Tomorrow Never Dies

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

Timing: 1:59 (119 min)

6.377/10
3397

7.095/10
30937

6.5/10
214000

All about film

Video 7

Photo 105

Actors and characters

Release date

1997-12-11

Country

United Kingdom, United States

Production

United Artists, EON Productions, Danjaq

Genre

Adventure, Action, Thriller

Budget

$110 000 000

Revenue

$333 011 068

Website

https://mgm.com/movies/tomorrow-never-dies

Director

Roger Spottiswoode

Actors

Pierce Brosnan, Jonathan Pryce, Michelle Yeoh, Teri Hatcher, Ricky Jay, Götz Otto, Joe Don Baker, Vincent Schiavelli, Judi Dench, Desmond Llewelyn
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Producer

Barbara Broccoli, Michael G. Wilson

Operator

Robert Elswit

Composer

David Arnold

Artist

Audition

Debbie McWilliams

Editing

Michel Arcand, Dominique Fortin
All team (73)

• 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.
• 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).
• 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.
• 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.
• 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).
• 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.
• 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.
• 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 one of the early script drafts ("lie" – to lie, "die" – to die), it stuck, and the film ended up being called "Tomorrow Never Dies."
• 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.”