From Aston Martin to Z3: A Chat With Bond Car Builder Chris Corbould

James Bond is dead—for now, at least, as the long-running spy movie franchise has retired Daniel Craig from the role after five movies and 15 years. Moreover, the producers repeatedly keep denying that any development work on "reinventing" the character for a new actor has started yet. But that doesn't mean Eon Productions, the family-run company that's owned the rights to (most of) the Bond movies since the early 1960s, isn't doing anything; there's ongoing development work on an exciting new James Bond video game from IO Interactive, the game studio behind the iconic Hitman franchise.

And then there's this: Amazon Prime's all-new James Bond inspired reality show called "007: Road to a Million", and we were invited to experience the first episode and interview some of the talent behind the movies, including Oscar-winning SFX supervisor Chris Corbould. Here's what to expect from the new show, the future of the Bond franchise, and the future of car chases and vehicles on the big screen.

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James Bond and Aston Martin

The "007: Road to a Million" New York City premier was hosted at Aston Martin's Q showroom on Park Avenue in Manhattan, with a slightly damaged, screen-used DB5 from the opening car chase of Daniel Craig's final 007 adventureNo Time To Die, the 25th and latest official Eon Productions Bond movie released in 2021 (after two years of Covid-19 delays pushed back the initial release date). To suit the needs of that movie's opening action sequence, filmmakers realized they could neither afford nor realistically even source the eight original DB5 cars that movie production would require to make the stunts in the scene work, so Aston Martin skunkworks developed a DB5 shell that could slot over a more modern vehicle chassis for stunts.

(Aston would never admit to it, but the word on the ground when I drove one around the movie's release was that it's essentially an E36 BMW chassis with a carbon fiber DB5 body—one of the lightest, snap-happy, and dangerous-feeling cars this writer has ever driven.) Nobody will talk about who paid for what between the movie producers and the automaker, nor at what cost, but it's undoubtedly double-digit millions for a few minutes of action you could only get from a gadget-laden Bond car developed by SFX supervisor Chris Corbould.

Such is the nature of the working relationship Eon Productions has shared with Aston Martin over nearly the entire lifetime of the film franchise, with the DB5's first appearance in 1964'sGoldfinger, the third Eon Bond movie that shot the franchise to super-stardom, record ticket sales, and the "Bondmania" of the 1960s. Filmmakers were likely inspired by Bond driving an Aston Martin DB Mk. III in Ian Fleming's originalGoldfingernovel. The DB5 has since appeared in eight Bond movies, though only used for action in three of them. Including the DB5, V8 coupe and Volante, Vanquish, DBS, DB10 (Vantage), DBS Superleggera, and Valhalla, Aston Martin vehicles have appeared in 13 Bond movies total.

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Interview with Oscar-Winning SFX Supervisor Chris Corbould

We were afforded a chance to sit down with Chris Corbould, an Oscar-winning special effects supervisor on dozens of blockbuster Hollywood projects (with an Order of the British Empire to cap it off). Corbould also has happened to be a part of the Bond movie franchise behind the scenes in some capacity for 15 movies, starting with 1977'sThe Spy Who Loved Me. He began work as the lead SFX supervisor on Bond movies starting with 1995'sGoldenEye, in which he came up with and masterminded the now-iconic tank chase through the streets of St. Petersburg, Russia right after the collapse of the Soviet Union. If you remember the gadgets on Bond's BMWs, the Guinness record-setting Aston Martin DBS flip inCasino Royale, or the DB5 machine guns shredding chasing Alfas on the streets of Matera, Italy, it was under the guiding eye of this genius. While Corbould was not directly involved in the new Amazon show, it is inspired by his work on the big screen. We had a few minutes to chat with him about various Bond and filmmaking topics.

MT: Where do you go for inspiration on new action sequences? Stuff you seen on social media these days?

CC: "I try not to be swayed by anything I've seen anywhere else. When I started on the Batman franchise with Christopher Nolan, I'd never watched a Batman movie before, so I deliberately didn't do it because I think subconsciously you get swayed by what you've seen before. When we didGoldenEye,I got called into the office to make a motorbike chase better. I'll tell you how to make it better: there's been 10 motorbike chases in the last few years—get rid of it. It starts in a military park, why doesn't Bond steal a tank? And the whole sequence came out of that conversation. That was a prime example: a car can easily outrun a tank, but a tank can go through things like buildings. The car goes around but the tank plows through. We had a lot of fun with it." (For the record, production rebuilt entire blocks of the city on a backlot in England for most of the actual damage to occur.)

