Dave Shaw

Communications and Writing

For: Bondage Magazine, the magazine of the James Bond fan club

Oldfinger

Pierce Brosnan is the latest victim of the film industry’s obsession with youth.

“ I was fired,” Pierce Brosnan says bluntly. “It’s over. It’s absolutely over.”

Brosnan is speaking of his run as secret agent James Bond in the long running film series. Brosnan had done four films as agent 007, the last of which, 2002’s Die Another Day, was the most successful of the series. Though his contract was up, there was no reason not to expect he would make a fifth. “They invited me back right after I went on the road to sell that film,” says Brosnan. “I thought we’d get a fifth and that would be it really. And then one day the phone rang... It was their prerogative to change their minds, and they might have done it to go younger.”

At 51, Pierce Brosnan may still have the looks to play the leading man, shoot the gun, and kiss the girl. But maybe not when that girl is 25. ‘Bond girls’, as they’re called, are usually newcomers to the film industry, and even 25 is considered old for a new Hollywood leading lady in today’s climate. Another factor is that Bond films are about more than high adventure, they are one of the film industry’s longest running franchises, and historically, the films themselves are merely a jumping off point for other profit centers. It would be hard to miss the massive amount of product placement inherit in the Bond formula (some wags took to calling the last film BUY Another Day), and since the primary demographic advertisers want to reach nowadays is 18 to 34, conventional wisdom is that they may not respond to a hero in his 50’s.

It wasn’t always like this. Brosnan is the fifth actor to play the role of 007. His immediate predecessor, Timothy Dalton, had a quick two-film run, mostly because he was widely considered to be too dour for the role. But Dalton inherited the role from Roger Moore, who retired from seven tours of bondage at age 56. Though Moore was a bit past his ‘best before’ date as an action hero towards the end, that didn’t stop the product placement train from rolling along successfully. In fact for a series well regarded for its theme songs, the theme to Moore’s finale, A View to a Kill (1985), became the only Bond theme song to hit number one. The fact that it was performed by Duran Duran, a group with massive youth appeal in 1985, was the mitigating factor in the song’s success. But that was nearly 20 years ago, and the tide has most certainly turned.

Marketers go after a youth audience primarily because they are at the beginning of their buying cycle. By the age of 35, it is thought that a person will have already made his or her choice about what kind of shampoo to buy, cola to drink, or jeans to wear. There is also, in the film industry, what many are calling ‘the tyranny of the opening weekend’. Younger audiences can respond to the heavy advertising a film gets on its opening weekend. They don’t have as many factors weighing on them as adults who may be juggling careers, children, community activities, and other commitments. Younger audiences don’t need to plan ahead to get to the theatre. Moms and dads do. With the massive turnover most theatres have nowadays, the pressure is on to get those audiences into the theatres on opening weekends, because that’s when a major movie can do up to 50 per cent of its box office business.

Brosnan’s last go around as Bond was hugely successful worldwide, bringing in close to $400 million internationally. Impressive, but not when compared to the $900 million or so brought in by Spider-Man, a film with massive youth appeal, and merchandising opportunities to the much lusted after 18-34 audience that make Bond look miniscule. With MGM, the studio that has sent Bond on his missions for the past 40-years, recently having been bought by Sony, the home of Spider-Man, there is little surprise that the pressure is on to make Bond appeal to a whole new audience. A whole new audience which will hopefully pass Bond on to yet another new generation down the line.

When Brosnan took over the role in 1995’s Goldeneye, he managed to do just that. According to Premiere Magazine, legal wrangles had kept the series off the screen for six-years, and there was fear that younger audiences would respond to the name James Bond with, “Oh yeah, my dad likes those movies.” Or even worse, “Who?” Brosnan was 42, which was considered an acceptable age for an action hero, and in fact younger than many of the screen’s aging tough guys at the time (Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, the pre-eminent action stars of the day, were both close to 50). Brosnan helped rejuvenate the moribund franchise, carrying it to its most popular heights. Old fans went and took their kids; kids entered their teens and started going themselves.

But the thinking today amongst advertisers is that generations shift every six-years or so, and younger audiences won’t respond to anyone who doesn’t look like them. They certainly won’t buy the clothes they see them wearing on screen, or, in Bond’s case, the vodka they see them drinking. A tattooed, twenty-something secret agent is probably not too far in the future. The actors rumored to be under consideration for the role (big names like Jude Law, Ewan MacGregor, and Hugh Jackman, among them) are all in their late-20’s and early-30’s. Bond will obviously not be the retired British naval commander he was in his initial conception. Whether this approach will win a new, younger base of fans, while not alienating old ones, remains to be seen.

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