‘Skyfall’ at 10: Sam Mendes Recalls How Shutting Down Film Led to Its Ultimate Success

In April 2010, skyfall received a blessing in disguise when it was summarily shut down.

With parent studio MGM nearing bankruptcy at the time, Daniel Craig’s much-anticipated third gig as James Bond was indefinitely put on hiatus by producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson. MGM’s financial situation hampered both the production and the franchise, the latter in dire need of a hit. The wannabe blockbuster was already a year and a half in development – following the mixed critical and box office response to 2008’s noble misfire, Quantum of consolation. It looked like Bond’s DNR would be lengthy, and the press feared it would be similar to the six-year gap between 1989 Licence to kill and the release of Gold eye In 1995 this was caused by legal problems.

“When all of this was announced, the cover story took off Weekly entertainment was then: ‘Is James Bond dead?’” remembers director Sam Mendes, who tells the story The Hollywood Reporter on the eve of skyfall‘s 10th anniversary, how difficult it seemed for the film at the time to ever reach such a milestone. Mendes and his staff used the downtime as an opportunity to creatively revitalize the film’s plot. In doing so, they faced the same real-life resurrection themes that Bond struggled with as the film sped towards its November 9 release date in the US – just in time for the franchise’s 50th anniversary. (No pressure.)

As skyfall turns 10, Mendes reveals how he and his collaborators made one of the biggest Bond films of all time – the first and only 007 adventure to gross $1 billion at the box office.

“People forget these things very quickly, but MGM went bankrupt and people in town at the time were like, ‘Oh, it’s all over. They can’t afford it, it’s the end of Bond’,” Mendes explains. Production was shut down for around 10 months. And while no one was actually allowed to work on the script for legal reasons, nothing stopped Mendes and his writers — Bond veterans Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, with a rewrite by John Logan — from envisioning how to address script issues once the film was back on its feet.

Two of those ideas that the story had to have were given: the death of M (played by Dame Judi Dench) and for Craig a villain who felt Bond’s equal. The former helped Mendes better see that this loss would be the thematic fulcrum around which the rest of Bond’s journey during the Craig era would be guided.

“At a very early stage, there was a treatment — which was almost completely abandoned — but it ended with the death of M. And that was one of the things that got me hooked,” recalls Mendes. “Everyone felt that with Barbara and Michael’s willingness to handle the character in this way, that one decision changed the entire franchise in some way. It confirmed the passage of time, arguably for the first time ever, in the series. It confirmed that they are mortal, that they are aging and likely to die.” (Craig’s Bond would do just that, another first, in 2021 no time to die.)

But before Bond would meet his death, he would face another foil bent on taking him – and M – down: Silva, played by Javier Bardem. From the jump that No country for old men The Oscar winner was Mendes’ first choice for the villain, who is a former agent of M’s whom she burned and left out in the cold. Now in skyfallSilva hacks into MI6, literally blasts a hole in the heart of their office and leads Bond on a chase and under London to get revenge. While this storyline sounds exciting on paper and looks even more exciting on screen, Mendes struggled to film it.

“It was a tough shoot. skyfall was very tough,” says Mendes. “Partly done by myself as we chose to shoot a lot of it in London and underground in pretty grim conditions. You have that kind of fantasy in mind when you’re making a Bond film that you’re going to spend days somewhere on a beach, but that obviously wasn’t the case.

But filming wasn’t just difficult for the director, who fondly recalls doing two of his favorite scenes in the film — both were written by Logan during the rewrite process. The first is skyfall‘s famous “word association” scene, which was the centerpiece of the film’s teaser trailer. Here Bond – recovering from injuries while in the midst of rigorous physical tests to re-certify him for field service – responds to prompts from an MI-6 psychologist with very meaningful one-word answers.

Remembers Mendes: “One of the ideas [Logan and I ] was thrown around: ‘Wouldn’t it be great if they did a word association scene when testing Bond?’ And John said, “Oh, yeah.” And he wrote an amazing scene.’”

The second of Mendes’ favorites comes later in the film when Bond and M are driving the classic DB5 Aston Martin to Bond’s childhood home in Scotland. As they set off down a deserted road under a steel-gray sky, M and Bond have what Mendes calls “almost a haiku” about Bond’s past, in which M tells Mendes his favorite line from the film, “Orphans always make the best recruits.” ”

“It was very difficult to nail that scene and try to get those lines absolutely right,” recalls Mendes. “It was much longer in the original drafts, and I believe in the ‘show, don’t tell’ school of storytelling. Robert and Neil worked very hard on it [the script]and much of it was worth preserving, and at the same time scenes like this – John, his ability to see what was Yes, really work and be worth keeping – and to his credit, he agreed there was a lot – that was very important in [shaping] This scene.”

It was also important to Mendes to cut out one of the more problematic storylines from early drafts: a collaboration between Silva and Bond.

“They bonded in the middle of the film, in a kind of uneasy truce. And it didn’t work because Bond works alone. Yes, he could have a woman by his side or be with one on the way [in some of the other Bond movies]but it didn’t feel right to be paired with another alpha male. [Bond] needs someone to fight and those scenes took as long as it took to write them. And I read it and I was like, ‘No, you can’t.'”

When the film came together, the team got the feel skyfall going to be as good as everyone involved had hoped, despite the dark cloud that hung over it from the start. It was a realization Mendes ironically had at the end of production, shooting what normally opens a Bond film but instead closes it skyfall: The iconic gun barrel sequence.

Mendes recalls, “I remember doing it at the end of filming, and I remember being relaxed and happy because we had wrapped up the rest of the film and there was music playing that wasn’t the Bond theme was. And we just had a good time and we were like, ‘Wow, we shot a movie here and we all loved it.’”

There was never really much documented behind the scenes as to what was going on when the gun barrel sequence was shot, but Mendes recalls that Craig was focused on getting the details right.

“I can remember the first time Daniel came back behind the monitor to check a shot and see how it turned out. And obviously you understand why it’s so important [to him]’ says Mendes. “You start to wonder, ‘Where do you put the gun? [Bond holds] be? Is it hiding behind your leg? When do you let the camera or the audience see it as you walk? Are you even letting her see it until the last moment?’”

If there’s anything Mendes would change skyfallafter a decade of hindsight, it would be dependent on his London locale.

“I would think twice about leaving Bond on the rooftops of Whitehall with the Union Jack flags flying, given the last 10 years of series incompetence [London’s] Conservative government,” Mendes says, laughing. “We look back on this period as a sort of bizarre golden era. and skyfall was very much shaped by its time in film and very much influenced by the fact that there was real national pride about the country at that point. And it was also Bond’s 50th anniversary – that year Bond jumped out of a helicopter with the Queen at the Olympics. So I think that pride and the excitement that comes with it has been filtered and found its way into the film.”

Fans are still celebrating the film’s narrative and financial success a decade later, as no Bond film has yet surpassed it – not even 2015’s sequel to Mendes spooka film that the filmmaker seems to think has fallen short of its predecessor.

“These films are very difficult to write. That 10 months of downtime, that’s where the script really flipped because we had the time to go down dead ends and try things like that [Bond/Silva team-up]. And that time was not granted to me when we did it spook. And you can see the difference in the script,” says Mendes. “[With Spectre], I felt that there was some pressure. Certainly Barbara and Michael put some pressure on me and Daniel to do the next one, it makes a big difference. People saying, ‘We want you to do it,’ and passionately asking me to do it, was a big deal.”

But the biggest or most important thing Mendes can get out of the film is how well it was and is received.

“The experience of shooting skyfall tried hard, but the response to it, in terms of the number of visitors, was extremely gratifying.”