You know I love James Bond. You know I was furious at the casting of Daniel Craig. But on the subject of this boycott, may I say, most emphatically, GIVE ME A BREAK.
Here are some hard numbers, folks. Die Another Day grossed about 424 million dollars.
The biggest Bond fansite has fewer than 10,000 registered members. Let’s round up. If every single one of ten thousand fans committed to boycotting Casino Royale, and stuck to it (because do you really think no one will go and watch it anyway, just out of curiousity, or to satisfy a Jones?), then that’s a potential loss to Sony/Eon of…
$100,000. Max.
That’s two hundredths of a percent of what DAD earned. Point. Oh. Two. Percent. If the boycott is unbelievably successful.
So shut up, buy your movie ticket, and see what happens. Maybe you’ll be right and you can tell everyone how you knew all along Craig would suck. Maybe you’ll be wrong and it’ll be a good movie. Or a great one. Or just stay home and let other people enjoy the greatest secret agent of all time without making a whole lot of fuss just because you’re a nerd with an Internet connection.
Let them boycott if they want to. It might not need to make a huge difference to Sony/Eon to be enough. My view of how boycotts work should be linked from my name on this comment.
Personally, I’m intruiged by Daniel Craig’s casting. He has done “tough” roles before, but nothing quite like Bond. Then again, I liked Lazenby’s Bond (despite his one film having some bad bits) so I’m probably not a typical Bond fan.
It seems that craignotbond.com has been disabled: anyone know why?
Your views on boycotts are smart. I just think boycotting a movie in this way is immensely pointless. Hardcore fans know, or should know, that the movies are never targeted to us. There’s no fan base, however loyal, that is big enough; the general public has to show up and fill seats too, and they have to outnumber the hardcore fangeeks, whether you’re talking about Bond or Trek or Star Wars or Serenity.
Since the producers already indicate in abundant ways that they ignore the fans, why should they do anything but ignore the small percentage of fans participating in this boycott?
I think that’s two hundredths of a percent, not two percent.
Thanks. Corrected.
Sure, this is not going to make or break the movie and might not even be noticed in the revenue, but it’s already getting media coverage, so it already has an effect. That’s part of the point of the boycott. I agree with your scepticism about how little these producers care about fans and that it can be justified economically, but don’t criticise them for trying a boycott. Criticise them if you disagree with their view about Daniel Craig… I do, but you didn’t seem happy about Craig.
I can think of two entertainment cases where fan action seems to have influenced the producers: Due South (kept running by CTV and others despite CBS flip-flopping) and Farscape (story completed despite series cancellation). There’s also a rather odd situation with Trek fan films, but I’ve no idea quite what its producers will do about them in the long term.
Even so, the boycott will have to do massively well to get what its callers want. I think Sony doesn’t care at all for fan reactions: does everyone know by now about their music CDs that install rootkits on computers?
I disagreed with the casting of Craig, but it’s the way it is. It may work out. I think the boycott is fundamentally silly, for a lot of reasons.
*It’s too late to change now: Craig was announced in October, the boycotters didn’t get their thing together to put up a website until February, when filming had already begun. It’s remotely, barely, infintessimally possible that the producers might have listened before budget and scheduling was committed. Now, that’s over.
*For everyone the boycotters get to stay home, they’re going to send a dozen to the theater to see what all the fuss is about. Remember The Last Temptation of Christ? That boycott went well!
*Boycotts are not the same as fan action. For your two write-in successes, there are probably two dozen failures (Angel and Beauty and the Beast come to mind). Fan actions show a loyal presence that might might maybe make a difference. Boycotts show the opposite; a loss of loyal fans that studios generally feel they can replace.
*Movies are not the same as television. Budgets are bigger, stakes are higher, and the execs who make the decisions are often higher-level players. Craig was hand-picked by Barbara Broccoli; that’s as high-level as it gets.
