By JIM SLOTEK --
HOLLYWOOD -- James Bond would concur some things are worth fighting for -- the fate of the free world, for example, or the life of a beautiful Bond babe. Pierce Brosnan would add, conversely, that James Bond himself is worth fighting for.
"Bring 'em on!" Brosnan says with a mix of jaw-jutting Irish pugnacity and humor when we mention that another studio, Sony, has announced plans to anoint its own competing 007.
"Bring 'em on, I say. Bring on George Clooney as Bond or Woody Harrelson or Woody Allen or Woody Woodpecker, I don't care. I'm doing the legitimate James Bond."
More legitimate than ever, in fact. Bond - MGM-UA's most profitable franchise -- is bigger than ever since the dapper Brosnan signed on for the movie GoldenEye.
That film grossed almost $400 million worldwide, as great a vindication of Brosnan's decade-long quest to become Bond as there could be. And with the Friday release of Tomorrow Never Dies -- at $100 million-plus the most expensive Bond film ever -- he seems set as Bond into the next century.
Ironically, a decade ago, Brosnan was willing to be an illegitimate Bond himself -- he wanted the part that badly. Initially approached by famed Bond producer Cubby Broccoli to succeed Roger Moore as the man with the licence to kill, Brosnan lost the role when the producers of his TV series Remington Steele wouldn't let him out of his contract.
"So when Tim Dalton did his James Bond, (Kevin) McClory (the producer of Thunderball and the current theoretical Bond 2 project) found me. He met with us, my late wife (Cassandra Harris) and myself, and I actually agreed to do his Bond movie. I thought, 'Bugger this, if he's got the rights to do a Bond, why not mess with the Broccolis and Dalton and do it?' "
Threats of legal action stopped that project and, for Brosnan, the future unfolded as it should have. "The only reason to play James Bond, apart from the financial reward, is to have fun. And I wouldn't have had much fun at the centre of a great deal of litigation."
Dressed all in black -- jacket, shirt and pants -- Brosnan is all dark-eyed fire on the subject of "his" Bond. The effect is diminished by egg stains on his shirt, residue of breakfast with his 10-month-old son, Dylan (who, as we talk, is with his mother, environmental journalist Keely Shaye-Smith somewhere else in the Four Seasons Hotel). "Oh look!" Brosnan says as he notices the stain, "my son creamed me."
Fun but messy. Babies and mega-movies apparently have that much in common. And Tomorrow Never Dies came by its $40-million budget overrun honestly. Among the problems:
* Location snafus. It was set to be filmed in Vietnam -- "We'd already put up 25 miles of scaffolding," says director Roger Spottiswoode -- when the Hanoi government abruptly changed its mind, forcing a move to Thailand.
* A pre-production script that was so iffy that potential villain Anthony Hopkins threw it on the floor and declined the role.
* Fights between Brosnan and Bond-girl Teri Hatcher over her tardiness ("I'm sure her mother loves her," Brosnan says).
* Fights between villain Jonathan Pryce and director Spottiswoode over the aforementioned work-in-progress script.
* A motorcycle-chase scene in Thailand so problematic it ended up taking three weeks to film instead of the planned several days. "It took forever to do the bloody thing, although I do like riding motorcycles," Brosnan says. "It was a big old bike and I was thinking of getting one of my own after, but my lady doesn't want me to. I think motorcycles have passed me by."
Brosnan does deny, however, British tabloid reports that he and Spottiswoode clashed.
"Rubbish," he says. "When you lose a location and certain things happen, it creates tension. You have to live through it. But Roger and I always had a harmonious working relationship. And he succeeded in creating a Bond that looks different than any other."
The Bond series has been desperate for a new villain since the Cold War, and in Tomorrow Never Dies, it settles on the media. Pryce plays Elliot Carver, a Rupert Murdoch-like press baron who manipulates the news. His crowning achievement comes when he creates a military incident in the South China Sea that puts Britain into a state of war with China.
Hatcher plays Carver's wife, Paris, an old flame of Bond's and the agent's avenue for unravelling the crisis. Michelle Yeoh -- best known as Jackie Chan's butt-kicking shaolin sidekick in the movie Supercop -- plays Bond girl No. 2 Wai Lin, a Chinese agent who learns to fight alongside 007. Back are Dame Judi Dench as M, 82-year-old Desmond Llewelyn as Q and Samantha Bond as Moneypenny.
"For me this movie came with a comfort zone," Brosnan says. "GoldenEye was such a glorious success. So my objective was to retain everything I found the first time. The relationship with Teri Hatcher was important to the movie, to have a woman there he, y'know, pinned his heart on. And having a sidekick (Yeoh) I thought was a great idea. I don't have that kind of ego that I would be threatened by a woman in my place or space. For the first time in a Bond movie, you have a woman actually doing something, fighting her own fight in a very spectacular fashion."
If there's one factor that has helped Brosnan be comfortable in James Bond's skin, it's that he's managed to retain a career on the side -- something no Bond has done since Sean Connery.
Since GoldenEye, he's starred in Dante's Peak and appeared in Mars Attacks! He's producing and co-starring in an Irish independent film called The Nephew.
Come April he'll be in Northern Quebec and probably Algonquin Park filming Richard Attenborough's film of the great environmentalist Grey Owl, a "Mohawk" who turned out to be an Englishman. "It's a 12-week shoot, Kealy and Dylan and I have a cabin by the lake already picked out."
As soon as that's finished, he's scheduled to shoot The Thomas Crown Affair, a remake of the '60s Steve McQueen/Faye Dunaway thriller which would pair Brosnan with Cameron Diaz.
"The great thing is I came to James Bond as a fan. Connery was 'the man' as far as I was concerned, and I paid good money to see all his movies. Now here I am. It's a great kick and it's allowed me many other things, all of them on the coattails of James Bond."
THE BOND FILE
Bond Villains: Gert Frobe as Goldfinger (Goldfinger), Harold Sakata as Oddjob (Goldfinger), Donald Pleasance as Blofeld (You Only Live Twice), Christopher Lee as Scaramanga (The Man With The Golden Gun), Richard Kiel as Jaws (The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker).
Bond Girls: Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore (Goldfinger), Ursula Andress as Honeychile Rider (Dr. No), Jill St. John as Tiffany Case (Diamonds Are Forever), Maud Adams as Octopussy (Octopussy), Barbara Bach as Maj. Anya Amasova (The Spy Who Loved Me).
Bond Songs: Goldfinger (performed by Shirley Bassey), Live & Let Die (Paul McCartney & Wings), The Spy Who Loved Me (Carly Simon), You Only Live Twice (Nancy Sinatra), Diamonds Are Forever (Shirley Bassey).
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