Steven Spielberg wanted to direct a film in this iconic franchise

Steven Spielberg was always destined to become the legendary director who is today. He grew up with a deep love for films and was making his own amateur films long before he briefly study the subject at the State University of California, Long Beach.

During their years of training, several films played a vital role in the configuration of their sensitivity, starting with “Lawrence of Arabia” (which Spielberg has described as “the film that put me on my trip”). But there were several other films of the hugely influential era that were nothing like that epic of 1962. In particular, any age child in the 1960s was going to be a fan of James Bond, and that was not different for Spielberg, who has not hidden his love for 007.

The franchise has long been a magnet for renowned filmmakers, and Amazon recently hired the perfect director for James Bond in Denis Villeneuve. But during the first two decades of its existence, the Bond saga was left with family names, broken through Terrence Young (without which Sean Connery would have failed), Guy Hamilton and Lewis Gilbert. That could have had something to do with why Spielberg could never direct a Bond movie, although it was always his dream to do it.

In a 2011 interview with Indiewire, Steven Spielberg was asked which franchise would choose to direct at that time if it came out with its own way. In response, the director cited supervising England’s greatest spy as a life of a lifetime. “When I started making movies, the only franchise that mattered to me and wanted to be part of James Bond,” he said. “When I started as a television director, my cake dream in the sky was to make a small film that would get some notoriety, and then (the Bond franchise producer, Alfred R.)” Cubby “would call me and ask me to direct the next image of James Bond.” As Spielberg continued to observe, he could never convince the legendary bond producer to hire him, adding: “And now, unfortunately, they cannot afford.”

How could it be a Spielbergan bond? Well, it probably looks a lot at the films of the 1960s, in which it grew. The director’s film debut, the television film “Duel”, arrived in 1971, the same year that Sean Connery returned to the role that had made him a star in “Diamonds Are Forever”, possibly a underestimated film by James Bond that deserves more respect. Based on the fact that Spielberg appeared in the 1970s and became a great name after the “Jaws” of 1975, that would have been when he expected to receive the call from Cubby Broccoli. Would you have done everything possible to bring Connery back for another step, before its extravagance of shark diving that was “Never Say Never Again” from 1983? Or would Connery have tried to convince the young filmmaker to make his bond film without making robots sharks? At this point, we will never know, but at least we have a lot of influence of Bond on the Spielberg cannon so far.

In 2012, the year in which “Skyfall” by Daniel Craig debuted, The film school rejects He asked the former Bond Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli producers why Spielberg had not yet directed a function 007. In response, the broccoli (which has since delivered the control of the Bond franchise to Amazon), replied:

“Well, at first it was very sweet, because when I was a young filmmaker he approached my father. My father said: ‘Yes, child, you have to get more (movies) in your belt.’

It seems more likely that broccoli was interested in using British filmmakers to supervise the 007 franchise. Whatever the case, the same year that Barbara Broccoli gave that interview, Spielberg said to Daily mailthat in fact he was rejected by Cubby Broccoli, but that “he never asked again” after that and instead made the films of Indiana Jones. The influence of the Bond saga on those films is easy to recognize, and not only in the figure of Henry Jones Jr. whose balloon jump adventures were at least partly influenced by 007.

The Spielberg Indiana Jones, “Raiders of the Lost Ark” film, opens with its protagonist in the middle of an adventure, in this case that infiltrates the Temple of the Chachapoyan Warriors. This In half res The opening was taken directly from Bond, who always begins his cinematographic departures in a similar way. Of course, Spielberg also issued Sean Connery as Henry Jones Mr. for “Indiana Jones and the last crusade” of 1989. There is even a James Bond Easter egg in “Jaws.”

So, although he has not yet directed a Bond movie, it is not as if we did not have any idea of ​​how his vision could be for the best spy in England. Even so, any movie fan will surely feel a stab of repentance that we will never see an official Spielberg-Helmed 007.