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MI6 looks back at the The World is Not Enough world
premiere in 1999, and what the press had to say...
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The World Is Not Enough - The Premiere &
Press
26th November 2003
The World Is Not Enough premiered at Mann's Village Theater
in Los Angeles on 8th November 1999. The cast were out
in
full force, and the red carpet was cordoned off by local
police to ensure the stars were able to make the event.
The primary
cast and guests began arriving at 6:30pm, attendees included
Pierce Brosnan, Sophie Marceau, Carlyle, Dench, Denise
Richards,
Robbie Coltrane Maria Grazia Cucinotta, Heather Graham,
David Boreanaz, Brooke Shields, Talisa Soto and Laurence
Fishbourne
"Pure Entertainment" - Michael McLean , Odeon
Marketing Co-Ordinator
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Above: Mann's Village Theater |
"What makes Bond pictures work is the action" -
Larry Gleason, MGM Worldwide Distribution President.
"The new James Bond movie, "The World Is Not Enough,"
has everything one expects from the series: the gadgets, the gunfights,
the girls" - Jacob Adelman, The Korea Herald
Above: Serena Scott Thomas who played
Dr Molly Warmflash.
Figures: Exhibitor Relations.. |
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The British premiere was in benefit of 'Children's Promise'
and took London's Leicester Square Odeon theatre by storm.
On the cold evening of November 22nd, further cast
member were in attendance in London - flanked by thousands
of fans. Pierce Brosnan was joined by, then girlfriend,
Keely Shaye Smith adorned with a diamond necklace and
a pair
of matching
earrings
reportedly worth £3.5m.
"The World Is Not Enough" went on general release in the
UK on Friday 26 November, after the USA where it went
on general release
the 19th on 3,163 screens. The US box office
for the "The World Is Not Enough" went on to
gross $23.2 million in a 3 day period. In ten days the
film had
made a massive $75.5 million compared to "Tomorrow Never
Dies" $62.2 million and "Goldeneye" $57.2 million.
TWINE went on to be the fourth biggest
opening weekend in British history with a massive $10
million.
North America opening week:
The World is Not Enough, $37.2 million.
Sleepy Hollow, $30.5 million.
Pokemon: The First Movie, $13.3 million.
The Bone Collector, $6.5 million.
Dogma, $4.1 million.
Anywhere But Here, $3.3 million.
The Insider, $2.9 million.
The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, $2.5 million.
The Bachelor, $2.4 million.
Being John Malkovich, $1.9 million.
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In four days on 320 screens in Australia "The World is
Not Enough," made $2.4 million, $492,000 in just 3 days
showing on only 82 South Africa, $257,000 on 34 in Israel and
Malaysia
and Singapore got to see the film on November 19th in an attempt
to stem piracy.
What The Critics Said...
The Good
`The minute [Brosnan] appears on screen you reckon there's
not a precision bomb, lippy girl or shaken martini in the
known world that will offer any meaningful resistance to
his native charm. Brosnan can run away from a fireball
and still find time to fix his tie; Brosnan can ski off
a mountain, land on his bum, but still think clearly and
save the girl; and Brosnan, kingly, flashing, debonair,
self-mocking Pierce Brosnan, will churn out jokes in the
face of approaching band saws, nuclear holocaust and Robert
Carlyle's deathly Glasgow stare. Roll out the scarlet carpet:
Bond is back." - Andrew O'Hagan, The Daily Telegraph
"Continuing the revival of the franchise established
by the confident GoldenEye and slightly threatened by the
somewhat wobbly Tomorrow Never Dies, this checks off all
the boxes on the form with something like panache, if not
actual inspiration ...Continuing the trend of hiring shaky
A-list directors, this employs Apted - who probably worked
hard on Brosnan exchanging pointed dialogue with pouting
Marceau (who is very good in an unusual Bond Girl role)
and baldie Carlyle (who could have been given a bit more
business), but stood back and let second-unit specialists
take over for the money-spinning scenes of helicopters dangling
giant chainsaws and explosions chasing Bond out of tight
spots."' - Kim Newman, Empire magazine |
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Above: Desmond Llewelyn, who sadly
died shortly after TWINE went on release in a tragic car
accident. |
"Carlyle is fascinating to watch. He never does anything
quite the way you expect them to be--yet they're riveting. And
in the end, that is what makes for a great actor--to take what's
written on the page, and bring it to a different level."
- Bruce Feirstein, Eon magazine
Above: Pierce Brosnan and Denise Richards |
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"The World Is Not Enough'' provides all the usual
attractions. Bond goes skiing, which is an occasion for
assassins to drop hand grenades on him. There are gadgets,
double entendres, stolen warheads and vivid characters.
