Spectre (2015)
- The original script for Spectre was written over a decade before production finally began in 2015.
- Before Daniel Craig was cast, several major A-list stars turned down the lead role because they felt the script was too risky.
- Many of the practical effects used in the climax were achieved without any CGI.
Spectre is a 2015 British spy film directed by Sam Mendes, the 24th official James Bond film and the second directed by Mendes following Skyfall. Daniel Craig returns as Bond, who discovers a cryptic message from the past that leads him to a shadowy criminal organization called Spectre, headed by Ernst Stavro Blofeld, played by Christoph Waltz — Bond's adoptive brother who has orchestrated the events of all three previous Craig-era Bond films from behind the scenes. Meanwhile, the new M, played by Ralph Fiennes, battles a political initiative to merge MI5 and MI6 into a joint intelligence service run by Max Denbigh, played by Andrew Scott, whose proposed global surveillance network called Nine Eyes has sinister connections to Spectre.
Spectre faced the enormous challenge of following Skyfall, one of the most acclaimed and commercially successful Bond films in history. Sam Mendes created the franchise's most expensive opening sequence — a stunning four-minute continuous shot tracking Bond through a Day of the Dead parade in Mexico City, across rooftops, and into a helicopter fight above the crowded Zócalo — that cost over $30 million alone. The film's central revelation connecting Craig's four Bond films into a single overarching narrative was ambitious but divisive, with some fans appreciating the serialized storytelling while others felt it diminished the standalone quality of the earlier films.
Spectre earned $880 million worldwide.
