why did the Brosnan Bond films do so much better than the Dalton and most of the Moore ones?

[John Marston]

Is it because people were tiring of Bond at the time and the six year gap made people interested again?

[solaris]

Down to a number of reasons but my guess is that the Moore era films were beginning to be seen as something of a joke by the early to mid 80s. Too campy and Roger Moore was too ridiculous to be credible as Bond.

The Dalton films took a different tone, but coming so soon after the Moore films the franchise was still somewhat tainted.

The six year gap allowed the Bond franchise to mature from tired to 'heritage'. Audiences missed Bond, and GoldenEye was slickly produced and marketed to tap into that. It helps that GoldenEye was a pretty darn good film to boot. The other Brosnan Bonds traded off the back of this initial success.

[terrestrial]

Me, a faceblind woman does not care about that anyway, as I can not even comprehend what 'beautiful'... means about abother person, ...

I can remember about Dalton many women in my circle of friends, and co-workers.... then weren't that happy with Dalton's ... appearance (term?).

Not as masculine beautiful & cliche tough appearand... as they imagined Bond, something was off / not right for that.

A lot were also not happy about missing glitz (or whatever) elegance... they associate with Bond (appearance / behaviour... and some story details?).

No idea if that was a general oppinion, no idea if I remember all the little details they listed then.

I think nothing was a major point for itself, but more the sum, and I think it was more mentioned about the second movie that the first one.

 

I think the script writers / directors... adjusted the tone of the Bond scripts / movies a bit to Roger Moore fans a bit as he was so famous then for the earlier made TV-shows The Persuaders and also The Saint. Intentionally or not, no clue. After that there seem to be generally a change in the appearance (tone / style...) of action ladden movies, pace ideals and so on IMHO, maybe it is a mix out of many reasons?

[CJohn]

Because Brosnan is super awesome. 

[grim22]

As someone who recently watched all of the Bond movies, I think it comes down to the "fit" of the character for the era. Roger Moore's Bond descended into deep camp territory by the end of his run and was pretty much a joke. Dalton's Bond was basically Craig's Bond 20 years too early, Dalton's Bond would have made bank at the box office if the same movies were released in 2006 onwards when reboots and a darker tone came into vogue as opposed to the more optimistic tones of the 80s.

 

Brosnan's Bond is basically the perfect fit for that era. Brosnan's Bond movies went to extreme lengths to ensure that we know everyone survived with cutaways and reaction shots so audiences could feel better about the actions of the hero as well. 

 

Neither Moore nor Dalton had a movie remotely as good as Goldeneye. Goldeneye led to a major increase for Tomorrow Never Dies, which was not actually that bad which led to an increase for The World is Not Enough (replace Denise Richards, cut out a few one liners and this would definitely be considered a much better movie, the villain actually has a better defined motivation than most Bond villains). Die Another Day was promoted as the 20th Bond movie everywhere thanks to an omnipresent marketing campaign which led it to franchise best numbers.

 

Another smaller factor may also be that Brosnan became a star in his own right away from Bond as well when he was playing the character, something no Bond apart from Connery had achieved to that point, this brought a new audience to his Bond movies from people who liked him in other roles.

 

Basically a combination of the era, the fit and the expansion in markets and marketing campaigns led to the overall increase. Brosnan made Bond "cool" again.

Edited September 17, 2015 by grim22

[mulder42]

Brosnan was a better Bond.    Pierce had to wait the longest to get the job, because NBC wouldn't let him out of his contract with Remington Steele.  

[John Marston]

I really like Brosnan. Kind of sad his career seems to be in the shitter for some reason now. 

[Jawa]

As someone who recently watched all of the Bond movies, I think it comes down to the "fit" of the character for the era. Roger Moore's Bond descended into deep camp territory by the end of his run and was pretty much a joke. Dalton's Bond was basically Craig's Bond 20 years too early, Dalton's Bond would have made bank at the box office if the same movies were released in 2006 onwards when reboots and a darker tone came into vogue as opposed to the more optimistic tones of the 80s.

 

Brosnan's Bond is basically the perfect fit for that era. Brosnan's Bond movies went to extreme lengths to ensure that we know everyone survived with cutaways and reaction shots so audiences could feel better about the actions of the hero as well. 

 

Neither Moore nor Dalton had a movie remotely as good as Goldeneye. Goldeneye led to a major increase for Tomorrow Never Dies, which was not actually that bad which led to an increase for The World is Not Enough (replace Denise Richards, cut out a few one liners and this would definitely be considered a much better movie, the villain actually has a better defined motivation than most Bond villains). Die Another Day was promoted as the 20th Bond movie everywhere thanks to an omnipresent marketing campaign which led it to franchise best numbers.

 

Another smaller factor may also be that Brosnan became a star in his own right away from Bond as well when he was playing the character, something no Bond apart from Connery had achieved to that point, this brought a new audience to his Bond movies from people who liked him in other roles.

 

Basically a combination of the era, the fit and the expansion in markets and marketing campaigns led to the overall increase. Brosnan made Bond "cool" again.

 

Pretty much this, although I personally would consider License to Kill a top five Bond film.

[Accursed Arachnid!™]

Simple. The Moore films jumped the shark with Moonraker and after 14 years of Moore's comical version, people weren't ready for the gritty book based Bond Dalton tried his best to deliver(Craig eventually did bring us that Bond and people were now ready for him). Brosnan was a happy medium and was already famous for playing a Bond like character. For the Bond people were looking for at the time, he was perfect casting.

