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GoldenEye |
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GoldenEye |
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The new James Bond film was unveiled to the Press at a multimedia screening at the Empire cinema in London's Leicester Square on the evening of Tuesday November 7, 1995. GoldenEye then premiered on Monday November 13, 1995, at the Radio City Music Hall in New York City, and went on general release across the USA four days later. Pierce Brosnan attended along with co-stars Izabella Scorupco, Famke Janssen, Joe Don Baker, Alan Cumming and Desmond Llewelyn who remained the only on-screen link to the earlier films in the series, playing gadget-master Q for the 15th time. GoldenEye then had its Royal European Charity Premiere in London at the ODEON Leicester Square on Tuesday November 21, 1995, in the presence of Prince Charles. Pierce Brosnan once again attended, and before the screening took to the stage at the ODEON to introduce his co-stars who included Izabella Scorupco, Famke Janssen, Alan Cumming, Desmond Llewelyn, Gottfried John, Robbie Coltrane and title song performer Tina Turner. GoldenEye also opened at the ODEON Marble Arch on Friday November 24, 1995, and went on general release across London, and at cinemas throughout the country. GoldenEye set a new opening record at the ODEON Leicester Square, taking £306,000 in its first seven days. Pierce Brosnan's debut as 007 was also a huge international success, and at the time of its release became the most successful Bond film since Moonraker (1979), taking inflation into account. With a massive opening at 2,667 cinemas in the USA, GoldenEye more than made up for the box-office disappointment of Licence To Kill (1989), becoming the fourth highest-grossing film of 1995. British cinemas also celebrated the highest-grossing weekend in box-office history, with a staggering £7.24-million taken between 5th and 7th January 1996. The UK then boasted 70 multiplex cinemas with around 650 screens, and GoldenEye contributed greatly to this success. |
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GoldenEye continued to be very popular when re-released in 2022 to celebrate the 60th Anniversary of James Bond in the cinema, placing third behind Casino Royale (2006) and Skyfall (2012) in the overall box-office takings, and also performed very well when re-released recently in cinemas to celebrate its 30th Anniversary. With a six-year gap since the last James Bond film, GoldenEye (1995) was by no means a guaranteed hit when originally released, and MGM/UA were concerned that their target audience of teenage boys did not know who James Bond was since the cinematic landscape was then dominated by American action heroes. Second time around Pierce Brosnan proved to be an inspired choice for the role of James Bond, bringing a clever blend of Sean Connery and Roger Moore to his performance, and adding his own more mid-Atlantic interpretation of Ian Fleming’s hero. The world had changed dramatically since the release of Licence To Kill (1989), with the fall of the Berlin Wall and collapse of the Soviet Union. These post-Cold War elements were cleverly incorporated into the storyline of GoldenEye which reminded audiences that although this was still a James Bond film, it was a different more modern take on the character, with Brosnan clearly at ease with the physical side of the role, but also confident in the throwaway one-liners that Timothy Dalton’s more theatrical approach struggled with. It could be argued that not securing the role of James Bond in 1986 was a blessing in disguise for Brosnan, and his later experience and maturity served the character better in GoldenEye (1995) than it would have done in The Living Daylights (1987). Whilst Sean Connery and Roger Moore arguably took time to fully mature into the role of James Bond, Pierce Brosnan arrived more or less fully formed, and by the time of The World Is Not Enough (1999) was well established enough to demand from the screenwriters a more emotionally rounded character, often only hinted at in earlier films. Much of the credit must also go to Director Martin Campbell, whose no-nonsense style and talent for smartly blending action and drama proved he was the right man to re-invent the franchise in Casino Royale (2006), once again introducing the world to a new actor in the lead role. |
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GoldenEye (1995) went on to gross over $350-million worldwide, more than twice that of its predecessor Licence To Kill (1989), and proved that James Bond could still hold his own in the global marketplace. With its modest budget of $60-million GoldenEye was a huge hit for MGM/UA who immediately green-lit a follow-up to consolidate their success and showcase Pierce Brosnan whose career went from strength to strength in the years that followed. On June 27, 1996, Albert Romolo Broccoli – known to one and all as ‘Cubby’ – passed away at the age of 87. Although never well enough to visit the set of GoldenEye, he followed the production closely, and approved of the casting of Pierce Brosnan who spoke emotionally at a memorial event held at London’s ODEON Leicester Square on Sunday November 17, 1996. Paying tribute to ‘Cubby’, Pierce Brosnan joined Bond luminaries past and present (including Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton) saying: “I wanted GoldenEye to be great for him”, going on to explain, “…and I want the next one to be great for him, and him only. I missed him on GoldenEye… and I will miss him throughout the making of number 18.” Beginning with the release of Pierce Brosnan's second James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies in 1997, all posters and Main Titles would bear the credit “Albert R. Broccoli's EON Productions presents...” as a lasting tribute to the man who (with Harry Saltzman) created the most successful franchise in cinema history. |
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