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Finnish director Renny Harlin reveals the reasons
he turned down directing the 17th James Bond film...
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Renny Harlin Turned Down Bond
5th February 2012
Finnish director Renny Harlin broke quite an interesting story
at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival back in
June 2011, which has gone unnoticed until now thanks to a YouTube video of his Q&A session was spotted by fans.
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Harlin was asked about projects he had
turned down, and after joking about not wanting to make
a silly movie about a bus with (then little known actor)
Keanu Reeves in what turned out to be the blockbuster smash "Speed",
he revealed an opportunity with 007 that he also turned
down.
"I was offered "GoldenEye" and
I was like, 'somebody wants to see another James Bond movie?'
I had
done enough sequels." [Harlin is referencing his prior
movies 'A Nightmare on Elm Street 4' and 'Die Hard 2'.]
"Actually, to be honest, what happened
at that point was I was interested in doing the Bond movie,
but there
was an actor in it that I didn't believe in. And I'm not
going to say that his name is Timothy
Dalton. I just didn't
think that he made a good Bond."
"I said that you had to recast and come up with a
new actor for it. And they refused and said 'he's great',
and I was like 'he is not James Bond'. So that was why
I walked away from that job." |
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The timeline on this story is a little fuzzy,
but given the resistance to replace Dalton as Bond, Harlin must
have been under
consideration before the actor stepped down from the role in
1994 following the protracted
legal dispute with MGM. Given that
a treatment for 'Bond
17' was penned for Dalton,
Harlin was likely to have been approached in late 1990 following
his success with "Die Hard 2". Ultimately, Pierce
Brosnan would be cast in the lead role for
the 17th
adventure helmed by Martin Campbell.
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