Tomorrow Never Dies
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Short description
Media mogul Elliot Carver wants to extend his global communications empire into China, but the Chinese government is reluctant to grant him broadcast rights. To force the issue and create news his outlets can exploit, he engineers an international crisis involving a sunken British warship in Chinese waters, aiming to push Britain and China toward war. James Bond is sent to find out who is responsible and stop the plan before it escalates.
Tomorrow Never Dies is a 1997 British-American action thriller directed by Roger Spottiswoode, the eighth of fourteen films he directed in chronological order, following And the Band Played On and preceding The 6th Day. Bruce Feirstein wrote the screenplay, and Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson produced it for United Artists, EON Productions and Danjaq. Pierce Brosnan plays Bond, with Jonathan Pryce as Carver, Michelle Yeoh as Wai Lin, Teri Hatcher as Paris Carver, Ricky Jay as Henry Gupta and Götz Otto as Stamper. The credited cast numbers 48 and the crew 75.
The film had a budget of 110 million US dollars and took 333 million US dollars worldwide. Audience scores are modest but consistent: on IMDb it holds 6.5 out of 10 from around 215,000 votes, and on TMDB 6.4 out of 10 from roughly 3,600 votes. A critics' rating of 6.3 out of 10 from 92 reviews places it close to the audience scores, indicating a broadly comparable reception.
What's left behind the scenes
- The stealth technology vessel is not fictional. Lockheed secretly built one and demonstrated it in the early 1980s, but the US Navy declined to purchase them. The Lockheed prototype was called Sea Shadow, it was almost 49 meters long, and visually resembled the vessel shown in the film.
- At the 86th minute of the film, Wai Lin removes the handcuffs from her wrists and uses them to chain James Bond to a pipe. In the next shot, as she leaves, it can be seen that the handcuffs are unlocked.
- For the filming of the fight scene in the store, Michelle Yeoh's character had to rely on Jackie Chan's stunt doubles, as no one wanted to play opponents against Yeoh's character due to her full-contact fighting style that she developed while she herself was a member of Chan's stunt team.
- The parking lot scene had to be reshot, and a trip to Germany for this purpose would have cost a pretty penny, so the scene was filmed in a shopping mall in London. Posters were hung in the stores inside the mall to reassure shoppers who might hear explosions. The reshoot took 10 days and 17 BMW cars.
- In the scene where the helicopter crashes into the building, after Bond has thrown a metal drill into the rotor, it's visible that mannequins, not live people, are sitting in the helicopter.
- The film was originally going to be titled “Tomorrow Never Lies,” which makes sense considering how the main antagonist first invents headlines and then orchestrates corresponding events. However, a typo crept into an early script (“lie” vs. “die”), it stuck, and the film was titled “Tomorrow Never Dies.”
- Initially, Anthony Hopkins was cast for the role of the main antagonist, which was eventually played by Jonathan Pryce. However, three days after filming began, he left the project: a finished script, as such, did not exist, it was constantly being updated and rewritten, and the actors received the latest version every morning. Instead, Hopkins chose to star with Martin Campbell in the adventure film "The Mask of Zorro" (1998).
- Ricky Jay (1946-2018) was also a famous magician, holding the world record for throwing playing cards. Initially, he even played in a scene where his character throws cards at James Bond, but this scene did not make the final cut of the film and only survives on DVD editions. From time to time, Jay worked for the CIA, teaching agents sleight of hand (such as picking pockets, discreetly passing objects to someone, and the like).
- Immediately before filming the motorcycle scene, director Roger Spottiswoode pulled Pierce Brosnan and Michelle Yeoh aside individually and ordered each of them not to let the other take the driver's seat. As a result, before getting on the motorcycle, Brosnan and Yeoh's characters argue about who will be driving.
- During filming, Pierce Brosnan suffered an injury – a blow to the face from a stuntman's helmet. The wound had to be stitched, and the remaining scenes were filmed so that the scar was not visible on screen.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
