14 DAY TRIAL // Film enthusiasts will remember that director Sam Mendes said at one point that he was reticent to return in the director's chair for a Bond film after he made the ludicrously successful “Skyfall,” the movie that went on to become the best-selling Bond film at the box office.
Now, we know that the next movie is also going to be helmed by Mendes, and the director took his time to talk with the Charlie Rose Show about what made him change his mind.
He revealed that the new movie would be linked on several levels with “Skyfall,” which is why he chose to return, bringing along with him main actor Daniel Craig and script writer John Logan.
“I started a number of stories that were incomplete. I cast a new M, I cast a new Moneypenny, I cast a new Q, I cast a new Tanner,” explained Mendes, adding, “There was a missing piece now. I felt like there was a way to create the second part of a two-part story.”
From the sound of things, Mendes plans the next Bond film to be a direct continuation of “Skyfall,” something which has rarely happened in the long franchise, mostly because of the different directors, actors and writers.
The director thinks that he's hit upon the winning ticket that explains why fans enjoyed “Skyfall,” “What we tried to do, and audiences seemed to embrace in Skyfall, was that for the first time characters were allowed to age, and they were allowed to acknowledge the passing of the years, and were allowed to acknowledge the history - in a kind of sly, mischievous way - the history of the franchise that they've been part of.”
This is what actually drove Mendes back to the film, the fact that he could come back and finish the story. Of course, he had a little help from the studio, that agreed to postpone the production until the director was done with his previous project.
“And then I started to get really interested again, when they agreed to wait a little longer and not go immediately and not go with two movies but with one, which I felt very strongly about,” added Sam Mendes.
It's not a lot to go on, but it's something, considering that Mendes is notoriously tight-lipped when it comes to projects he's working on. Journalists have been probing around ever since he's been attached to the new film, but found that he swore the entire cast and crew to an oath of secrecy.
The latest rumors regarding the next Bond adventure are linked with the casting process, and they name Chiwetel Ejiofor as the one who is going to play the villain in this one. Other rumors hinted that the famous criminal organization S.P.E.C.T.R.E. was going to make its return to the franchise.