25 Mind-Blowing James Bond Facts You Need To Know
10. Another Spy Film Inspired James Bond To Be Rebooted
Die Another Day made $431 million at the box office, making it the most successful film in the franchise at the time.
But there was a problem.
It sucked. A lot.
The special effects were laughable, the dialogue was atrocious, and the action was over-the-top (even by Bond standards). The scene where Bond surfs through glaciers is seen as the moment where the franchise jumped the shark.
Now, the Bond series has been on the rocks before. Before GoldenEye came out, there were talks about retiring the franchise and allowing Bond to be "an icon of the past."
But this time, Bond had a problem it never had before: Competition.
The same year that Die Another Day was released, audiences were blown away by Paul Greengrass' spy film, The Bourne Identity. The movie's reliance on practical stuntwork, astounding car chases, and creative action reinvented the spy genre. Pierce Brosnan hated how James Bond was overlying on special effects and gadgets and insisted that the follow-up should be dark and gritty in order for the franchise to survive.
The studio seemed to do exactly as Brosnan desired and made the next Bond film into the gritty reboot, Casino Royale. Although rebooting the series was exactly what James Bond needed, Brosnan never got a chance to reprise the role.