SPECTRE is 'massively over budget' according to Sony email leaks (spoilers)

10-Dec-2014 • Spectre (2015)

Whilst MI6 and its associated websites are not partaking in the Sony leaked file download fiasco, it seems the world's media organisations and even less professional blogosphere just can't resist the urge to get their hands on the illegally obtained private information.

CNN reports that they have be scouring the Sony emails to unearth back of forth between Sony, MGM and EON Productions that took place before the announcement of the 24th James Bond film SPECTRE.

The headline? SPECTRE is 'massively over budget.' Funny, as Sam Mendes said almost the same at the official launch event - in public.

MGM president Jonathan Glickman sent a flurry of emails in early November explaining how the studio is scrambling to cut costs, and confirm the budget "sits in the mid $300Ms," but the studio has to drastically cut back to $250 million. And the shooting period already costs $50 million more than the previous film, "Skyfall."

CNN reports his suggestions to cut back on the budget included:

Villa in Rome? It's a nighttime scene, so try doing it in London instead. There's fighting on a train! Again! But use fewer carriages -- three instead of four. Forget the dramatic finale in the rain. It'll lower the cost of visual/special effects. Earn an extra $6 million by showing "the more modern aspects" of Mexico to maximize "the Mexican incentive." (The studio is getting paid to film there.)

"We recognize that this movie needs to build on the past few films - and there are expectations we must meet for the audience. Still, we must find further cuts," Glickman says. "This is not about 'nickel and diming' the production."

Barbara Broccoli, fights back -- saying that she "cannot find the cemetery or villa in the UK" and refuses to cut down the number of trains.

Later, Sony Pictures co-chairman Amy Pascal, looped in on all of this, sends a note directly to MGM's president, saying: "It's insane and you know with no script this movie is gonna go overbudget."

The emails also show that director Sam Mendes wants to cast Andrew Scott as Bond's intelligence agency boss, "C." And MGM can afford it, because they can pay Scott $1 million less than they were going to pay Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave).

There are a couple of further spoilers in the CNN piece.