
In the second part of an exclusive article KEVIN HARPER takes a fascinating look
at the
release schedules
of the James Bond films in London's West End (and beyond) from 1985 to
date. |
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In the days before the
multiplex cinema and the ability to watch the James Bond series in your
own home, each new 007 adventure usually opened in London's West End before
transferring to the provinces and a wider general release. From 1962 to
1983 (with a few exceptions) each new film in the series had premiered at
either the London Pavilion cinema on Piccadilly Circus, or the ODEON
Leicester Square. The London Pavilion had been operated by film
distributor United Artists as their flagship venue since 1934, and
eventually closed as a cinema in April 1981. Although the ODEON Leicester
Square subsequently played each film in the series after Octopussy
in 1983, it was not always the venue chosen for the world premiere of the
film. Several films in the series first opened in the USA, and more recent
films have premiered at The Royal Albert Hall before transferring to the
ODEON Leicester Square for their main London engagement. Only Die
Another Day (2002) did not initially play at the ODEON Leicester
Square, instead spending six weeks at the ODEON Marble Arch following its
premiere at the Royal Albert Hall as the 2002 Royal Film Performance. The
film later played at the ODEON Mezzanine (part of the ODEON Leicester
Square complex) for nine weeks from January to March 2003. |
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ABOVE: (left)
Thunderball at the London Pavilion, Piccadilly Circus in March
1966 and (right) Octopussy at the ODEON Leicester Square in
June 1983. For 21 years these cinemas had been the only
two London venues where the James Bond films had premiered, and
where they all played on their original West End release and later as
double-bills. |
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The 1980s brought wider
release patterns and the production of more 35mm prints, so it was usually
possible to see a new film in the provinces at the same time as its London
engagement. Since the advent of digital cinema the need for prints of any
kind was removed and the identical image can now be seen at multiple
venues simultaneously. The days of a spliced, faded, jerky print was gone,
and all films now took on a uniform look which was then replicated for
their home cinema release. But before we reach the era of the pixel, let
us take a journey back to the time when Roger Moore's swansong as 007
conquered the box office, and when it was still only a two-year wait to
see the next film in the series. |
“Has James Bond Finally Met His Match?”
In August/September 1984 the last official double-bill of Octopussy/For
Your Eyes Only was playing at the Plaza 2 cinema, Piccadilly Circus -
a few hundred yards away from the London Pavilion, where all of the
earlier Bond films had played at some point in the past two decades up
until its closure in April 1981. Both films had been very successful at
the UK box-office when first released; but the double-bill struggled to
fill cinemas when originally reissued in early 1984, with the ODEON
Southampton recording just 373 admissions for the one week it played on
the smaller of their two screens. Octopussy had originally played
at the ODEON Southampton for 12-weeks in the summer of 1983, and For Your
Eyes Only for 14-weeks in 1981. |
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The 1980s had seen the
boom in videotape rental in the UK, and in June 1982 From Russia With
Love and Goldfinger were the first two James Bond films issued
on VHS and Betamax by Warner Home Video. By September 1984 all films up to
and including Octopussy were available to rent from your local
video store and played in the comfort of your own home. Although the
videos were panned & scanned editions of the films and inferior in quality
to actual broadcast television, copies were so widely available and at
modest cost, the home video market finally began to make a significant
dent in cinema box-office takings in the ensuing decade. With Roger Moore
firmly established as James Bond, many viewers were now seeing the Sean
Connery films for the first time and re-evaluating his tenure as 007.
