Anyone who went to the cinema in the pre-Corona winter 2019/2020 had to be prepared to see the trailer for the following likely blockbusters: Disney’s real-life remake of Mulanwho have favourited DC Superhero Films Wonder Woman 1984 and Birds of Prey. And of course No time to die, the 25th Bond adventure.
As the only film from this offer started Birds of Prey before the start of the pandemic, regularly in the cinema. Disney shocked the industry by saying it Mulan directly on the in-house streaming platform Disney + (with surcharge). Warner Brothers decided that last December Wonder-Woman-Sequel as well as their entire portfolio to start hybrid for the year 2021, so both in movie theaters and on their recently launched platform HBO Max. That was not a solution that could currently inspire cinema owners. It remains to be seen whether the strategy is forward-looking. In the meantime, the posters for No time to die slowly out. They were not replaced because they had not yet done their job.
In the meantime, the Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson had turned down the spectacular, but only at first glance lucrative offer of 600 million dollars for the exploitation by Netflix. The trustees of the myth (for the time being) also see themselves as the keepers of the seal of the cinema experience. When Daniel Craig makes his last appearance as 007 this week, the stakes are high. In order to save the cinema, titles like Fast and Furious 9 deservedly done. But the new Bond is the ultimate draft horse, with a twofold mission: on the one hand, to reaffirm the “normality” that is supposed to be restored in the cinemas, and at the same time to be an outstanding event.
James Bond is not just an arbitrary franchise, but the basic meter of serial cinematic storytelling. His adventures promise a world-wide tourism, they always take place on several continents and thus satisfy a curiosity that had to be postponed during the pandemic.
The series will celebrate its 60th anniversary in the cinema next year, setting standards that the competitors in the franchise field will in all probability never meet. Not least of all, there are demographic reasons for this: The expected audience includes not only the young segment, but also loyal, not necessarily nostalgic, best agers. And while there is a certain fleetingness of attention inherent in the rivals (who can, in retrospect, between Fast and Furious 5 or 6?), Bond does not only obey the law of the series. The individual films may not be solitaires, but their start is always an epoch-making event.
The empire in ruins
Somehow, the past six decades have always been about weal and woe, be it that of a movie season or that of the future of the franchise itself. Bond moved with the times, admittedly always outside of it; his contemporaneity was indirect. It doesn’t get out of date. This is even more true since Daniel Craig filled the character with new life. His bond upholds tradition and turns it irrevocably off its hinges. He has largely erased the toxic masculinity from him and replaced it with a romantic mindfulness. Legacy burdens such as the unbreakable clinging to the Empire were at the end of Spectre in ruins.
But the central, albeit subliminal, metaphor that has been around since Casino Royale Moving through the Craig films is rebirth. 007 is a crafty death-deceiver. “The dead are alive” announces a title at the beginning of Spectre an: The past does not rest, but the future will be completely different. In this respect, the title of the sequel is a proud, ambiguous symbol. Means No time to die just a respite? Or is he making the glorious promise that this time too, Bond will simply be too busy to think about death?
No time to die starts on September 30th
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