On February 26, 2020, director Kerry Fukunaga stood in front of a wall filled with more than 100 index cards with scene titles such as "Bond Out of Control."
He was just a few days away from submitting to MGM the clip of "No Time to Die," James Bond's 25th production, Daniel Craig's last appearance in 007, and a major breakthrough for Foyong, the first American to direct a Bond film.
"I try not to think about box office pressure." "Although now I'm obviously very worried about the outbreak," he said. ”
As to how the pandemic could affect the $245 million film, and how it would exceed expectations of the last $881 million global box office, Bond producer Barbara Broccoli downplayed concerns.
But Fukunaga could not shake the feeling that history was about to repeat itself. In 2009, his first feature film, the Spanish-language crime drama Nameless, plummeted at the box office when swine flu closed theaters in Mexico.
"Obviously, when people's lives are threatened, you can't take it lightly." He said, "The pandemic will be very bad for the film. ”
Fast forward 19 months and Fuyong is back in London, still awaiting the most anticipated Bond film of all time to be released in multiplexes around the world, including October 8 in the United States. During this time, Fukunaga was surprisingly busy.
After delivering Time to Die, he helped remotely re-edit Mark Wahlberg's TV series Joe Bell, directed Perrier's campaign in Greece, and rewrote a limited eight-part series, Soldiers of the Great War, based on a 1991 novel by Mark Helping.
He also just finished 70 days of shooting of Apple TV+'s Company of Brothers sequel, Air Combat Heroes, which was executive produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks.
But the 44-year-old filmmaker knows that the real stakes in his career and the industry as a whole are on "No Time to Die."
In 2020, seven days after goldcrest's prophetic remarks, "No Time to Die" became the first Hollywood blockbuster to change its release date due to the pandemic, ushering in an era of cinema uncertainty not seen since the advent of television.
In the months that followed, one movie after another, including Marvel's Black Widow and Warner Bros. 2021's entire lineup, was scheduled for simultaneous streaming.
Amazon's announcement of its acquisition of MGM in May has exacerbated tensions between cinema purists and VOD adopters, prompting speculation that Time to Die is also destined to be released in some hybrid fashion.
"Everyone at Gomel is very good at calling me and letting me know, from (board chairman) Kevin Ulrich to (film director) Mike De Luca." He said, "They wanted me to know that, in any case, it wouldn't have any effect on Time to Die. ”
After its London premiere on 28 September, the film, co-starring Rami Marek, Rena Saidu and Ranash Lynch, will continue to follow tradition and take a theatre-only route. If "No Time to Die" can be successful during the epidemic, the theater industry will breathe a sigh of relief.
An experienced and revulsed director, Fukunaga was accustomed to the pressures of filmmaking before signing with Bond, and his reputation as a genius was supported by film productions, including "No Name" that shined at the Sundance Film Festival, "Jane Eyre" in 2011, and his Emmy awards including HBO's "True Detective" and Netflix's "Beast of No Bounds".
This brutal depiction of child soldiers in Africa was also written, produced and filmed by him. But Bond is unique, and nothing in Fukunaga's background prepares him for it.
When they hired him, Wilson said he and Brocoli were interested in his previous script and his American citizenship. Wilson said: "Of course he is very good at it, and he is very international. ”
He noticed that the filmmaker was fluent in French and Spanish (he could also speak Portuguese, Italian and Japanese).
"He's a very global person. We watched his films instead of resumes, and I think these films are such diverse achievements that show great ways of dealing with actors, storytelling, and storytelling. The way he visualizes things is evident in all his films. He has all the qualities we want to see in a director. ”
This global vision stems from his childhood in Auckland, Fukunaga said. His father, a generator seller, was a third-generation Japanese-American and was born in a detention camp during World War II.
"My father never talked about it, and my grandparents never talked about it." He said, "I think it shaped me, that multi-generational struggle." The psychological trauma inherited from [my father's] childhood determined who I was, and I think that detention process was incredibly unstable for Japanese-Americans as a whole. ”
Fukunaga's mother, a dental hygienist and Swedish-American, made him "a little unable to identify" whether he was white or Asian. "As the 'alternative' in the checkbox, I have always been silently proud of it." Still, he experienced ridicule at school.
"It's hard to escape with the name Fukuyaga. I have a lot of 'Fuck-anaga'. He added, "I'm called a Communist. It didn't bother me too much. ”
His parents divorced and Fukunaga settled in a "compound" family. "My brother, the same dad, different mom. My brother, the same mom, different dad. My little sister was adopted. He said.
But he suffered from dyslexia and undiagnosed ADHD. "When I was a kid, I was running around, daydreaming, and I couldn't concentrate." He explained.
"But once I start reading, I really love it, and then I read three or four books at a time." That's when I really realized I could do well in school. ”
Growing up in a "very liberal, progressive environment," he prepared to study history at the University of California, Santa Cruz and political science at a one-year overseas program in France.
After school, he embarked on the path to becoming a professional snowboarder, but he felt he would never reach that goal. He said: "It's impossible, I'm good, I'm competitive. But I'm never going to be a pro. ”
While he's reluctant to admit it, he also modeled for some graduate students in Los Angeles, where his vague race and deadly skeletal structure attract attention.
"My girlfriend was a model at the time and I was chosen to do this ad and then did a few little things just to make some extra money. I've always wanted to be a filmmaker. He said.
He was accepted to the New York University Film School and funded with a student loan. One of his short films won the Student Academy Award in 2005.
This led to the birth of Nameless, a Mexican co-production about a girl trying to immigrate to the United States and a boy caught up in gang life, written and directed by himself. He won best director at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, bringing him into Hollywood's sights.
