“Was Bond Relevant Anymore?” How ‘GoldenEye’ Revamped the Franchise

Few modern filmmakers can claim that they’ve made movie history, but Martin Campbell can say he’s done it twice.

The New Zealand native and accomplished action director is the only person to ever helm the first chapters in two different actors’ tenure as Bond… James Bond.

In 2004, Campbell was tapped by veteran producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael W. Wilson to launch Daniel Craig’s first outing as James Bond, 2006’s Casino Royale. He accomplished this nine years after rejuvenating the then-dormant franchise with Pierce Brosnan’s first 007 film, 1995’s Goldeneye.

The latter — released Nov. 17, 1995 — saw Brosnan’s dashing Bond struggling to stop his former colleague and friend, 006/Alec Trevelyan (Sean Bean), from using a deadly Russian satellite’s EMP capabilities to throw the world back into the Stone Age. (Prior to Goldeneye, Brosnan famously inked a deal to play Bond in 1987’s The Living Daylights. But, at the last minute, his contract for NBC and MTM’s Remington Steele was renewed and the coveted role went to Timothy Dalton.)

GoldenEye influenced Casino in that it showcased Campbell’s seemingly effortless approach to crafting blockbuster-friendly set pieces with gritty, kinetic visuals. His particular dynamic visual style was, at that point, something the Bond franchise had never really done before. He and his team, including long time cinematographer Phil Méheux, also put that action through a character-first lens — ensuring that every victory Bond earns or blow he takes feels like one of our own.

But, at the time, there was no guarantee Campbell and his collaborators’ exciting take on the first Bond film of the ‘90s was going to be celebrated 30 years later — let alone succeed on opening day.

“There was uncertainty as to whether Bond still worked,” Campbell tells The Hollywood Reporter in an interview celebrating Goldeneye’s 30th anniversary. “The studio was budget-conscious. They often asked: ‘Did anybody want to go see it? Was Bond relevant anymore?’”

The answer would turn out to be a resounding “yes,” as Campbell’s film ranked (domestically) as one of the 10 highest grossing films of 1995. It also earned $356.4 million worldwide on a budget of $58 million, according to Campbell.

But the road to that success was a struggle, due to a protracted lawsuit between studio MGM and other stakeholders over the franchise — one that put a six-year gap between when audiences could get their Bond fix on the big screen. Timothy Dalton’s second and final outing for Her Majesty’s Secret Service, 1989’s License to Kill, performed poorly at the summer box office that year. Critics and audiences were soft on the violent film’s darker and more grounded take — a take that they would, ironically, later embrace in Casino Royale.

The lengthy lawsuit, plus Kill’s box office shortcomings, allowed what Campbell acknowledges as a “course correction” for the franchise when he came onboard. One of Campbell’s first creative conversations was a critical one: Who would play James Bond?

“It had to be Pierce,” Campbell says. Barbara and Michael’s father, the late Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, had the final say in recasting their lead role, as the Broccolis seemed to want Dalton to return. But in a meeting with MGM, it was Cubby who decided to go with Brosnan. So, with Brosnan officially enlisted to strap on the shoulder-holstered Walther PPK, Campbell and his producers turned their attention to the script. Four writers (three credited) would work on the film in total.

“The first draft I saw was from writer Michael France,” Campbell says. “It was very heavy. Michael is someone who writes every beat of action, down to the close-up of a trigger, and he is very good at it. But the whole thing, though, I struggled with [that] first draft.”

After having Jeffrey Caine come on for a rewrite, with the screenwriter adding the prologue that introduced Bond and 006 on a past mission, the script still required some finessing. So the filmmakers received help from a surprising choice.

“We brought in the writer who wrote Working Girl for Mike Nichols, Kevin Wade,” Campbell recalls. “He came in and really helped break the back of the script. He did a very good job restructuring it and added some very good scenes. He was only contracted for one month, I believe because that’s all we could afford, and he did a good job. He was uncredited, but he knew that going in and agreed to it.”

But the script still needed work. Running out of time, the production was eager to find a writer who could not only infuse the script with what Campbell calls “that Bond flare and sense of humor,” but also get the narrative into ready-to-film shape. According to Campbell, it was Barbara Broccoli’s suggestion to bring on the movie’s “fixer:” Writer, satirist and author Bruce Feirstein.

“I worked with Bruce for a long time after that, in pre-production, on the script. And that’s really how the movie came together. He also was responsible for the movie’s big M scene.”

The scene Campbell refers to is Bond’s first (and very heated) one-on-one chat with his new boss, played by Dame Judi Dench. With the director wanting M to be played by a woman for the first time in the franchise’s history (inspired by Stella Rimington becoming the head of MI5 in 1992), Campbell felt that Goldeneye needed a scene between the two where 007’s reputation as a “sexist, misogynist dinosaur” was called out. The director was confident that the story “needed to address what the audience was likely thinking.”

