After decades of waiting – well, ok maybe it hasn’t been that long, it just feels it – the title for Bond 25 has been revealed. In somewhat a meek, subtle way too I might add.
It wasn’t announced during that Bond 25 Reveal held in Jamaica with the cast and filmmakers. That’s how the Bond titles would traditionally be announced, during the press conference for the latest Bond film with the world press all around. Not to argue with Michael G. Wilson, but that’s how it ‘traditionally’ has been done in the past.
This time it was announced through the official Bond social media channels. Kind of strange in comparison to the normal blitz a Bond title would receive. Why EON decided to go this route is another perplexing question and event we can add onto the Bond 25 production mountain of madness.
So, without further adieu, a drumroll please…..
The next James Bond film will be called – No Time To Die!
Are you feeling a bit of an anti-climactic release right now or is it just me?
As far as Bond titles go it’s not as memorable as the more famous, classic titles some of the films have had. Goldfinger and The Spy Who Loved Me made such an impression those titles got endlessly spoofed and parodied. What can you do with No Time To Die?
Awhile back I was watching the 1988 television-movie A Right To Die starring Raquel Welch. Maybe it’s because I’ve had that in my head for awhile, but I immediately associated No Time To Die with a 1980’s tv-movie about a character with a terminal illness. It fits quite nicely really.
In fact, No Time To Die could be used as the title for any generic action movie you might stumble upon on cable while channel surfing on a Saturday night. There’s nothing exactly very distinctive about it.
If I was told any point in my life “Hey, there’s a new action movie with – Charles Bronson, Jean Claude-Van-Damme, Jason Statham, Thomas Jayne, Bruce Willis, Dolph Lundgren, Chuck Norris, Dwayne Johnson, Gerard Butler, Scott Adkins, and on and on… – and it’s called No Time To Die.” it would sound like a given.
So, having such a blasé title for a James Bond movie is a bit of a letdown. Already it’s not standing out in the Bond catalog of films. I might give Quantum of Solace a lot of grief, but I have to at least give it props for having such a distinctive title.
When the filmmakers don’t get to use an Ian Fleming title for the movie, they generally don’t stretch much in the creative department. The best original film titles they’ve come up with is Skyfall. I think that one far surpasses No Time to Die in terms of an intriguing, peculiar title.
No Time To Die also falls into that reliable formula of Bond titles that fallback on using the words, “Die”, “Live” and “Kill”. Sometimes I envision EON must have notebooks filled with thousands of titles and countless variations with those three words for emergencies.
“Die” has taken the lead in this footrace of this epic ‘three word battle’.
So, ‘Kill” ranks with two Bond titles under its belt, A View To A Kill and Licence To Kill. ‘Live’ has three, You Only Live Twice, Live and Let Die and the variation, The Living Daylights.
Now ‘Die’ has taken the lead! Famously it was used in Roger Moore’s 1973 Bond debut Live and Let Die (that title covers two contestants). I think it was with Pierce Brosnan’s tenure where two out of four of his film titles included “Die” in it, (Tomorrow Never Dies and Die Another Day) where a lot of Bond fans felt, “Why don’t you guys cool it with the ‘Die’ titles.” And now with No Time To Die, ‘Die’ ranks with the lead of four mentions in Bond titles.
I wonder if we’ll ever see another Bond title with the word “Love” in it again. That word has only been used twice in the twenty-five films (From Russia With Love and The Spy Who Loved Me). There’s not a lot of ‘love’ for James Bond in his world. He’s too busying living, killing and dying.
After such a long wait for the Bond 25 title reveal, five years we’ve been waiting for this, I do feel it is a pretty underwhelming moment. This was what all this built up to? It certainly isn’t as distinctive sounding a title had EON went with the rumored titles of ‘Shatterhand’ and ‘Eclipse’.
For me, this title announcement is just another one of those official announcements about the film that has left me shrugging my shoulders. It hasn’t instilled me with any additional excitement or anticipation for the newest Bond adventure. Perhaps it has some significant meaning to the story or Bond or one of the characters and it will take on more of a resonance after seeing the movie. For now though, it certainly doesn’t stand out hearing it.
But still, a disappointing title for a film would mean nothing – if the film itself is a good one. If No Time To Die is an entertaining Bond movie, I can look past whatever they want to call it. Even something so forgettable sounding a title as they decided to choose.
What do you think the odds are we’ll ever see a Bond title like Octopussy again?
I realize part of this is related to growing old, but I saw that little reveal yesterday after hearing they had titled the movie and it was just an hour later that I was thinking “Wait. What was that title again?” and I had to go back and watch it a second time. And even then it was just another hour or so later that I was thinking “What was that title again? Something Die? ‘A Reason to Die Tomorrow’?”, and I had to watch the reveal a third time to make it stick!
I think I can remember it at this point, but I wonder if that rumor from a few weeks ago that the title was “A Reason to Die” had some truth to it. That title in conjunction with the one they went with could explain a lot of things. It seems clear that the movie will begin with Bond having a reason to die, but as the plot unspools it will turn out that his schedule is just too full for him to fit it in.
That’s gotta be the laziest & most generic James Bond title I’ve seen in the last 20 years. I prefer the ones that have a specific meaning within the Bond universe and no where else. Titles like ‘Goldfinger’, ‘Dr. No’, ‘Skyfall’, ‘Thunderball’ & others have a bit of mystery about them and only become clear during the films. I would actually have preferred ‘Shatterhand’.
I totally agree with you. A generic title and the only thing I found interesting about it was the font used. The title is so generic that it reminded me of a title that Troy McClure from The Simpsons annonced “Today We Kill, Tomorrow We Die” It’s as if EON are looking back to the Brosnan era which had very cliched titles and are using an online Bond title generator to come up with this title. Say what you want about Fleming’s novels (I love them by the way) the titles he used were distinctive and memorable, No Time To Die isn’t and yes Skyfall is very much the best title EON have used afer exhausting Fleming’s other titles. With all the crap that has been attached to this production of having a female 007, I thought it would have been fitting to use Property of a Lady, a Fleming title and certainly connects the film. And I am surprised to this day that Risico hasn’t been used yet No doubt EON should go back to Fleming and start using quotes from novels (One of Brosnan’s Bond films was supposed to have been called ‘A Whisper of Love, A Whisper of Hate’ a very memorable title IMO. Again I am hoping for a great Bond flick and it turns out all the problems and decisions that have plagued this film will churn out a great film, but I cannot help but think that this is looking dicey.