It was only about two weeks ago that Pinewood Studios hosted the official announcement of Spectre. The cast, the plot, the locations, the car even - all these were publicly presented. A joy and a reason to celebrate for all Bond devotees. But in the meanwhile, something went south. Yeah, the Sony hack has made yet another victim: apparently, things don't look up for the spinoff. In all cases, not as much as the showiness of the event would have us believe.
So, get ready for some serious spoilers. If suspense is what you love most about movies, the info below will definitely do you no good.
What you didn't know about Spectre
Defamer Gawker published a whole deal of what leaked from Sony on the Spectre topic. First of all, it has a budget well above $ 300 million. That makes it the most expensive movie in history. But not by design: Spectre went overbudget due to a reportedly poor script. "Possibly because the script features a messy third act that executives are still trying to rework after months of tweaking." Gawker's opinion is corroborated by the "copious, desperate notes to improve it" that leaked together with the script.
So, what happens in Bond 24? "Bond, having destroyed part of Mexico City on a rogue operation, and facing forced retirement as MI-6 merges with its sister agency MI-5, escapes across Europe on a mission posthumously assigned to him by his late boss, M (played by Judi Dench). He seduces the wife (Monica Bellucci) of a man he assassinated, and, using information from her, attends a meeting of a sinister group of masked terrorists led by a man who knows Bond from his past. Meanwhile, Bond’s current boss, M (Ralph Fiennes), battles his likely successor and the head of MI-5, C (Andrew Scott), over the future of an intelligence sharing program called Nine Eyes. Bond witnesses the death of Mr. White, a villain from Casino Royale, and finds White’s daughter Madeiline Swann (Lea Seydoux) in Austria. The pair head to Morocco, get drunk, screw, have stilted conversations, take a train to the desert, and kill a henchman named Mr. Hinx (Dave Bautista)."
President of MGM's film division, Jonathan Glickman applauds the first two acts: "for what it's worth, I think first 100 pages are fantastic", arguing "it's fun, emotional and the major logic issues have been rectified. And the relationship with Madeline is terrific". But no one sings praises to the third act, described as a "watery chases with guns".
Things go wrong once Heinrich Stockmann enters the scene. This is Christoph Waltz's character. And yes, his alias is Franz Oberhauser, the leader of Spectre, the mysterious terrorist organization the movie is named after. Hammer blows start to pour in: Oberhauser reveals he is Bond's older foster-brother. Then he tortures Bond. Then C is exposed as Oberhauser's teammate. Then Bond kills his newly found brother in London. End of story.
And to complicate things even more, another leaked email describes this third act like this: "this is Blofled after all. What does he have up his sleeve?". Further emails keep on referring to Oberhauser as Blofeld. Curiously enough, the name "Blofeld" appears, according to Gawker, nowhere in the script. Wait, what?
Who is, in fact, Blofeld?
Watch the short footage below and see what Christoph Waltz has to say about his role in Spectre.
He said a clear no when asked if he plays Blofeld. But indeed he laughs, as if to indicate the question is nonsensical from the first place. But he is Heinrich Stockmann a.k.a. Franz Oberhauser, head of Spectre. And the bigwigs of Sony and MGM do refer to him as Blofeld.
Quite mind-bending, and plenty to go around until the release of Spectre (November 6th, 2015). Hopefully, the third act will be rewritten in due time. Leave your comments here and share your thoughts about the leaked details of the script. Also, what do you make of the whole haze around Christoph Waltz's character?