“Bruce did a lot of drafts of that scene, for various reasons,” Campbell recalls. “But the one we shot was the first one, the best one.”

What they didn’t shoot was a scene long-rumored to have been cut for budget: A showcase of the weapons and gadgets on Bond’s new car, the BMW Z-3 Roadster. Despite Q (the late Desmond Llewelyn) introducing both 007 and audiences to the car and its arsenal (missiles behind the headlights, for example), Campbell definitively shoots down the myth that there were any plans to ever give the car an explosive set piece.

“There never was a scene [like that]. I mean, it would have been nice. And the [Q scene with the car] often gets commented on, of course, but the thing was — the story didn’t involve the car. In any of the action, the problem was there just wasn’t a place that made sense for it; you couldn’t just fire [the missiles]. I’m sure, at the time, we must have talked about it, like, ‘is there a way in which we could incorporate [the car] in terms of an action scene?’ But, if you look at the story, it’s just not possible as it stands.”

Finding a spot for Bond’s shiny new sports car was the least of Campbell’s worries.

With Campbell rapidly approaching the start of principal photography, GoldenEye had yet to cast one of its key roles: Russian computer and satellite programmer Natalya Simonova (Izabella Scorupco), who must join Bond on his globe-trotting adventure to foil 006’s plot.

“We tested quite a lot of actors with Pierce, and they just weren’t connecting somehow. We didn’t feel we had the right woman for the part,” explains Campbell. “And Debbie McWilliams, the terrific casting director, she would always look at countries all over the world for who was up-and-coming, which actors we should keep a look out for. So I spoke to her, and I said: ‘Is there any country in Europe that you haven’t been to and checked yet?’ She said, ‘One, Sweden.’ So, on that night, she got on a plane and was on her way to Sweden. I think we were, like, six days away from shooting.”

Soon after landing in Sweden and getting to work, McWilliams relieved Campbell’s concerns with one phone call.

“She rang to say, ‘I’ve got the girl,’ and it was Izabella — who was a pop singer, I believe, at the time. She had done some acting, but she had one or two roles in Europe. A few gold discs. So, we flew Izabella over [to England] that day. I read her and, after 30 seconds into her reading, I said: ‘You’ve got the part.’ And she was so good in it.’”

Next on Campbell’s to-do list: Give his new Bond one hell of a fight scene.

The director felt that the last time 007 had a truly memorable, high-stakes brawl was when Sean Connery’s 007 traded fists with KGB assassin Red Grant (Robert Shaw) in 1963’s From Russia With Love. Using that film’s iconic, close-quarter combat scene in a confined train car as inspiration, Campbell wanted Bond and 006 to battle it out within a small metallic shed housed within the bowels of the villain’s massive antenna array in Cuba. Soon, the stunt team went to work training Brosnan and Bean for what would become one of film’s signature moments.

“The actors did all of that fight for real,” Campbell recalls. “There’s one shot where Bond takes a slide and fall off a metal table, I think that’s the only time we used a stunt double for Pierce.”

As remarkable as that fight scene was for audiences to watch back in 1995, the filming of it was even more so for its director.

“We wanted to make it as vicious and as tough as possible to watch these two go at one another — both [men] extremely skilled, both lethal. Pierce and Sean worked really hard on that fight with the stunt team. They wanted to do it themselves, they did it themselves — which is unusual when you’re shooting that close, in a very tight and confined space. It’s very difficult to double, obviously. Especially the way the fight was [choreographed], it meant that you see quite a lot of their faces. But I was lucky to have those actors, and have Bond be up against someone from his past — an equal, a friend — which I think helped up the stakes there.”

Campbell also considers himself lucky not just for being able to helm two pivotal and beloved films in Hollywood’s longest running franchise, but for also getting a chance to do it with Broccoli and Wilson. GoldenEye was a formative experience for both Campbell and his producers, with the latter essentially taking over the franchise from Cubby with this installment. (In 2025, the veteran producers left the franchise and it is now currently overseen for Amazon/MGM by Amy Pascal and David Heyman, with Dune’s Denis Villeneuve set to helm “Bond 26.”)

“Barbara and Michael were terrific on both Goldeneye and Casino Royale,” praises Campbell. “Because they let you make the film. I mean, they don’t really interfere hardly at all. Obviously, in the script process, they’re very involved. But in the making of [the film], they let you do it and you get an amazing amount of freedom.”

That creative freedom also extended to what audiences got to see released in theaters.

“I can honestly say that, in both of my movies, what you saw was my cut, basically. I had no pressure from them to cut them differently. In fact, they tended to have control over the studio in terms of the usual studio notes and which ones they would listen to or say ‘leave it as is,’ which was great. They were fantastic producers, they really were.”