Judi Dench plays M with authority. Robbie Coltrane is a
pleasure as a Russian gangster. That a Bond movie should
be amusing is expected, but that it should linger in the
mind is the surprise here. "The World Is Not Enough''
is one of the few films in the series in which one feels
Bond's mental strain. Bond is a killer. He has to live with
that, and it's not always easy. Though he may look as smooth
as Roger Moore, Brosnan gives us a Bond who is capable but
emotionally scarred." - Mick LaSalle, San Francisco
Chronicle
"Like all Bond movies, "The World Is Not Enough"
is a series of cliff-hanger situations and eye-popping gadgets
and toys. It's humorous and exaggerated, and even the so-called
sex scenes are really all about expensive bed linens. Whether
you're a Bond fan or just a regular 11-year-old boy, you
won't want to miss this" - Liz Braun, Toronto Sun
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"The World Is Not Enough" is a splendid comic thriller,
exciting and graceful, endlessly inventive. Because it is also
the 19th James Bond movie, it comes with so much history that
one reviews it like wine, comparing it to earlier famous vintages;
I guess that's part of the fun. This is a good one." - Roger
Ebert, Chicago Times
The Bad
"The storyline is...congested, with too many short,
disjointed scenes crammed back-to-back. I know Bond is at
his best in a tight spot, but this is ridiculous. All the
same, Bond is indeed at his best. Or, at least, Brosnan
is: he has never looked more comfortable in the role - though
I do think he should chat to the screenwriters about all
the rude things they keep shoving in his mouth. I refer,
of course, to Bond's double entendres. I know these are
a time-honoured trademark, and Brosnan certainly delivers
his saucy one-liners with expert timing, but nothing else
in his performance suggests that his 007 - a linen-suited
modern man - would actually crack such lecherous gags. Yet
the script is so full of them, you could be watching Carry
On Spying. Still, this is a small quibble and, like I said,
Brosnan looks the part. His hair is shorter than before,
as is his temper - two small developments that do a lot
to convince us that this Bond means business. And, sure
enough, 007 saves the day. But Brosnan's best efforts cannot
rescue this poorly conceived film. It is the worst Bond
movie he has starred in." - Edward Porter, The
Sunday Times
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Above: Maria Grazia Cucinotta |
"Intending to turn Bond and his world into what they can't
be, these attempts to create emotional depth reveal an underlying
contempt for what the Bond movies actually are. They imply realism
is not just one mode among many but the superior, most culturally
worthy and difficult mode. By that logic, of course, to make
Bond films better is to make them more -realistic', like Apted's
Nell, presumably. Thank God for action, production values and
the second unit." - José Arroyo, Sight and Sound
"Somebody opened a can of weak sauce on this movie. This
is the worst of the Brosnan Era. And yet, Bond
is still better than your average Bruce Willis action flick.
All the key elements we look for in a 007 flick - the sultry
babes,
the sharper-than-Sharper-Image gadgets, the pulse-racing action
scenes - they're here. But they're floating in this movie like
soggy oyster crackers in a lukewarm bowl of beef stew. But the
rest of the film lacks the luster of "Goldeneye" and
the freshness of "Tomorrow Never Dies": Where is the
brilliance of the bungee chord dive? The cajones to leap off a
cliff to catch a falling plane? The classy spin-kicking Michelle
Yeoh? After a muddled and dry beginning, the plot follows the
fortunes of an orphaned oil magnate played by Marceau, whom Bond
has been assigned to protect from bad guy Renard (Robert Carlyle).
But the plot is inconsequential." - Sharon Pian Chan,
The Seattle Times
The Ugly
"Let's not get too excited. As an action film, The World
is Not Enough is mundanely choreographed, and as a continuation
of the myth it is the usual biannual disappointment. The Bond
myth comprised a set of very particular elements. The films
were
frightening, they were genuinely sexy, they had a very idiosyncratic
kind of claustrophobia, and they were exotic in a time when
that
word still meant something - before we all went on package holidays
to Magaluf.
Above: Denise Richards |
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But for a long time now,
Bond hasn't been scary, hasn't been sexy, hasn't been cruel.
All
that remains is
action, and pretty much everybody does it better these
days.
These are the same oil rigs and submarines that Bruce
Willis and Harrison Ford now clamber around (films like
The Matrix
are driving the Aston Martin while Bond is in the Lada).
Long gone are the memorable, spidery landscapes. Films
like
You Only Live Twice and Moonraker moved into space
in search of a landscape as frictionless, graceful and
frigidly
sexual
as the hero. Now we open in Bilbao, take a trip down
the Thames, and centre on the minarets of Istanbul - all
the
paranoia about what might be if the computer turned
into God that characterised Fleming's books forgotten.
They're
determined to warm Bond up." - Antonia Quirke,
The Independent |
"When the Bond series began, Connery with his Martinis, his
Aston Martin and his louche sexual habits seemed genuinely sophisticated.
But 'sophistication' no longer exists as a concept outside the
Ferrero Rocher ad; as an idea it now seems childish and bogus;
it's not a word you even use without inverted commas.
Culturally, however, nothing has replaced it. Into this void,
the Bond filmmakers originally pumped comic self-awareness, but
that could only ever be a temporary expedient, especially with
Austin Powers just around the corner. The other problem is that
the action sequences are confined to real-life plausibility, or
something close, whereas Hollywood special effects can now make
humans in a sci-fi film like The Matrix do much more.
Even the best Bond chase - and this film opens with a handsome
speedboat caper up the Thames - is no longer anywhere near the
frontier of film action." - Sebastian Faulks, Mail on
Sunday
Photo's by Trixie Textor
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