So the new Bond film is called Quantum of Solace. A strange choice, it sounds like sci-fi, but the actual story behind the name was nothing of the sort. It first appeared as a short tale in For Your Eyes Only, the volume of stories that also contained A View to a Kill.
But just as View to a Kill’s producers took nothing but the story’s title when they made it into a film, I can’t see much of the original Quantum of Solace making it to the screen, either. For starters the story doesn’t involve Bond; it’s merely recounted to him by his host at dinner.
Yet the name could still be appropriate. The new film picks up an hour after the last one ended. Bond is emotionally broken at the close of Casino Royale, and the unfortunate central character in Fleming’s account of Quantum of Solace is similarly damaged by his wife’s wandering ways.
I’m still not convinced it’s a name that will line up well against the likes of Moonraker, Tomorrow Never Dies or Dr No, each of which had a clear and easily definable link to the story’s driving force. Daniel Craig claims that it ‘also alludes to something else in the film’, but I hope that ‘something’ is not too obscure.
Anyhow, it’s months yet until the film comes out. It’s been put back to 7 November, which is a better time for Bond anyway, as it’ll be two years since the last one. My only worry is that the fantastic rebooting of the franchise we had with Casino Royale may be lost as Quantum of Solace slips back into the habits of the Brosnan days, when Bond was more about explosions and chases than character development.
And producer Michael Wilson is promising ‘twice as much action’ as they had in Casino Royale.
Hmmm.
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