What’s it like Pitching James Bond Ideas to EON Productions - ‘They’ve heard it all’

Article by guest author Peter Brooker

On the latest edition of the There Will Be Bond podcast James Bond historian John Cork gave some fascinating insights into what it's like working within the EON Productions, the family business that owns the exclusive rights to make James Bond films.

Below are some of the highlights to the interview;

Who is John Cork?

I went to film school at the University of Southern California, and from there, I started working as a screenwriter. I had one feature film produced called The Long Walk Home. I still have two screenplays that people are attempting to get made at this point.

Eventually decided I was tired of talking to the imaginary people in my head, and I enjoyed talking to real people more. So I started doing DVD special features. The first of those I did were the making of Goldfinger, making of Thunderball. Goldfinger phenomenon. Thunderball phenomenon, documentaries that were done for LaserDisc way back in the day.

How did you get into working on those documentaries?

I as a screenwriter, there was the long gap after license to kill, and I had met Barbara Broccoli with Timothy Dalton. I'd seen Timothy Dalton at a screening of The Long Walk Home that was at the Directors Guild of America. Timothy said you need to meet Barbara. And so Barbara was very nice. And sometime later, there was the announcement that the legal log jam had been resolved with the MGM. I was actually in London in the Glidrose Productions, this was the literary side of James Bond before it became Ian Fleming publications, doing archival work for the Ian Fleming foundation there. And I got a phone call back.

They said they are moving forward on developing a new James Bond film, and they'd like you to go in and pitch a new Bond film to them. This was post License to Kill. I actually pitched two ideas. The first was, go back and do get the rights for Casino Royale and just start from the beginning. Their eyes glazed over because everybody pitched this and then, but I had a backup pitch in mine, and they called me back in for a second meeting, and they said, listen, we're moving forward with this guy, Michael France, who was a friend of mine. I got to know Michael France, a really wonderful guy. He's unfortunately passed away.

But we like your idea, we'd like you to work on a treatment for a future Bond film, which basically meant a lot less money. I never wrote that treatment. We could never agree on a story. I pitched idea after idea after idea, but clearly I didn't pitch them well. I kept talking to them about the character of James Bond. Which James Bond are we writing for here? Because the James Bond of Dr No, is very different from the James Bond in You Only Live Twice. What are we trying to? How are we shaping that character? And that resulted in me writing a character Bible for them, which was called James Bond in the 90s.

What was the other pitch that you had?

So anyone who thinks they're going to come in and pitch something unique to Barbara and Michael or anyone else about James Bond, let me assure you, it's all been done. But you know, Michael Wilson is a brilliant trained engineer and lawyer, and this gives him two great skills. One, he he's very detail oriented on how things work, the mechanics etc. Can you actually ski off the edge of a mountain, pop a parachute open and not splatter at the bottom of the valley

there? The other is, as a lawyer, he's really good at interrogating people. Not in a harsh way, but just just sort of those pointed questions that dig at something.

If he's not, if he's not feeling that vibe, you know, that's their turf, that's their business, that's their family legacy that they're working to protect. They shouldn't be doing a movie that they're not feeling 1,000% on at the end. But regardless of that, I came out a huge winner of that process, because they trusted me with the DVD special features project. They trusted me to work on official books.

Are you still in dialog with Michael and Barbara now? Are they still bouncing ideas around with you?

No, they understand that you want to get new voices, new creators, involved in Bond over time. That's the way Bond stays alive and stays current. Otherwise, you end up with the same people that just make the same movie over and over again.

Where would you like EON Productions to take the character going forward, maybe a period piece or rooted in modern day. Any actors, directors on your wish list?

I just want it to be good. And it doesn't matter to me if it's a good period piece. It doesn't matter to me if it's a very serious or if it's a comedy, or whatever, I just want to walk in, see that gun barrel, hear that theme music, and when Bond opens his mouth and the line comes out.

Photo by Sviatoslav Ilin on Unsplash