CC: "I'd like to see vehicles in a car chase that are not where you'd expect to see them. It can be a Formula 1 car going through the streets of London, that's where you get the originality from. Just seeing another car chase doesn't do it for me. The [No Time To Die] chase in Matera, I was thrilled when they said [the DB5] was going to be in full combat mode. We did a little bit of gun firing inSkyfall, and then it goes right back toThunderballfor it to do anything exciting. We had so many gadgets being dreamt up. We decided to deliberately reign it back a bit to better fulfill the emotion of the moment between Bond and Madeleine in the car."

Corbould mentioned in a previous roundtable that the original Matera chase involved the almost comically indestructible DB5 crashing through multiple restaurants, living rooms, and structures, but eventually Aston and the budget cut things back, to his slight disappointment.

MT: How do you nurture a good story but also ensure you're getting those big "trailer moments" when developing action scenes for a Bond movie?

CC: "For me personally, the storyline and the characters are the most important thing. I know we do wild and wonderful things, but it still has to keep the storyline and characters. The location will also dictate the action scene once you show up. Matera lended itself with narrow streets, the ravine at the bottom, it jumped out. I went out there 17 or 18 times scouting—this could happen here, this could happen there—and we settle on the final scene."

MT: What's it like, in a leadership role, making sure everyone is safe around your potentially dangerous work?

CC: "It's all down to extensive testing of everything that goes on set. The big explosion that we did out in Morocco [for 2015'sSpectre], we did individual tests for three months, finding out how far the heat will come out, the spread, and not just for explosions but for everything. If there's a gadget, or a sinking house (likeCasino Royale's explosive finale), we were rehearsing for four weeks before we let anyone on set, almost trying to break it. For vehicles, we hand it over to stunts and they literally try to break it. They need to feel confident that this vehicle in this setup will do anything they want it to do. Sometimes they break it and we learn from it. It's a collaboration, they're driving something we've modified."

CC: "The classic one was the battle on the ice lake in 2002'sDie Another Day[between Bond's Aston Martin "Vanish" Vanquish and henchman Zao's Jaguar XKR]. First of all, when we found out it was on an ice lake, I immediately said we need four-wheel drive. I went to Aston Martin and Jaguar, and both said, 'Well, we haven't got four-wheel drive.' My SFX workshop modified four of each car with a transfer box. So we made the only four-wheel drive versions of those cars at the time, the first stage of safety for the drivers. Second stage, after having done 1987'sThe Living Daylightson a frozen lake previously, I always felt nervous that if the car went through the ice, there was nothing stopping it. So onDie Another Day, on all the cars that went out on the ice, we had automatic inflation bags equipped, so if it did come into contact with water, it would automatically come to the surface. We were drifting, driving fast, doing explosions."

MT: For someone in your filmmaking position, does modern electric vehicle technology afford any new opportunities?

CC: "I don't think the whole 'electric car chase' concept has been really explored on screen. It will happen, but unfortunately, the sound of an EV is not as an exciting as a V-8. For stunts, I don't know what advantage an EV would give us. The first thing we do with new cars is turn off most of the safety features for stunts; you don't want ABS, we put in a manual handbrake, especially for [No Time To Diestunt driver] Mark Higgins. The handbrake on a modern car just doesn't work for it."

MT: So we might see the opposite? A gas, manual, analog stunt car emulating an EV on screen to get the driving dynamics the stunt team wants?

CC: "Yeah. It will come relatively shortly where we'll have a big EV car chase. But I don't know. I can't get into Formula E. It's ... weird."

In the earlier roundtable interview, Corbould had offered that he didn't have a clear vision for the future of the car chase on screen, as it feels played out. He questioned how to find a new approach to some skids around a corner, the point where cars make contact, you can only do so much, and he finds that car chases usually stretch on too long. But he also seems confident that it can and will be done, as franchises like Bond always find new ways to top themselves.

MT: Is there potential for motorsport in a Bond movie?

CC: "Yeah, I think so. Certainly. It's a very exciting venue to have a chase. Is Bond in one of the cars, the baddie in a car, and it all kicks off amongst the race, they're having this battle? Could be fun."

MT: You usually design a car to fit a scene's needs. Could you design a scene around an existing car's capabilities?

CC: "In an early script, in the Danny Boyle days [ofNo Time To Diepre-production], there was a very high speed chase using the Aston Martin Valhalla. It would go into a tunnel, right way around [upside down and back], and I got into long conversations with [Aston designer Marek Reichman] over whether this is possible. Technically it would be possible, the way the car is being sucked to the ground by aerodynamics. But how we would have shot it, I have no idea, because you'd need a camera car going just as fast to capture it. We explored it, but it never really got traction."

