Movie Pitch—
True Lies 2 (2007):
A Proposal for Pierce Brosnan and James Cameron
Last fall, the producers of
James Bond said they were replacing Pierce Brosnan.
What if Pierce Brosnan now decided to
replace the producers of
James Bond in 2007?
True Lies is the ultimate 007
take-off. Released in 1994, it's an arguably better "Bond" film than
"true-Bond"
GoldenEye from the following year. It wasn't until Tomorrow
Never Dies that filmmakers would get out of Brosnan's way and let
him catapult their franchise into the New Millennium.
Now those same producers say it's
time to retire their man from secret agent duty.
I disagree.
Rather, they've given us the perfect
sendoff for an ideal, long-overdue sequel to True Lies — with
Pierce Brosnan in the lead role. Let's face it, the meta-lie of the
original premise was "all but James Bond himself." Now, True Lies 2
can take its story line to the next level by bringing in "Bond" this
time. (We'll say "he's not," of course, wink-wink, just like we
did through every twist and turn with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the
original.)
James Cameron is the only man to helm
True Lies 2 to reality, of course. He knows how to create sequels
that stand on their own and build up from originals. And he proved with
Schwarzenegger in their 1994 installment that he can perfectly blend the
special abilities that a Brosnan has for both "light" and "lethal" in
one believable, empathetic character.
Brosnan isn't Harry Tasker, of
course. Wouldn't want him to try to be. There's so much more opportunity
here for him as another Omega Sector operative.
As a matter of fact, I'd play the who
"lie to your marital partner" thing with Pierce Brosnan as a tenured spy
who freely indulges himself in the "opportunities" that Harry Tasker
could not: As a confirmed bachelor. (Brosnan wanted a "steamier" Bond;
Cameron proved he knows "steamy" via Jamie Lee Curtis in the first
True Lies — can you imagine what we could get in a True Lies 2,
pairing Bronsnan with a similarly, um, "talented" female counterpart?)
True Lies 2 could launch from the point of view of a Brosnan
fiancée, wondering if she can trust him. And to whom does she vet her
pre-nuptial questions? Who better than Helen Tasker (again, Curtis) now
a dozen years seasoned, herself, in the field.
A brief bit of dialogue pairs Brosnan
with Tom Arnold in the major supporting role he was born into. "You
spend twenty years with a guy, waitin' for him in th evan, you think you
know him. Suddenly he runs for governor of some big state in a special
election and he's gone. That's not gratitude. Is that gratitude? That's
not how I'd show gratitude."
The only quip he'd need to transition
from Schwarzenegger to Brosnan.
I'm not invested in any particular
plot line, nor do I have any interests in pitching a script. But while
I'm on an advocacy role here, I have one more
James Bond bombshell to suggest. Inspiring me as it does from
that first scene in True Lies, where Schwarzenegger emerges from
the water surrounding his target's estate a'la Sean Connery in
Goldfinger.
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