1. Dalton's Chance At Blockbuster Success
Let's face it, License to Kill was an utter disaster at the American box office in the summer of 1989. A failure that for years has been pinned on the shoulders of Timothy Dalton. Many just blamed him for not being as charismatic or funny in the role as Roger Moore, and later, Pierce Brosnan's take on it. There's just one problem with that argument: Marketing 101. Yes, marketing is to blame for Dalton's all too brief stint as 007 taking a nosedive. Originally, the title of License to Kill was to be called License Revoked. All sorts of marketing materials and promotions had been created well in advance and had to be scrapped at the final hour before the film's release. The result was a bare bones marketing push that gave the film NO chance of succeeding in a summer which had the likes of Lethal Weapon 2, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Ghostbusters 2, and Batman all being released within a couple months of one another. To put it bluntly, Dalton was screwed over by a failed marketing campaign. Now by comparison, fast forward to 1994/1995 and even from my own memory I was blown away by how much advertising GoldenEye had going for it. Whether it was TV ads running non-stop, to cardboard cut outs promoting the film in home-video stores next to all the older films re-released on VHS at the time, there was just no way audiences would be allowed to not realize a new Bond film was going to be released in November of 1995. In the end, between the less competitive fall release, and the marketing campaign on steroids, there was just no way GoldenEye wasn't going to become the highest grossing Bond film of all time up until that point. I firmly believe that the same result would have occurred had Dalton still been in the role. Six years of no James Bond on the big screen created such a high demand for the return of these films that there's no way having Dalton return would have hurt its chance for success. The real crying shame of it all? This would have firmly re-established him back in the role, along with guaranteeing he'd be in one, maybe two more films through the rest of the 90s. So forgive me for saying this film would have been made better just on the merits Dalton could have had a legitimate do over for the previous monetary failure that was License to Kill. This was truly his moment to make Bond fans accept him as a great James Bond for the ages. Unfortunately, it was not meant to be, and whether that had more to do with Dalton not wanting the role anymore in 1994 or because of studio pressure to have him replaced we will never know. Personally, I think it was a little both based on what I've read over the years. In the end, I realize this is a very divisive argument to make for a film that grossed just over $100 million dollars in the U.S alone, but I'd like to think some of the points I've made seem more prevalent now than ever before. Feel free to leave comments below and let the debate commence!