[New free eBook] Scripting 007: Behind the writing of the James Bond movies

Pour la version française, cliquez ici.

You know the name, you know the number, but do you know… How it was planned to pit Bond against Goldfinger’s twin brother on several occasions? What exactly was in the script for the canceled spin-off about the character of Jinx, envisioned after Die Another Day? How Thunderball was first envisaged as a film, before becoming a novel, then a film, and yet another film later? What would Timothy Dalton’s third film look like? What is this action scene in the London postal railway network that was imagined for four films but never ended in any of them? How Max Zorin’s character original plan was to divert a comet and make it crash into Silicon Valley? In which adventure was Muammar Gaddafi briefly considered as one of the villains? How 007 was to confront SPECTRE again in The Spy Who Loved Me and Octopussy? What about this motorcycle chase on the Great Wall of China in a film project where the Bond Girl was inspired by Rambo? Which scenes from the scripts were filmed but cut in the edits? Or how The Living Daylights was first envisioned as a reboot presenting the very first mission of an inexperienced young James Bond?

All the answers to these questions and more can be found in this new free e-book by Clément Feutry about the writing of the films, featuring the world’s most beloved secret agent. Discover 60 years’ history of the saga through the analysis of more than a hundred documents (scripts, treatments, interviews, correspondence, storyboards, etc.). See how the screenwriters created the plots for the Bond films. Who were these screenwriters? From what or from whom did certain storylines or characters originate? How different is the story of the film compared to the novel? How did the plots evolve from their initial concepts to the final edit? What ideas were abandoned along the way and sometimes re-used in subsequent films? What were the challenges? It’s up to you to discover it in this book.

There is a scene in the second Austin Powers movie that haunted me, because it was so true to what happens behind the scenes when you are developing a new Bond movie, where Dr. Evil and his minions are hanging around, and they’re trying to figure out what he should do. They start throwing out all these ideas: blackmail ideas, kidnapping ideas, extortion ideas, and each one gets shot down for one reason or another. And at the end of the scene, Dr. Evil says something to the effect of, « Oh, hell, let’s just do what we always do. Steal a nuclear bomb and threaten the world with annihilation ». And I remember seeing that and thinking, « Oh my God, that’s every Bond story conference I’ve ever been in ».

-Jeff Kleeman, executive at MGM during the first three Brosnan’ films.

A titanic work requiring thousands of hours in research, writing, translations and layout; The best part is that it is available for download right now. An ideal companion to keep you busy in the coming years of « to tell you the truth, we haven’t started thinking about it yet [Bond 26] ».

You can read the book below, or download it from our secure website (just click the « Download File » button below or in the double arrow menu at the top right of the reader).

We are also giving you access to the text files of the book in LibreOffice format (it’s the french version of OpenOffice): unlike the PDF version, this version is in HD (and heavier, 1.5 GB) and has all the copy/paste/search/print functions, as the font, working as originally intended (the author tend to recommend this version rather than the PDF one). The book is in free access, feel free re re-upload it or quote it, but please respect Clément’s work and try to quote the book if you use its content.

Link unaviable for now

FAQ: There is no paper version planned (but nice reviews that I could quote would be useful if one day I decide to try to obtain the authorizations to sell one).