Why Steven Soderbergh's "Cheaper" James Bond Pitch Makes So Much Sense
Could James Bond movies be made on the cheap? A new interview with acclaimed filmmaker Steven Sodeberg suggests that at one point, he pitched the Bond bosses a cost-effective approach to the franchise, which could have taken the 007 universe in a very different direction. In a new interview with The Playlist, Sodeberg has talked about his "stripped-down, and cost-effective way of making Bond movies." As The Playlist suggests, this approach wasn't designed to replace the big-budget Bond extravaganzas, but to demonstrate that there was another way to make historical Bond films at a much lower budget.
"[It would be] cheaply made, where you get people like me, who are interested in that approach to do one of these things,” Soderbergh said. “It’s just another lane that exists totally separate from the normal Bond movies.” This pitch happened around 2008, in the middle of the Daniel Craig era, and obviously didn't move forward. Soderbergh reiterated something he's said before, which Andor creator Tony Gilroy corroborated last year, that this pitch would have been a historical film (or series of films) set in the 1960s, going back to a more minimalist feeling inspired by Ian Fleming's novels. In the same interview, Soderbergh also revealed that a few years later, he pitched a more conventional, contemporary big-budget take on Bond that would have been a "contemporary extravaganza."
But there's something interesting and smart about Soderbergh's ideas about doing Bond on a budget. In short, one of the biggest challenges of James Bond movies, both historically and contemporarily, is that the all-or-nothing approach may, just maybe, lead to diminishing returns. Some fans seem to want Bond to get bigger and bigger and try to outpace the Mission: Impossible movies. But what if 007 went smaller?
Before Marvel and before Star Wars, the original blockbuster franchise was James Bond. Launching in 1962 with Dr. No, the 007 movies rapidly went from having fairly modest budgets to becoming massive productions. Dr. No only had a budget of $1 million, but by 1964, Goldfinger had made for $3 million, and by 1967, You Only Live Twice had a budget of $9.5 million, complete with a massive set, an army of ninjas, a miniature helicopter, and stolen spaceships. Adjusted for inflation, this means that Bond movies went from having $10 million budgets at the start to $93 million in less than a decade. And that's just the first five films in the 1960s. By the time you get to Skfyall, you've got a budget of $200 million (which would be like $2 billion in the 1960s). So, if you squint, you could argue that maybe, just maybe, James Bond constantly raising the stakes and the budget has been a historical gamble that might be a losing strategy.
Concrete details on the budget for Denis Villeneuve's Bond 26 are unclear, but some rumors suggest it will be at least $250 million. This would be a bit less than No Time to Die, which suffered from a late release following the 2020 pandemic, and also, reportedly, had a massive marketing budget, rumored to be close to $150 million, on top of the film's initial budget. The bottom line is this: Bond 26 probably will have a slightly leaner budget than No Time to Die, but it will still be a huge production, which will require a big box office to keep 007 alive.
Could there be another way? The idea of a leaner, more modest James Bond project is interesting, especially when one looks at the books for inspiration. In cinema, 007 is associated with extravagance. But the core of the character is actually much scrappier. Even if Bond movie budgets don't decrease, one can hope that maybe the future of 007 is relatable, even if the scope is huge.