The world famous English actor Daniel Craig recently opened up about his views on what went wrong with his 2008 film Quantum of Solace. In his recently released documentary film titled ‘Being James Bond,’ Daniel and the movie producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson recalled all the possible loopholes in Quantum of Solace.
The film Quantum of Solace was Daniel Craig’s second appearance as the almighty James Bond. Although the James Bond franchise is one of the biggest franchises in the world, Quantum of Solace is infamous for worst of the Bond film.
Recalling why the film failed, Craig admitted on the documentary that the actor had felt “overwhelmed” because of the success of his debut Bond film, which obviously impacted his performance in the Quantum. He further stated that what happened with Quantum of Solace was a typical example of what is known as “troubling second album syndrome.”
Craig said, “We had a writer’s strike. We had a script; it wasn’t completed, but it was nearly completed. The movie kind of works. It’s not Casino Royale, and that was always going to be… It was like, literally, troubling second album syndrome. In a way, we could not top Casino… It’s easy to say that. Of course, we wanted to top Casino Royale, but, you know…”
Later, the producer Broccoli pitched in and told what they did wrong while working for Quantum of Solace. Barbara told that they began shooting for the film without a script, which obviously turned out to be a bad idea.
“But the script was turned in, and I remember the writer who turned the script in picked up his check, and then picked up his placard and stood outside the studio striking. We were kind of screwed, and we all had to muddle in and try and make the story work, and it wasn’t really working that great. But I look back at the movie, and you know, it’s still a good movie,” said Barbara.
On the other hand, Craig also confessed that he was also at fault as he got himself busy with stunts and threw himself into doing some action. This was another mistake which led to his poor performance in the Quantum of Solace as most of the times he would entail some serious injury due to unnecessary action.
Another loophole pointed by the team was in the story and implementation of the script. As per Michael G. Wilson, they could not get the story of James Bond right in the film Quantum of Solace. Rather, the team sometimes went out of track to cover other scenarios instead of primarily focusing on Bond’s story.
Wilson told, “It (the film) wasn’t totally focused on his journey, and sometimes we get too wound up on plot rather than keep to the story, which is an issue for these kind of films.”
However, in terms of box office, Quantum of Solace still managed to be a super hit film. It’s total earning in the box-office is a total of $589 million dollars and became the seventh highest-grossing of the film worldwide. On the other hand, in terms of critical reviews, the film was met with mixed reviews both from the critics and audience.
Besides, Craigs did not only talk about the downhill of the film, but also counted some of the best moments and things about Quantum of Solace. He said that despite everything, the team and he himself had many special moments.
Back in 2016 as well, the film maker Marc Forster had candidly shared his experience of creating the film Quantum of Solace. Forster had told that making the film was tricky because they did not have a finished script. He was so unsure of the film that he even wanted to pull out of the film.
“Ultimately at that time I wanted to pull out. Ron Howard pulled out of Angels & Demons which Sony was about to do and they sort of shut down, and at the time I thought, ‘Okay maybe I should pull out’ because we didn’t have a finished script,” told Forster. “But everybody said, ‘No we need to make a movie, the strike will be over shortly so you can start shooting what we have and then we’ll finish everything else.’ I said ‘Yeah but the time crunch’…”
However, Forster ended saying that it was a pretty happy film and was impressed with how the movie turned out and appreciated the sentimental development around the film over all these years.
Quantum of Solace was the second part of the James Bond series after ‘Casino Royale.’ It was produced by Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, with Marc Foster as the director. Produced by Eon Productions, Quantum of Solace was premiered at the Odeon Leicester Square on 29 October 2008.
Though the film garnered mixed reviews from the critics and audience, Craig’s performance, along with the action sequels, was highly praised. On the other hand, the film, which people had expected to be another brilliant film like the Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace was met with criticism for it’s darker and realistic tone.
The 007 Casino Royale’s sequel called Quantum of Solace also earned plethora of award nominations. In 2008, the film was nominated for Satellite Awards in the category of Best Original Score, Best Original Song, Visual Effects, Film and Sound Editing. It homes the Satellite Award for Best Song.
As told by Craig and the producers, Quantum of Solace faced the problems which were eventually a mixture of outside events having to do with production and the changes in the direction of the filmmakers.