Television screenings of the James Bond films on ITV became more frequent,
and in October 1984 when Octopussy premiered on The Movie
Channel (a cable subscription service operated by Rediffusion) this
was the first network to broadcast an official Bond film other than ITV
who had held the UK rights since 1975. With multiple screenings across the
month at different times, this is still the model operated by satellite
channels to this day. Octopussy did not have its terrestrial TV
premiere on the ITV network until January 1988. |
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UK cinema attendance had
fallen dramatically in the early 1980s and dropped to an all-time low in
1984 with just 54-million admissions for the year. Although this was the
time of the summer blockbuster, when one film dominated the cinematic
landscape across the country for a few months, the James Bond films found
it harder to compete with US releases. Although hugely successful, the
release of Octopussy in 1983 fell way short of the spectacular box-office
takings of Return Of The Jedi, the then final instalment in the
Star Wars series. In order to compete with the home entertainment
market, 1985 was designated ‘British Film Year’ by the British Film
Institute, and the celebration featured a year-long series of special
screenings and investment in multiplex cinemas, which gave a much-needed
boost to an ailing industry. Distributors made a concerted effort to
convince audiences that cinema was still the best place to see a film, and
attendance did rise to 72 million in 1985 steadily increasing year-on-year
ever since, and by 2019 had reached 176-million admissions in the UK. By
the mid-1980s many venues had been split into smaller screens making the
choice more varied, but several West End cinemas still had one screen and
a large auditorium. The ODEON Leicester Square retained its 1,683-seats
divided between the Royal Circle, Rear Circle and Stalls until 1990. |
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The James Bond films had become broader and more comedic in their attempt
to appeal to the changing tastes of cinema audiences, which were now
largely driven by the excesses of American blockbusters. Roger Moore's
final outing as 007 was no exception and became the first James Bond film
to be largely filmed in the United States and with
a predominantly American cast (although earlier entries in the series
since Goldfinger had been partly filmed in the USA). The co-operation afforded EON Productions
by the San Francisco Mayor's office gave them unprecedented access to
roads and buildings in the city for the filming of A View To A Kill
in 1984. The filmmakers showed their gratitude by holding the World
Premiere of the film at the Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco on
Wednesday May 22,
1985. |
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ABOVE: (top left)
A View To A Kill world premiere invitation (top right)
The Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, San Francisco May 22, 1985 (bottom
left) Mayor Dianne Feinstein with Roger Moore at the World Premiere of A
View To A Kill (bottom right) Moore signs autographs for the waiting fans as
EON Productions’ Director of Marketing Jerry Juroe tries to move him
on. |
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Following the US
opening, A View To A Kill then received its Royal Charity Premiere at
the ODEON Leicester Square in London on Wednesday June 12, 1985, in the presence of Their Royal
Highnesses The Prince and Princess of Wales. The
event was attended by Roger Moore, co-stars Tanya Roberts, Grace Jones and Patrick Macnee.
Producer Albert R. Broccoli was accompanied by his wife Dana. Also
attending were director
John Glen, composer
John Barry and members of the pop group Duran Duran, whose
appearance garnered as much media attention as that of the Princess. Their
title song remains the only James Bond theme to have reached number one on
the US Billboard Hot 100; it also made it to number two for three weeks in
the UK Singles Chart at the time of the films’ release in 1985. Along with
Adele's 2012 hit ‘Skyfall’, ‘A View To A
Kill’ would be the highest charting James Bond title song in the UK until Sam
Smith's ‘Writing's On The Wall’ reached the number one position during the
release of Spectre in 2015. |
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ABOVE: (top left)
HRH Princess Diana meets Grace Jones and Patrick Macnee and (top
right) Roger Moore whose final James Bond film this would be.
(bottom left) A magazine advertisement announcing the release of
A View To A Kill (bottom right) The ODEON Leicester Square hosted the Royal Charity Premiere of A View To A Kill on
the evening of Wednesday June 12, 1985. |
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A View To A Kill
continued to play at the ODEON Leicester Square for ten weeks until
Wednesday August 21, 1985
and
then transferred to the ODEON Marble Arch
where it replaced Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The ODEON
Marble Arch at that
time had the largest cinema screen in the country (75 feet wide x 30 feet
high) and A View To A Kill continued to play there for a further 10
weeks until Thursday October
31, 1985. |
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With many cinemas now
converted to multi-screen venues, A View To
A Kill also played for 18-weeks at the Plaza cinema, Piccadilly Circus
from Friday September 27, 1985. For the first two-weeks A View To A Kill
screened at the Plaza 1, followed by three-weeks at the 183-seat Plaza 4,
and a further thirteen-weeks at the 163-seat Plaza 3. The general release of Roger Moore's last James Bond film began
in major cities on Friday June 14, and coastal resorts from Friday July 5; with a
London-wide release from Friday July 19, 1985. As had been the case with
You Only Live Twice (1967), Live And Let Die (1973) and
The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), the general release of A View
To A Kill was timed to coincide with the school summer holidays, and
its box-office success was boosted by unusually poor weather that year,
forcing many people off the beaches and into the cinema.
Despite the success of
A View To A Kill at the box-office, many thought that aged 58 its star
was far too old to continue playing James Bond, and the films were becoming
increasingly comedic and far-fetched because of it. This was an opinion
shared by Roger Moore, who formally announced his retirement from the
role of James Bond on December 3, 1985. |
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“A new 007?”
