Behind-the-scenes Bond 25 clip desperately assures you that, no, seriously, everything's going great

By Reid McCarter | June 25, 2019 | 5:37pm

Aux Features Film

Behind-the-scenes Bond 25 clip desperately assures you that, no, seriously, everything's going great

Photo: Slaven Vlasic

James Bond, government murderer in the service of British imperialism, seems lately to have finally received the curse he so richly deserved. His latest film, referred to for millennia now by its Bond 25 working title, has gone wrong in just about every way a film can go wrong. To wit: the project chewed up and spit out director Danny Boyle, was delayed after star Daniel Craig busted his ankle, brought in Phoebe Waller-Bridge to punch up a script that’s already been worked on for years, and saw a crew member injured after an on-set explosion. Just yesterday, a man was arrested for putting a goddamned hidden camera in the women’s bathroom during filming at Pinewood Studios.

And yet, despite all evidence to the contrary, the film’s producers would like you to know that, actually, things are going great with the movie in a short, totally-not-timed-to-counteract-all-the-horrible-PR clip from Bond 25's production.

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With the forced enthusiasm of an upbeat pharmaceutical commercial, “On set with Bond 25: Jamaica” shows the cast working away as director Cary Fukunaga shoots to the sound of a pounding dance hall track. Just below the video, a summary grins through its teeth to describe the video as “a behind the scenes look at our recent Caribbean Bond 25 filming that shows director Cary Fukunaga at work and Daniel Craig (James Bond 007), Jeffrey Wright (Felix Leiter) and Lashana Lynch (Nomi) on set!”

As proof of life, it’s not much. Craig drives a jeep around and walks by a window with a silenced pistol in hand, Wright grimaces at a table filled with well-placed Heineken bottles, Lynch smiles in profile, and Fukunaga directs his actors in slow motion. There’s no real context for all of this other than some footage of people partying at a Jamaican club and helicopters flying across an orange-tinted sky, but, just before the Bond logo pops up on screen, we see Craig walk toward the camera, smiling.

Maybe he knows something we don’t? Maybe everything really is going super well on set, despite the injuries and perverts and production hassles taking all the attention off the fact that this is a Fukunaga-led Bond with a great cast. Or maybe this clip was just carefully assembled to slip the image of a smiling Craig into our subconscious, ready to surface every time we hear another horrible story about the movie’s creation.

Whatever the case, we’ll be able to know for ourselves when Bond 25 releases on April 8, 2020 or just after hell freezes over—whichever comes first.

[via Consequence Of Sound]

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