14 DAY TRIAL // In a little over a month from now, the latest James Bond installment, “SPECTRE,” will begin rolling out, first in UK theaters and then in the US and worldwide. The film will see Daniel Craig resume the 007 role and a return to the Bond tradition of “always” using real stunts, as director Sam Mendes puts it.
MGM and Sony have released a new promo video for the film, which, instead of focusing on the next big challenge our favorite spy will have to face, centers on the importance of using mostly real stunts and practical effects in the film.
In an industry where CGI makes possible and brings to the big screen even the most absurd or dangerous things, with the smallest risk, Mendes and the crew tried to pull off the seemingly-impossible task of using as less CGI as possible.
Of course, as we know from the Sony Hack, this came with a very high price tag. When studio bosses discussed this in their email exchanges sometime in 2014, “SPECTRE” was expected to top the planned budget of $300 million (€267.7 million), which would have made it the most expensive movie ever made.
Regardless whether this figure is accurate or not, Mendes tries to convince the world in the new video that it’s all for the sake of art - and of staying true to the Bond franchise.
“The philosophy of the Bond franchise and mine particularly as a filmmaker is to do things for real. So you have to roll up your sleeves and work it out,” he says. “The tradition for Bond is always real stunts, real action, real explosions. There's nothing made up and that remains the case. So the ultimate goal is the kind of excitement, visceral excitement you can only get from live stunts.”
