“The name’s Bond, James Bond.” “What! My name is also Bond, James Bond, but from a different, sexier universe!” is almost certainly not dialogue that Black Bag director Steven Soderbergh would have chosen to add to his James Bond movies had he been given the reins to the spy franchise many years ago. Still, he had some ideas that would have at least made it possible.
“I had pitched in 2008 the idea to Barbara Broccoli of a parallel franchise,” Soderbergh revealed to The Playlist. “Set in the ’60s, R-rated, violent, sexy. Fictional backstory to real historical events, different actor, different universe.”
Soderbergh recalled wanting to make this Bond project on a low budget, which would have been an interesting approach given the franchise’s notable costs and showy action set pieces. Broccoli was intrigued by the idea, he said, but it didn’t get any traction, and though the auteur would get another chance to pitch a bigger budget Bond movie post-Skyfall, he couldn’t quite let go of his first idea.
“So, when I got back into the conversation [a few years] later, then I was pitching a twofer. Which was, ‘Yeah, I’ll do the contemporary extravaganza. But I also want to do the other one, after,’” he said, adding, “I was like, ‘I want to do both, I have ideas for both. But it’s all or nothing. You’ve either got to do both of them, you can’t have just one or the other,’ and I think that was just—that was a little aggressive.”