*What is the aim of the boycott? Bringing Pierce back? Can’t happen. Pierce has expressed too much anger, and has moved on. Further, they’ve diddled around with the decision for so long Pierce has actually become too old. Choose someone else? Fan favorites like Hugh Jackman and Clive Owen turned it down. Fan favorites will inevitably turn it down because of the kind of package Eon offers. Is the goal to fire Craig no matter what, even if no other excellent candidate emerges? Even if it means the movie doesn’t get made, or doesn’t get made for another year or more? Is Craig really so much worse a choice than Goran Visnjic? I suspect no matter who is hired some fans will be outraged. It shows a ridiculous lack of perspective to assume a consensus candidate will emerge.
*The site itself is childish and mean. Craig is unattractive, but devoting an entire website to make fun of someone’s looks offends me.
Just to round off:
* Yep, too late for this film.
* I’ve no idea about that other boycotted film. It’s hard to measure the effect of a boycott on a one-off film (or a big change in a series like a new Bond actor, for that matter, but at least that has something to compare with, however flawed)
* I’m not sure whether any fan boycott has worked in movies or series, either.
* I don’t know movies as well as TV. Not that I know TV all that well.
* Damned if I know what positive outcome the boycotters would like. The current call doesn’t say. There was a petition for Pierce but that’s surely dead now. Not the first time an actor has got too old while the companies fiddle. Fan-backed big names won’t get it this time: the producers are ready to gamble a bit again.
* Yep, the site is patchy (but at least it has some contrast *ahem* *nudge* *beg* 😉 )
Oops, sorry. Just looked again at their site will a more common browser setup and I see what you mean. Enough of the pics look so little like Daniel Craig that I suspect a photo-editor has been doing overtime. Childish.
Also, it has suggests Bond villains wouldn’t make good Bond, which is just nuts. Although his most famous roles have been pretty vicious, Robert Carlyle has a scary range and could probably play Bond, if he hadn’t already been a villain. He’s not the only one.
MJ, are you saying this site is hard to read? I avoided harsh colors because I get monitor-burn. I thought these were easy on the eyes. Is it a problem?
I was reminded today that Dalton’s harsh reception didn’t prevent The Living Daylights from being an outstanding movie. So I’m going to try to curb the hostility.
And Robert Carlyle is SHORT. 🙂
Yes on the colours. They’re very low contrast and I see sort of speckly effects around the letter edges (yes, my eyes are bad) – a little on the black on dark grey, and lots around the reddish dates and links on the dark grey. Ensuring sufficient contrast is part of web accessibility, see http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG/#gl-color – I mostly read this site via RSS (displayed as white on black on my computer), but that doesn’t always have the full text. When I visit this site, I switch stylesheets off.
Sorry for giving another web lesson. I probably get stuff wrong lots too. Insufficient contrast seems a bit of a design trend at the moment, cooked up by artists with perfect eyesight I guess :-/
I thought Dalton was terrific, more so in TLD than LTK. Shame there were only two. The humour was creeping back in in LTK and his blunt force and emotional range was refreshing after Moore.
So what if Carlyle is short? He could probably act taller, he’s so scarily good.
I chose the low-contrast on purpose because high-contrast gives me a headache. There are sites I avoid just because they’re white text on black background. It’s interesting that high-contrast is considered higher accessibility, because I sort of assumed other people had my problem with it; blurring, halos, spots, and sore eyes.
I could dial down the gray background so as to increase the contrast. But I will definitely not go to white. I have to be able to read my own site!
In terms of Carlyle, I think that a Bond actor is supposed to fit a particular physical type. Within a range of variability, the character is so detailed in Fleming, and that detail has been largely honored for so many years, that to me this is supposed to continue. So I don’t want a short Bond or an Asian Bond or a female Bond. I want a British or Commonwealth man about 6’1″ (give or take), about 35-45 years old, physically fit, and attractive to women. There’s a lot of actors who fit that bill!
I’m up to be the next Bond then. Apart from a few inches, a few years, the fitness, attractiveness and not describing myself as British 😉
Full black-on-white does cause other glare problems, yes, but I guess it doesn’t affect as many people. Personally, my browser preference is yellow on dark dark blue, but that choice depends how your eyes malfunction.
“depends on how your eyes malfunction.” Ha!