Having stood the test of time for over 60 years, few characters in popular culture can hold a candle to James Bond. Ian Fleming’s indelible super-spy made his bow in the original Casino Royale back in ’53 and since then, his globe-trotting adventures have entertained readers and viewers for generations.
Then again, with so many directors, novelists and actors adding their own idiosyncrasies to the 00 agent, his origin story has been left largely unexplored, and that’s precisely the area that Sam Mendes will explore in this year’s Spectre – albeit it with a twist.
Per Entertainment Weekly, the director touched upon his approach to Bond’s legacy, and how he believes Skyfall – the most recent in the longrunning series and the only one to grace $1 billion – left audiences at the beginning of the rebooted story.
“Bond has been rebooted at the end of the movie. This is only the beginning of the story The Bond creation myth never happened. I felt there was an opportunity there: What made him? And who were the people who affected him along the way? You’re sort of telling the story backwards of how Bond became Bond.”
Acting as Daniel Craig’s fourth outing with the license to kill, Spectre is due to send Bond on his most daring and personal mission to date, as he tracks down Christoph Waltz’s megalomanic Oberhauser (Blofeld?), a supervillain that has deep connections to our hero’s past. In fact, buried beneath the latest trailer for Mendes’ actioner is a line that essentially surmises the pair’s innate link; one which has Waltz’s big bad utter “I am the author of all your pain.” One thing’s for sure, Craig’s agent is up against it.
Mendes’ intriguing comments arrive on the heels of a new featurette that introduced us to Spectre‘s leading ladies; specifically Monica Bellucci and the award-winning Léa Seydoux. They’re on board to play Lucia Sciarra and doctor Madeleine Swann, respectively, and given that the filmmaker has trumpeted the depth and complexity of each character, we’re excited to see the interplay between each new recruit.
Spectre will delve deep into the murky backstory of one James Bond when Sam Mendes’ spy thriller opens on November 6.