As artistic director for the London Olympic Games, Danny Boyle had a brush with James Bond, featuring current 007 Daniel Craig in a parachute stunt that found Britain’s beloved spy skydiving with the Queen during the. Boyle-directed opening ceremonies. Now that Sam Mendes officially has passed on directing Bond 24, would the Slumdog Millionaire and 127 Hours director like to take a crack at a feature-length Bond story?
It’s a question I posed to Boyle at the conclusion of a roundtable interview today at the South By Southwest film festival. He was in Austin to drum up support for his latest feature, Trance, and enjoy a bit of a career retrospective at the Vimeo Theatre (our coverage from that even will be on the site shortly). When I asked about Bond, a large smile broke across Boyle’s face as he contemplated the answer:
"It’s not for me, I’m afraid,” Boyle said with a laugh. “Because of the Bond thing in the Olympics, I visited the [Skyfall] set a few times and saw Sam, Barbara Broccoli, Michael Wilson and Daniel Craig and everybody. They’re different kinds of films, you know? They’re huge. They’re just huge. They wouldn’t get the best out of me, doing that sort of thing.”
I politely disagree with Mr. Boyle, and would love for him to be able to put his kinetic visual stamp on the Bond franchise. One of the reasons I think Skyfall works as well as it does is that there was a tangible sense of urgency to Bond’s mission that was lacking in the most recent films (at least, the films prior to Casino Royale). Boyle spoke during the Vimeo presentation about wanting to be able to pin audience members to the backs of the seats with his urgent storytelling. That would work for a Bond film, no?
For more of our SXSW 2013 coverage, click HERE.