With the departure of Roger Moore after a 12-year tenure, the search
was on to find a new James Bond. On June 27, 1986 the British press
reported that Pierce Brosnan would soon be officially announced as the next
James Bond following screen tests and a meeting he had with producer Albert R. Broccoli
earlier in the week. The actor took part in a screen test (left), discussed the role and had a series of
special photographs taken at Pinewood Studios with Broccoli and director
John Glen. Pierce Brosnan's availability following the cancellation of his US
TV-series Remington Steele meant that he could start filming The
Living Daylights in the Autumn of 1986. With renewed interest in the
actor, production company MTM Enterprises reversed their decision to
cancel the show, and Brosnan was obliged to fulfil the final year of his
seven-year contract and work on the fifth season of Remington Steele. Bond
Producer Albert R. Broccoli was therefore forced to continue testing more
actors in a bid to find the new 007. Eventually it was announced on
August 7, 1986 that Timothy Dalton (who had been considered twice
before for the role) would play Bond in The Living Daylights. |
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“The new James Bond...
living on the edge”
A few weeks before The Living Daylights received its first
public screening and whilst still in the editing stage, low-grade
videotapes purporting to be the new James Bond film were circulating in the UK. These
tapes were compiled from unedited footage stolen during production and
missing key action sequences, major special effects and all the music.
Worried that the tapes would damage the films box-office takings, EON
Productions and distributor United Artists published newspaper announcements,
and produced warning posters that
began to appear in the London Underground and across the country in the
weeks leading up to the world premiere. |
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Timothy Dalton's debut as
James Bond was first screened in London for the press on the morning of
Monday June 29, 1987 at the Leicester Square Theatre. As the reviewers and
critics watched the film, 100-yards away the ODEON Leicester Square was
being prepared for that evening's Royal World Charity Premiere. Leicester
Square itself was renamed ‘James Bond Square’ for the day, and huge crowds
gathered outside the ODEON to watch contractors erect the huge exterior
hoarding featuring the colourful poster artwork centred around the iconic gun barrel.
The Aston Martin V8 Volante from the film was also on display in the
square throughout the day, and director John Glen chatted with fans as the
preparations for that evening's premiere began. Press reviews were
generally very enthusiastic and highlighted the return to a ‘classic’ Bond
film, with little of the humour and excess associated with the series in
the latter years. |
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From the moment Timothy
Dalton walked through Leicester Square accompanied by co-star Maryam d'Abo
he was James Bond, and the assembled crowds enthusiastically applauded and
cheered as he made his way to the premiere. Stuntman Simon Crane dressed
as James Bond (above) abseiled from the top of the 120-foot high ODEON
tower before making his was into the cinema, much to the delight of the
onlookers gathered in Leicester Square to watch celebrities arriving at
the premiere. |
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The Royal World Charity
Premiere was once again held in the presence of Their Royal Highnesses The
Prince and Princess of Wales, and also attended by Producer Albert R.
Broccoli accompanied by his wife Dana, co-producer (and co-screenwriter)
Michael G. Wilson, actors Joe Don Baker, Jeroen Krabbé, Caroline Bliss,
Art Malik and Andreas Wisniewski, composer
John Barry (whose last Bond score this would be), and Chrissie Hynde of
The Pretenders who sang ‘Where Has Everybody Gone?’, and ‘If There Was
A Man’ in the film. Also attending the premiere was James Bond
continuation author John Gardner, whose sixth 007 novel NO DEALS MR. BOND
had been published a month earlier. Patrick Macnee, star of The Avengers
TV series, who had played Sir Godfrey Tibbett in A View To A Kill
(1985), also attended the premiere of The Living Daylights. |
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The
James Bond series celebrated its 25th Anniversary in style, and The
Living Daylights then opened to the public at the ODEON Leicester Square
and ODEON Marble Arch (below) on Tuesday June 30, 1987, and across the country throughout
July. The Living Daylights
became the most successful film ever to play at the ODEON Leicester
Square, and grossed a staggering £1,022,768 over its 11-week run. |
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The Living Daylights
then transferred to the
Plaza 1, off Piccadilly Circus from Friday September 11, 1987 where it
played for a further four-weeks. On Friday October 9, 1987, The Living
Daylights also opened at the 304-seat Empire 2, Leicester Square where it
played for seven-weeks; and then transferred to the smaller 80-seat Empire
3 for a further eleven-weeks, finishing its West End run on Thursday
February 11, 1988. The Empire was another larger cinema which had been
converted into a multi-screen venue in 1985, and incorporated part of the
old Ritz cinema into its new configuration. Timothy Dalton's debut as 007
became the most successful film released in the UK in 1987 taking £5.5
million at the box-office. |
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