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There have been several instances where a company was almost saved from bankruptcy due to that one successful project that turned things around. Daniel Craig’s one iconic Bond film was also one such project.
Daniel Craig in a still from No Time to Die | Credits: Eon ProductionsMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer (or MGM) was one of the production houses behind Daniel Craig’s Skyfall but for the company, things were not at the best levels financially. On the brink of bankruptcy, Skyfall director Sam Mendes saw a chance on how he can improve the pre-existing script and make it better.
There was a lot to establish in Skyfall
The Adele song as well as the James Bond film found worldwide fame and critical acclaim when it was released in theaters back in 2012. Skyfall was helmed as one of the finer films in the Bond franchise.
There was a lot going on in Skyfall | Credits: Eon ProductionsIt wasn’t just another Bond film like several others. Skyfall had Daniel Craig’s James Bond on edge with a confrontation from the past, the death of several familiar characters, and Bond’s personal life at stake.
Director Sam Mendes had to take on a brave move to showcase Bond’s lowest points where everything was stacked against him and he had to emerge victorious. In an interview with IndieWire, Mendes talked about how he literally created a new Bond character from a pre-existing IP.
This is a movie where you’ve got the first truly homoerotic relationship with Bond, you’ve got the death of M, you’ve got to establish a new M, you’ve got a new Moneypenny, you mustn’t see that coming.
He further continued,
You’ve got a new Q, so he’ll be younger than Bond, you effectively kill Bond, going back to somebody else, you’re asking [Bond] to be a semi-alcoholic, popping pills at the beginning.
Despite the oncoming list of how Bond had to be broken down to his core and later brought back piece-by-piece. To take on such a huge challenge, the entire team needed time and patience to come up with such stuff.
Lucky for them, they didn’t know what they were going to do for the next 9 months during pre-production as MGM was on the brink of bankruptcy. That’s when Sam Mendes decided to upscale things.
MGM’s bankruptcy made Daniel Craig’s film great!
Although going into bankruptcy was a bad thing for MGM, there was a silver lining to this dark cloud as well. Establishing this new character who shared the name of James Bond was a pivotal task.
The name’s Fall… Skyfall | Credits: Eon ProductionsBoth Daniel Craig and director Sam Mendes needed time to prepare for the project. Just as MGM was about to go bankrupt, director Sam Mendes revealed in the interview that it was his time to shine.
For those who don’t know, MGM went into bankruptcy when we were in preproduction, so it meant that we had nine months where we didn’t know what we were doing. It was a very frustrating time.
He continued,
But in retrospect, it was when we made the movie good because we had time [to] work on the script. That was pivotal.
The rework and all the countless hours in preparation for the film certainly did not go in vain since the world fell in love with Skyfall and the difficult & different take on the role of James Bond.
The 2012 film currently stands at a rating of 7.8/10 on IMDb and a whopping 92% on Rotten Tomatoes. With Daniel Craig in the lead role, Skyfall is available to stream on Prime Video in the U.S.
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