GoldenEye faced many obstacles, including studio doubts about James Bond's popularity, former MGM-UA executive Jeff Kleeman said in an interview on the SpyHards podcast.
Kleeman was hired by another executive, John Calley. Both were enthusiastic about trying to revive the Bond film series.
"The powers-that-be at MGM-UA weren't as enthusiastic about Bond as we were," Kleeman said on the podcast. "There was fear that Bond was old news, that Bond frankly felt like a relic."
Studio executives had commissioned a market research study about Bond's popularity in the U.S., he added. "Much to their despair, it came back that essentially every teenage boy in America either said, 'Who's James Bond?' or 'Oh, I know who that is, that's that guy our dad likes.'"
This was occurring in the middle of the 1989-95 hiatus in the series. There had been legal fights between Eon Productions, which made the Bond films, and MGM and the studio. Those battles had concluded and a new studio leadership had taken over.
As described by Kleeman there were other obstacles. MGM decided to proceed but only with a modest $49 million budget (the former executive told SpyHards it came in at $56 million). The 1996 movie, The Birdcage ("six people in a room talking") had a $60 million budget, Kleeman said.
Albert R. Broccoli, now in his 80s, was in poor health and Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli would be the lead producers for the first time. There was the question of who would play Bond. Studio executives (Kleeman among them) weren't enthusiastic about two-time Bond actor Timothy Dalton. Eon wanted to retain Dalton.
"We looked at a lot of people," Kleeman said. Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes (who'd later play M in the Daniel Craig 007 films) were among them. Eventually, Pierce Brosnan was the choice but top studio executives had doubts about his star power.
Calley and Kleeman also felt like the project's initial script by Michael France needed work. Martin Campbell, selected as director, had credits on British television but his films up to that time hadn't been hits.
"What nobody understands in retrospect is how unlikely it was GoldenEye got made in the first place," Kleeman said. "It was more likely to not get made than made."
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