleming lived through one of the most perilous periods in world history, in a position that allowed him a unique vantage point of all the players, all the stakes. He witnesses true heroism first-hand. And he saw the evil men could do. Then, when the war ended, he went off to write fiction. The essential question for me is where did Ian Fleming end and Bond begin?"

The film is set to be produced by the K5 Film company, and no cating announcement has been done yet.

The creator of James Bond has been subject of three TV biopics so far: 1989's GOLDENEYE, THE SECRET LIFE OF IAN FLEMING, starring Charles Dance, 1990's SPYMAKER, starring Jason Connery (son of Sean), and 2005's BBC production BONDMAKER (starring Ben Daniels). In 2011, James D'Arcy also played Commander Ian Fleming in AGE OF HEROES, a film based on a top-secret mission assigned to the 30 Assault Unit created by Fleming and led (in the movie) by Major Jones, portrayed by GOLDENEYE's Sean Bean.

Source: MI6-hq.com

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MR BOND!

Here at THE GOLDENEYE DOSSIER, we wish Mr. Pierce Brendan Brosnan a very happy 59th birthday. We thank him for being a great talent, a great person, and an absolutely great Bond who brought a new generation of Bond fans to this world.

Happy birthday Pierce!

Oh, and don't forget to stay tuned at THE GOLDENEYE DOSSIER tomorrow to get the first look at the SKYFALL teaser poster!

UNUSED GOLDENEYE ACTION SCENE TO FEATURE IN SKYFALL

According to a report by MI6-hq.com, an unused scene from Michael France's 1994 GOLDENEYE script, written a while before Pierce Brosnan was cast as James Bond, will be featured in the soon to be released 23rd Bond film, SKYFALL.

In the GOLDENEYE first draft, Bond and Marina Varoskaya (who would later become Natalya) are about to face death as helicopters implemented with electric buzz saws (as seen in THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH), are about to destroy a bridgein an attempt to make the train Bond and his female companion are aboarding fall down to a river.

A slight variation of this scene will feature in the Varda Railway train bridge in the Taurus Mountains, in Turkey.