Former 007 screenwriter Bruce Feirstein talks about Bond film titles

Bruce Feirstein, who worked on the screenplays for "GoldenEye" (1995), "Tomorrow Never Dies" (1997) and "The World Is Not Enough" (1999), has weighed in on the James-Bond-film-title debate with a special personal insight for Vanity Fair.

Ordinarily, I don’t like writing about the James Bond franchise. Having written or co-written three of the pictures from the Pierce Brosnan era, it feels like something that took place a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. But with last week’s announcement of the curious title of the latest film in the series, Quantum of Solace, my editor—who knows that I bear responsibility for the equally controversial title Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)—has asked for an explanation as to how these movies are named. So, for once, I’ll indulge him.

With two exceptions, all of the Bond titles are derived in one way or another from Ian Fleming. The first 16 films—from Dr. No through Moonraker—came from the titles of Fleming’s Bond novels or short stories. The 17th installment, GoldenEye, was inspired by the name of Fleming’s house in Jamaica, where he did most of his writing. The World Is Not Enough came from Fleming again (it was the motto he devised for the Bond family crest). Die Another Day joins my Tomorrow Never Dies as a non-Fleming coinage, created by the screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade.

More recently, for Daniel Craig’s 2006 debut as Bond, the producers Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli returned to Fleming for inspiration, using the name and plot of his first Bond novel, Casino Royale, which begins with one of the great opening paragraphs of all time, and set the tone for everything that was to come in Bond World:

The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning. Then the soul-erosion produced by high gambling—a compost of greed and fear and nervous tension—becomes unbearable, and the senses awake and revolt from it.

James Bond suddenly knew he was tired.

As for Quantum of Solace, that title comes from the name of a short story in a collection of Bond adventures published by Ian Fleming in 1960. (And no, I didn’t know that off the top of my head; I had to look it up.) The other titles in the collection are “From a View to a Kill” and “For Your Eyes Only,” which ought to ring a bell with moviegoers, and “Risicio” and “the Hildebrand Rarity,” which, for understandable reasons, still haven’t been used.

The story in “Quantum of Solace,” the literary short, is fairly unusual for Fleming, in that Bond barely appears in it. There are no spies, no action, and no megalomaniacs hell-bent on Global Worldwide Domination. (Forgive the aside here, but when I was writing the films, I couldn’t type those last words without laughing. I used to joke that I had a computer macro that automatically inserted the phrase into the scripts.)

The plot of “Quantum,” the story, as I remember it, begins at small dinner party in Jamaica, hosted by the British consul, who also serves as the local MI6 station chief. Bond doesn’t want to be there and takes an instant dislike to one of the women at the table. Bond later expresses this to the Consul, and the man launches into a chilling tale of marriage, betrayal, and revenge that ultimately leads to a comeuppance for Bond, regarding the way he judges people. I’ve barely done it justice here, but I strongly advise reading it. From the time I first got involved with the films and read all the novels, I’ve been convinced that Ian Fleming is a vastly underrated writer—an opinion that was apparently shared by the late Kingsley Amis.

As is often the case in Bond adaptations, little to none of the literary source material is likely to show up in the film. Lots of times, the titles have only been launching points for the films—a touchstone back to Fleming, in much the same way that Bond still drives the Aston Martin DB-5 from Goldfinger in the 21st century. It’s an acknowledgement of where the series came from, and what made it special.

So, how did the title for Tomorrow Never Dies come about? As Janet Maslin so kindly pointed out in her scathing pan in The New York Times, the title makes no sense. (Not that I remember every single word she wrote or anything.) The truth is that my original title was Tomorrow Never Lies, which appeared in the script as the “All the News That’s Fit to Print”–type slogan of Tomorrow, the flagship of an international newspaper chain owned by the evil media baron who was bent on (start macro here) Global Worldwide Domination.

(If you’ll forgive me, two more asides: First, most people wrongly assume the villain was based on Rupert Murdoch. In truth, the role model was the British press magnate Robert Maxwell, which is hinted at near the end of film, when Judi Dench, as M, instructs Moneypenny to issue a press release stating that the villain died “falling overboard on his yacht,” echoing Maxwell’s demise. Aside No. 2: When I was writing the script, I simply couldn’t come up with a title. But driving to lunch one day, I heard the Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows” on the radio and thought, Hmmm…)

Anyway, as we went into production, the producers and the director (Roger Spottiswoode) couldn’t decide between Lies and Dies. After much debate, they finally picked Tomorrow Never Lies. They called in an assistant, dictated a fax, and she sent it off to MGM … with a single, one-letter typo—Dies instead of Lies. The rest is celluloid history.

Quantum of Solace, the movie, is scheduled to open worldwide in November. My bet is that it’s going to be a giant hit.

Discuss this news here...