WT About time for Richard Curtis Danny Boyle comedy

What a waste of a decent director...
It's been confirmed today that Danny Boyle is directing the next Bond, to be distributed outside the US (MGM) by Universal (a change from Sony), but it's thought he'll wrap the Curtis-penned comedy first.

As High Grant has declared he'll never consider another rom-com role, wanting only serious parts, it won't be a new entry in the $billion Grant/Curtis partnership (and surely the involvement of those 2 would have seen BJBaby do much better). Still not seeing any detail on this, but Boyle and Curtis are already prime marketing factors before cast or any possible IP are considered.

http://variety.com/2018/film/news/universal-danny-boyle-richard-curtis-1202713807/

James Bond: Danny Boyle and Daniel Craig confirmed for 007's 25th outing

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/25/james-bond-danny-boyle-and-daniel-craig-confirmed-for-007s-25th-outing?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

UK films in thrall to upper classes? Kingsman eg

In a colourful review, replete with some strong language, the central theme is:

The film gives international audiences what they expect from Britain – a nice bit of posh – while also titillating natives with convincing oik detail. 

(League of gentlemen: Kingsman and Britain’s posh-boy spies)

The film is summed up thus:

In Kingsman: The Secret Service, out next month, a tasty little herbert called Eggsy from a London sink estate is recruited by the impeccably soigné, lah-di-dah spook Harry Hart, played by Colin Firth. Hart detects that Eggsy has the right stuff, the true Brit if you will, to transcend his oikish upbringing and become One Of Us. Now if Eggsy, played by Taron Egerton, can survive the training course in which he is pitted against a bunch of stuckup, over-entitled Oxbridge ponces (plus the token bit of hottie posh whose snobby froideur melts at our hero’s bit-of-rough charms), then he can become a Kingsman.

Sounds rather like the M.O. of Working Title ... but is primarily a 20CFox produced and distributed film (with TSG and Marv).

WHY do film-makers keep insisting on this narrow, ultra-clichéd stereotypical representation of 'Britain'? Simple really: because it is so familiar, it is easier to market. Furthermore, whilst often used within US-set films as characteristics of a villain, the posh Southern English chap/dame is at the same time an aspirational (cf. the 'uses and gratifications theory', explained in this post; the aspirational point could be applied to the 'personal identity' category) figure for many ... not least many in the US audience who might condemn a class system in the USA but simultaneously perceive the same thing in a 'British' context as glamorous and appealing.

The major brands who have paid $100m+ for product placements in the most recent Bond movies clearly perceive this to be true! (See Telegraph gallery, Guardian analysis, etc!)