[ladyevenstar22]

he was hot , he looked the part to a T , wore the suit like the crop of english gentlemanship (even though he isn't english but british will do )

that accent , i repeat that accent SWOON!!!

 

sure he's gotten old but still has that seasoned look , i think he just doesnt feel the need to fight to stay on top , he did good in his heyday and capitalize with a memorable role , i dare say that's all any actor wants no? to be remembered ....

[Tubes]

Bond aged out pretty badly in the 80's.  Not against the film's quality, but the 80's films were like your parents trying to stay hip and with it after time and popularity had passed them.  I blame Moonraker obvious Star Wars cash grab (even though it was a huge success) and the never-ending sting of latching 80's trends to the Bond formula.  The same thing happened with the 70's films (blaxploitation, martial arts, and disco).

 

The 6 year gap created interest, the Soviet Union's collapse removed Bond's old enemies from the picture and created dangerous new ground, and Brosnan was an immensely popular choice.  Pair all that up with a good big budget action feature and Bond (and the 60's with it) was launched back into pop culture.

[Accursed Arachnid!™]

I think something that also can't be discounted is Ted Turner's impact. He got a hold of the TV rights and replayed(and replayed and replayed...) the Bond series on TBS(before it became the funny Turner channel) from the late 80s leading up to the release of GoldenEye. That kind of free publicity for the series and subsequent indoctrination of a whole new generation of Bond fans had to have a huge impact on the anticipation level for a new Bond series starting a guy who was obviously born to play the role.  

[Thegun]

Inflation really is the biggest factor here. I did a study on this a long time ago, and when you really compare budgets, Brosnan didn't really do that much better really outside of

Goldeneye, which as everyone said had 6 year wait, during the the effects age, a sizable budget increase, and the beginning of much stronger US marketing:

 

Title (Budget) WW Gross- Profit  (Using the basic studio gets 55% of gross then subtracting the shooting budget)

 

Live and Let Die (7) 161- 82 million

The Man With the Golden Gun (7) 97- 46 million

The Spy Who Loved Me (14) 185- 88 million

Moonraker (34) 210- 82 million

For Your Eyes Only (28) 195- 80 million

Octopussy (27) 184- 75 million

A View To a Kill (30) 152- 53 million

The Living Daylights (40) 192- 67 million

License to Kill (30) 156- 56 million

Goldeneye (60) 352- 133.6 million

Tomorrow Never Dies (110) 333- 73 million

The World is Not Enough (135) 361- 64 million

Die Another Day (145) 432- 92.6 million

 

Now granted these don't include tax incentives, or sponsors or how much they spent on marketing (Which Brosnan's films obviously were higher) But you take away Goldeneye, there all about 10% apart.  Connery and Craig are the ones that really lit the series on fire. But they all made money in the end.

 

 

[Maxmoser3]

Pierce Brosnan like Sean Connery attracted a woman audience(even more so in a way) thanks to his Remington Steele days. Also bond became more eventful in the 90's than ever before, as Moore and Dalton were being overshadowed by action stars in the 80's.

 

Like For Your Eyes Only, and Octopussy did fine against blockbusters such as Jedi or Superman II.

 

But A View To A Kill, couldn't even make close to half of Rambo: First Blood Part II. Living Daylights, was the first number one bond film since the 70's. But Lethal Weapon 1 or Predator or even The Untouchables were far more sucessful. 

 

Licence To Kill was overshadowed in the middle of the summer with Lethal Weapon 2, and Batman just coming out. So audiences were interested in those instead, and wanted to see something different. 

 

But Goldeneye, came out at a time when necessary. Audiences were wanting to see a new bond, marketing(even on the From Russia With Love special edition vhs) had a very good teaser. And putting it out in a then dead slate(Thanksgiving) was smart for MGM. 

[dudalb]

On ‎9‎/‎29‎/‎2015 at 2:26 AM, DeadArachnid!™ said:

Simple. The Moore films jumped the shark with Moonraker and after 14 years of Moore's comical version, people weren't ready for the gritty book based Bond Dalton tried his best to deliver(Craig eventually did bring us that Bond and people were now ready for him). Brosnan was a happy medium and was already famous for playing a Bond like character. For the Bond people were looking for at the time, he was perfect casting.

Pretty much this, except I think that For Your Eyes Only was probably Moore's best 007 film, and that came out after Moonraker. Brocolli felt they had carried the camp as far as they could go with Moonraker and needed to bring Bond back to earth with a more grounded, serious approach. They also felt that would keep costs down. Althugh Mooraker made a lot of money, it cost so much to make that it did cut into the profits. FYEO cost a lot less then Moonraker, and ended up making about the same in actual profit...making it a better return for investment,all important in any business.

But after FYEO, they got campy again, and ended up with View to a  Kill Imho the worst Bond film.

Brosnan got off to a great start with Goldeneye, but then ..and this is his own opinion....the quality of the scripts started to go downhill fast. And DAD was as campy and silly as any Moore film.

SO audiences were ready for the grittier, much closer to the original Bond in the books,take that Craign brought to it.

And Goldeneye and Casino Royale both had the same director..Martin Campbell.

He did a great job on both film, but he went on to try his hand at a comic book hero with Green Lantern.....well, we all know what happened.....