Friday, January 11, 2008


For the video game see Tomorrow Never Dies (video game)
Tomorrow Never Dies is a 1997 spy film. It is the 18th film in the James Bond series, and the second to star Pierce Brosnan as MI6 agent James Bond. Bruce Feirstein is credited as writing the screenplay, although it received input from several writers, and it was directed by Roger Spottiswoode. It follows Bond as he tries to stop a media mogul from engineering world events and starting World War III.
The film was produced by Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, and was the first Bond film made after the death of veteran producer Albert R. Broccoli. After GoldenEye had reinvigorated the series. Although not achieving the same level of success as GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies performed well in the box office and received many positive reviews; this drop in performance is usually credited to this movie opening the same day as Titanic.

Plot

Main articles: List of James Bond henchmen in Tomorrow Never Dies and List of James Bond allies in Tomorrow Never Dies Cast
After the success of GoldenEye in reviving the Bond series, there was pressure to recreate that success in its follow-up. This pressure came both from MGM, which had recently been sold to billionaire Kirk Kerkorian who wanted the release to coincide with their public stock offering,

Script
Second unit filming began on 18 January 1997 with Vic Armstrong directing; they filmed the pre-credits sequence in the French Pyrenees and moved on to Portsmouth to film the scenes where the Royal Navy prepares to engage the Chinese.

Tomorrow Never Dies Filming
The film had a World Charity Premiere at The Odeon Leicester Square, on December 9, 1997; this was followed by an after premiere party at Bedford Square, home of original Ian Fleming publisher, Jonathan Cape.


Soundtrack
Tomorrow Never Dies was the first of three Bond films to be adapted into books by then-current Bond novelist, Raymond Benson. Benson's version is expanded from the screenplay including additional scenes with Wai Lin and other supporting characters not in the film. The book also attempts to merge his series with the films, particularly continuing a middle of the road approach to John Gardner's continuity. Continuation with the film series is also largely middle of the road. Notably it includes a reference to the film version of You Only Live Twice where he states that Bond was lying to Miss Moneypenny when he said he had taken a course in Oriental languages. This was done to counter the scene in Tomorrow Never Dies where Bond is unable to read a Chinese keyboard and type a message to his superiors, although this scene does not appear in the novelisation. Curiously, this contradicts Benson's own series since in the previous book, Zero Minus Ten, Bond is able to speak fluent Cantonese. Tomorrow Never Dies also mentions Felix Leiter, although it states that Felix had worked for Pinkertons Detective Agency which is thus far exclusive to the literary series, although this may be a continuation of Gardner's novelisation of Licence to Kill, which also attempted to bridge the literary and cinematic series. Subsequent Bond novels by Raymond Benson were affected by Tomorrow Never Dies, specifically Bond's weapon of choice being changed from the Walther PPK to the Walther P99.
The film was adapted into a third-person shooter Sony PlayStation video game, Tomorrow Never Dies. It was developed by Black Ops and published by Electronic Arts on November 16, 1999. The game was poorly-received: Game Revolution described it as "really just an empty and shallow game",

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