His second work, the 2011 adaptation of Jane Eyre, starring Mia Wasikowska, Michael Fassbender, Jamie Bell and Judy Dench, showcases his breadth.
In 2015, just as Netflix was looking to expand its original film division beyond Adam Sandler's comedy, the streaming giant bought Foyn's Beast of No Bounds, starring Idris Elba (a huge deal for a finished film that wasn't shown at the festival) for $12 million.
At the time, Netflix was new to the game "For You to Decide" and was distrusted by the Oscars, so the film was largely ignored during awards season.
Elba said: "I think from the audience's point of view, the reaction situation (if it is released today) will be very similar. But given the current social climate, Beast of No Bounds is sure to have a real impact in terms of awards and accolades, not just because of the atmosphere, but also because of Carey's great films.
At that moment, movies like Beast of No Bounds were overlooked for many reasons. But in this climate, you can't ignore it. ”
Although Fukunaga's work was primarily popular with the art theater crowd at the time, he stepped into the mainstream through True Detective and experienced his first real Hollywood drama, famously collaborating with writer Nick Pizzolatto.
"As an independent film made into television, the show is presented in the way we promote it in the town," he said. The writer and director are a team. Over the course of this project, Nick has been positioning himself as my boss and I said, 'But you're not my boss, we're partners'.
In post-production, people like Michael Lombard gave Nick more power. It's frustrating because I don't think this partnership is fair. ”
As for their creative differences, Fukunaga said: "Nick is a very good writer, but I do think he needs to be changed. It becomes too focused on writing and less emphasis on the dynamics of the story. My struggle with him was to add some air to some of these long dialogue scenes. We disagreed on tone and taste. ”
Pizzolatto said, "Of course, you will have discussions and differences of opinion, but it is important that everyone is working towards the best we have without self-awareness. ”
Nick Pizzolatto
Foweyon gave up his job as a director of Stephen King's Joker Returns, a Warner Bros. adaptation, even though he had written the screenplay before the situation deteriorated.
"I shot at Warner for four or five years, and then before we were ready to go into production, it was transferred to New Line," he says. I think New Line's view of what they want is very different from my view of what I want.
I wanted to make a TV series with horror elements, like The Shining. They wanted to do something more (pure horror), like Annabelle (from the Conjuring movie). This is essentially a disconnect. ”
(He won a screenplay award, and Anders Muschetti's "The Return of the Joker, a big success in 2017, grossed $702 million worldwide and launched a sequel in 2019.) )
Fukunaga insisted there was no malice between the two, noting that he would continue to work with "Joker Returns" producers Lin Dan and Roy Lee. He added: "If I were a difficult director, they wouldn't necessarily want to work with me. ”
Fovinyo will combine Martin Campbell's "Casino Royale" and Peter Scott's "Casino Royale" to The Royale. R. Hunt's The Queen's Secret Envoy lists two of his favorite Bond films.
He said he felt "tremendous freedom to reinterpret the character." Bond has a lot of recurring routines, but I think the best thing about Daniel Craig's performance is how raw, brutal and gloomy he is. I prefer such a Bond to a one-word Bond."
Craig, who had grown accustomed to Bond's three-ring circus, said Fuyong had easily harnessed it.
The actor said: "It was crucial for the series to have each director leave his mark on the characters and the story, and Carey really brought his own unique perspective. With a master like him at the helm, the final result is obvious to all. ”
Perhaps the biggest obstacle for the film is bringing its globetrotting lovers into Hollywood's post-#MeToo reality. After all, "No Time to Die" was developed in 2016, and after Harvey Weinstein stepped down for predatory behavior, the entire industry began to enter a period of self-reflection.
While Craig's work places more emphasis on the quality of drinks than on the quantity of women, Bond's history also has casual misogyny and worse.
At Fovin's suggestion, Phoebe Waller-Bridge was brought in to work on the drafts he wrote with Neil Pervis and Robert Wade, who worked on every Bond film after 1999's Black Sun Crisis of 007.
The perception is that the creators of Life in London were used to make Bond more sober, but Fukunaga denied the idea.
"I guess that's what people expect from a woman to write very strong female characters, but that's something Barbara already wants." He insisted.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge
"From my first conversation with Barbara, that was a very strong motivator. You can't change Bond into a different person overnight, but you can definitely change the world around him and the way he works in that world.
It's a story about white men serving as spies in this world, but you have to be willing to get closer and do some work so that the female character doesn't just become a decoration. ”
Lynch, who played Agent Nomi 00 in The Speed of Life and Death, believes that Fukunaga succeeded.
"Carey had a lot of discussions with Barbara and Daniel about how to give fairness to female characters, how to hold them accountable to themselves, how to give them moments of solitude, and how to let the audience know who they are," she said. It's really important to empower female characters to be independent.
I think he kept that in mind throughout the shoot. I don't feel like Nomi, as a young black woman, is always behind white people, and for me, that's the job. It was a very wise decision for Carey. ”
Broccoli said: "I think people are changing their attitudes, some people are protesting, some people are screaming, they have accepted the fact. Thank God.
The character of Bond was written in 1952, and the first film, Dr. Noe, was released in 1962. He has a long history, and the history of the past is very different from the description of him in the present. ”
At the same time, with so many false beginnings, it was a challenge to adapt his mind to reality, and now was really the time to "die without time."
Fukunaga said: "It's hard to predict how I will feel. I didn't anticipate the emotional stress of the last day of filming, nor did I expect that it would be Daniel's last day as Bond, and I felt so sad.
I think when the movie comes out, there's a lot of emotion. You'll be happy with its appearance, content with its end, and perhaps another potential sadness because the experience is done. ”