MT: What's next for you?

CC: "I've put the special effects on hold for awhile now. I bought the rights to a book, I've just finished the script. It's based on the true life book of two guys that get kidnapped in Colombia. Next year I should be getting back to direct that myself. That's my plan at the moment."

MT: You've already done second unit work directing parts of Bond movies, right?

CC: "Well I actually shot the whole ending of 2012'sSkyfall, the helicopter attack on [Bond's] house. I was called in to see [director] Sam Mendes and Barbara and Michael and they said, 'well, we've got this naff ending,' and I came up with the ending of the helicopter attacking the house. Sam had me go and pre-visualize it, and then he asked me to shoot it. He gave me free reign with blowing the DB5 and the house up, and that was fun."

007: Road to a Million Now Streaming on Amazon Prime

Despite what some press materials have touted, Amazon Prime's new "007: Road to a Million" project is not actually the first James Bond television production, as there was a "James Bond Jr." animated series in the 1990s. Regardless, this is certainly the first live-action reality series for the franchise, and apparently not the first one that's been pitched to the Eon producers. Producer Barbara Broccoli, at a roundtable interview after premier of the first episode of the series, said that they'd been pitched shows about strong people performing dangerous challenges that the producers were never really comfortable with.

The new show started life as a separate project of show director Julian Jones, who eventually pitched Amazon the concept of a "Bond-inspired" reality show, where Amazon then told him to just ask the "Bond people" directly. The show's approach of taking everyday people and putting them in extreme Bond-like scenarios in beautiful glamorous global locations seemed like the right approach to both celebrate and expand the Bond franchise, so Eon gave it the green light and Barbara Broccoli (daughter of Eon's founder Albert "Cubby" Broccoli, who started the Bond movie franchise with coproducer Harry Saltzman), her step-brother Michael G. Wilson (also Cubby's son and a Bond producer, and also a Bond writer on many movies), and his son Gregg Wilson came on the show as producers bringing the "007" branding.

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The series of eight hour-long episodes follows nine pairs of people as they search for hidden cases in precarious locations (like the top of a gondola, or the top of a crane, or in a pit of snakes, etc. ), which then presents them with a history question. If they get it correct, they get a cash reward and move on to the next challenge. Cash rewards increase as the show goes on, and the physical challenges and questions get harder. The first episode I watched did have hints of Bond with a few Easter eggs, but most of the contestants are not Bond fans, the questions are not Bond-related, and the spy franchise feels more like background set dressing for an otherwise standard reality show adventure format. The show is more of a chance for everyday people to get a Bond moment for themselves, whether it's driving through a gate in a truck, or scaling a high wire hundreds of feet in the air, etc. and the entertainment is seeing them break through their own barriers to pull it off with someone they love.

Director Julian Jones promises the Bond influence gets stronger as the series progresses, including gadgets, cars, locations, and more. The preview we were shown for the second episode was far more humorous and tense than the first episode, so perhaps give this one more than the first hour before making up your mind. It's great family fare, perhaps for introducing younger ones to the glamour and adventure of the Bond world without having to show them the action movies just yet. It's not a show designed for franchise fans, but instead to bring in new audiences who may be looking for that sense of escapism "after the lockdown of Covid-19," noted Barbara Broccoli.

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The Future of the James Bond Franchise

While casting has already been announced for a second season of "007: Road to a Million," the showrunners say it isn't guaranteed, but they're excited to meet potential contestants. As for lessons learned from the first season, expect the next installment to feature more Bond flavor, and hopefully greater stakes and drama; it might also be interesting to get more background on the contestants lives before the show, to see how adventure and money could change their lives. The show could also use some bespoke music for each episode, which could give the challenges and locations more of that "Bond" feeling; they brought back film composer David Arnold for fresh title and credit music, but should have asked for more.

As for the 26th Bond movie, there's no official sign that any work has started. It's likely Eon Productions will start with writers (it's been previously reported that franchise regulars Neil Purvis and Robert Wade may be working on a script pitch already), then bring in a director, who will then help cast the next lead Bond actor. Pre-production is typically marked by the establishment of a new "company" typically titled after the numbered installment in the franchise, so as soon as we see "Bond 26" or "B26" registered by one of the film's financiers, we should expect things to get moving. Eon's producers don't seem to be in any rush. I wouldn't be surprised if we get news of a second TV series before any official confirmation of a new Bond movie project.

All things considered, whether or not there's a second series, and whenever the movies get back off the ground again, Aston Martin seems firmly established as the primary automaker for the franchise going forward. Sorry, BMW, Lotus, and Bentley; Bond's moved on.