Phoebe Waller-Bridge is the creator of the critically acclaimed and commercially loved Fleabag series. As such, when fans of the James Bond franchise saw her name among 4 of the screenwriters credited for No Time to Die, they were ecstatic. However, her involvement with the movie didn’t amount to much as the film allegedly still failed to break even at the box office. To make matters worse, the prolific writer has claimed that she didn’t even do basic research before writing the last Bond film of Daniel Craig.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge Evaded Doing James Bond Homework
Speaking at a Masterclass talk held at London’s Haymarket Theatre, Phoebe Waller-Bridge elaborated on her experience writing for the James Bond franchise. She also admitted that she wasn’t as updated on the films in the spy franchise as she should have been before taking on the No Time to Die project. As per the writer:
“I should naturally have done a lot of Bond research [but] I didn’t do a huge amount of research for it. I’m not very good at homework. That says a lot. It is fun playing in someone else’s sandpit for a while as you learn stuff. I certainly learned what my Bond film would be like. I learned how mine might have been slightly too camp. A bit misogynistic really.”
Lead star Daniel Craig was the one who brought Waller-Bridge on the writing team of the film in 2019. She was tasked with mainly rewriting the female characters of the film and making the script funnier. During a 2020 interview on The Chris Evans Breakfast Show, the upcoming Indiana Jones 5 star said:
“[I was asked to do] dialogue polishes and to offer things really. It’s about just offering different alternatives. They did give me some scenes and then be like, can you write some alternatives for this or have another idea about where it could go in the middle or how it would end. And then I would just give them options and various scenes and then they would take what they want. But there were a lot people writing — the director [Cary Fukunaga] was a writer on it as well. And there’d been a few writers before.”
The movie was received favorably by audiences and it grossed a whopping $774.2 million at the global box office on a budget of $250 to $300 million. However, as per reputed trade analysts, it still didn’t manage to break even, let alone make a profit.
Daniel Craig’s No Time To Die Didn’t Make A Profit
In 2021, Variety reported that Daniel Craig’s last James Bond movie, No Time to Die, failed to break even despite grossing upwards of $700 million at the worldwide box office at the height of the pandemic. The outlet explained:
“The movie cost more than $250 million to produce, at least $100 million to promote and tens of millions more to postpone over 16 months. Insiders say ‘No Time to Die’ needs to make closer to $900 million to break even, a feat that would have been realistic had a global health crisis not entirely upended the theater industry. As a result, the film now stands to lose $100 million in its theatrical run, according to sources close to production. Other industry sources suggest the losses wouldn’t quite reach the nine-figure mark though they would still be substantial.”
In 2021, the raging pandemic almost shut down theaters completely and most movies released that year failed to turn out a profit. Many films were released on various streaming services after a short theatrical run. So Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s little dialogue changes didn’t affect the box office of a behemoth James Bond movie. It is currently unknown who will be the next James Bond after Craig.
Source: Daily Mail
