Prior to production beginning on Casino Royale, a second Bond film starring Craig was already in the works with a May 2008 release date. Roger Michell (Notting Hill) was announced as director in July 2006 but departed the project in October due to script delays. Purvis and Wade returned to write the screenplay, which was finished in June 2007. Picking up immediately after the events of Casino Royale, Quantum became the first Bond film to be a direct sequel. The film follows Bond as he seeks vengeance for the death of Vesper Lynd. He goes after the man he believes to be responsible, unearthing a covert crime syndicate known as Quantum. While infiltrating Quantum, he uncovers a plot to monopolize a major resource in the Middle East. Before we go any further, spoilers are possible.
Shortly after Purvis and Wade finished their draft, Marc Forster was announced as the director. Forster was surprised he was approached because he wasn’t a Bond fan and would have turned down the opportunity if he hadn’t been impressed with how Casino Royale humanized Bond. Considering Forster was best known for films like Monster’s Ball and Finding Neverland, I too think he was an odd choice. Forster was adamant about the film’s runtime. He felt the 144-minute Casino Royale was too long and wanted Quantum to be much shorter and “hit you like a speeding bullet.”
Michael G. Wilson, Forster, and Paul Haggis came together to rework the story. Haggis turned in his finished rewrite a mere two hours before the 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike went into effect. Purvis, Wade, Haggis, and any WGA members were not allowed to work on the script during the strike. Because of this, any on-set rewrites were facilitated by Forster and Daniel Craig. Craig himself later disowned the experience, revealing in a 2011 interview that he was not a writer. In November 2024, while promoting the film Queer, Craig went even further, telling the audience at a Chapman University press screening that Quantum was “a fucking nightmare… We probably should never have gone and started production, but we did.” The production, which unlike its predecessor used more visual effects, wrapped in June.
The film was released in the United States on November 14, 2008. Far from a box office failure, the film grossed $589.6 million on a budget of about $215 million. The reviews, however, were considerably lower than its predecessor. Quantum’s Rotten Tomatoes score was 63%, a full 31% lower than Casino’s 94%. Roger Moore, who was Craig’s biggest cheerleader on the previous film, once again praised Craig’s performance but criticized the film. He described it as “too much flash cutting” and “an advert for an action film.” Fans mostly agreed with the critics. I think the general consensus — or at least in my opinion — is that this is Daniel Craig’s worst Bond movie.
I already said that this is the worst Daniel Craig Bond movie in my opinion. Again, not having seen every film, I can’t say it’s the worst in the franchise, but for Craig, I definitely think it is. What makes it worse, I think, is that it’s coming off the heels of the extraordinary reinvention of Bond that was Casino Royale. I also believe there was a perfect storm of misfortune around the production. Producers and the studio were eager to get a sequel out — I understand that — but it feels rushed. Add to that they started filming without a solid screenplay, and a writers strike was underway, meaning your lead actor was doing all the rewriting on set, and you have a recipe for disaster. I mentioned it above: I think Marc Forster was an odd choice to direct. I watched Finding Neverland for the first time this year, and I definitely thought while watching this dull movie with a middling Johnny Depp performance that this director is the guy to take on Bond? I hope you were picking up on my sarcasm because, like David Spade says in Tommy Boy, “I was laying it on pretty thick.” That being said, the film did have a couple of memorable action set pieces, so he wasn’t completely inept as a director.
I do appreciate how Forster made an effort to speed up the pacing. That means the dud was over quicker. I think my biggest problem is that I couldn’t follow the film as it unfolded. I had to read the Wikipedia overview afterward, and I was still confused at some aspects of the film. Also, Mathieu Amalric as Dominic Greene is without a doubt the weakest and least intimidating villain of the Craig movies. Yes, the film explains what he’s capable of, but I just have a hard time suspending my disbelief that this man is an actual adversary for Bond. No disrespect to Olga Kurylenko, but she is the least memorable “Bond Girl” of the Craig era. If you lined up all of Bond’s love interests over Craig’s five films and put them in a lineup, I wouldn’t be able to identify her or tell you anything about her character. Since I ragged on a couple of actors, I need to make up for it by saying it was fun to see Judi Dench and Jeffrey Wright back in their roles as M and Felix, respectively. Wright, in particular, looks like he’s having a blast. Part of me has to wonder, though, what the film could have been like with a more appropriate director and a more comprehensive script.I give Quantum grace partially because it is hard to follow Casino Royale, but partially because out of the ashes of Quantum rises Skyfall.
