Bond 24 - The Poison Chalice
Why Sam Mendes passed on Bond 24. Plus a potential short list of successors (Massive spoilers for Skyfall , obviously.) Even with the best will in the world, I don't think EON producers Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli would've predicted the extent of Skyfall 's success. The previous two outings took $586 million and $599 million at the box office, but Skyfall 's $1.1 billion makes it the 3rd largest gross for a non 3D film (behind Return Of The King and Titanic's initial 1997 release). Therefore, it's entirely understandable why everybody wanted Skyfall director Sam Mendes back on board. The problem is, Skyfall has left the franchise in a somewhat precarious position. With Skyfall , Mendes got to do things no other Bond director has done. He got to kill off M, bring old characters back into the series and with the 50th anniversary falling in the same year; he got to explore whether Bond's old fashioned approach still had a place in the 21st c...