James Bond reached an awkward age. Fifty years old, still in good shape, but beginning to make strange noises when getting out of an Aston Martin. The franchise had survived the Cold War, disco, Roger Moore in safari suits, submarine cars, and whatever the hell happened in Die Another Day. Then Casino Royale arrived and rebooted Bond with bruises, emotional damage, and a willingness to hit people with things he found lying around. Quantum of Solace followed.
After Quantum of Solace, producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson faced a variety of challenges for the follow-up. The direct sequel to Casino Royale, finishing the story of Bond’s vengeance for Vesper Lynd, had production issues due to a Writer’s Guild strike. It received mixed reviews compared to its predecessor. Where to go from there, now that the storyline was finished, and critics were looking for blood?
Skyfall – Behind The Scenes
Development for Bond 23 began in 2009, with Peter Morgan working on an early script. MGM filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2010, which halted development. By early 2011, Eon and MGM got back on the beam and set a firm release date for November 2012, later adjusted. The gap between Quantum of Solace and Skyfall ended up four years, one of the longer gaps in the modern era.
Eon wanted to evolve the series for its 50th anniversary and address criticisms of Quantum of Solace. They shifted toward a more character-driven, emotional story that recognized Bond’s heritage and reintroduced elements like Q and Moneypenny.
Themes like aging, loyalty, loss and origins wove through a screenplay by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and John Logan. The title Skyfall (referring to Bond’s childhood home) was announced in late 2011.
The film deliberately created a jump in time from Quantum of Solace (according to Bond-lore, more than six years) to portray a world-weary Bond who had been through many off-screen missions that took their toll on him mentally and physically.
The Director
Sam Mendes became the director of Skyfall thanks to a casual, alcohol-fueled suggestion from Daniel Craig, combined with Mendes’ prior relationship with the star and the producers’ openness to a fresh, character-focused approach.
Mendes and Craig worked together on Road to Perdition (2002). This established a professional rapport. Shortly after Quantum of Solace, at a Christmas party hosted by Hugh Jackman, a tipsy Craig ran into Mendes. When Mendes asked about the next Bond film, Craig spontaneously offered him the directing job: “Why don’t you do it?”
The next day, a sobered-up Craig called producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson to explain, “I think I might have offered Sam Mendes the next movie.”
Mendes was initially reluctant. The idea of a big franchise blockbuster had little appeal. However, he didn’t dismiss it outright because of his respect for Craig and enthusiasm for what Craig brought to the role in Casino Royale. He saw potential to make something personal.
Eventually, Mendes met with Broccoli and Wilson. They were collaborative and made it clear they wanted his vision of a Bond film, not a formulaic one. He signed on and stayed involved as a consultant even during the MGM bankruptcy delay.
Mendes brought a theater and drama background. He was an Oscar winner for American Beauty, which suited Skyfall’s emphasis on character, emotion, Bond’s psychology, and the 50th-anniversary themes. He brought on writer John Logan and reintroduced classic elements like Q and Moneypenny while giving the film a cinematic, auteur touch. The result was a critical and commercial triumph that revitalized the franchise.
Casting
The next step was creating a worthy Bond foil. Javier Bardem was cast as Raoul Silva, the flamboyant, cyberterrorist villain.
Bardem was a highly sought-after choice due to his Oscar-winning performance as the chilling Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men. He initially turned down the role. He was reluctant to play yet another villain and had concerns about joining a big franchise film.
Mendes believed Silva needed to be more than a standard Bond baddie. He wanted a complex, theatrical character who could mirror Bond’s pain, trauma, and intensity. Mendes personally flew to Spain to meet Bardem and pitch his vision directly. He emphasized that Silva wasn’t “just a villain” but someone who shared Bond’s emotional depth and backstory as a former MI6 agent abandoned by M. This personal touch convinced Bardem to sign on.
Once cast, Bardem showed strong dedication. He had the script translated into Spanish to fully connect with the character. Bardem also dyed his hair blond and collaborated on Silva’s distinctive, almost androgynous look, which helped make the character visually iconic and unsettling.
This casting choice paid off for critics, who cite Bardem’s unhinged performance as one of the standout elements.
Believe it or not, Bond legend Sean Connery was even approached by the Bond team for a return to the franchise. Producers openly courted him for the role of Kincade, Skyfall Lodge’s gamekeeper. They thought it would be a great way to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the character. Alas, Connery insisted he was still very much retired after The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
The Women
Skyfall went in a slightly different direction with the female roles. Although it featured two female characters, there is no traditional Bond girl this time around. The argument has been made that if there is a lead female in this movie, it is Judi Dench’s M.
Casting focused on strong actresses who could bring depth, with Mendes and casting director Debbie McWilliams involved.
Naomie Harris was cast as a field agent named Eve, with her true identity as the iconic Miss Moneypenny kept under wraps until release. Mendes and McWilliams spotted her in a theatrical production and asked her to audition. Her prior work, including 28 Days Later and Pirates of the Caribbean, showed she could handle action and drama. Harris is the first Black actress to play Moneypenny and the first given a first name.
Bérénice Marlohe, a French actress, actively pursued the role of Sévérine. After hearing about the Paris casting call, she contacted Mendes via Facebook and emailed her acting reel to Debbie McWilliams. She auditioned twice. Marlohe described Sévérine as “glamorous and enigmatic,” drawing inspiration from Xenia Onatopp (GoldenEye). She portrayed a tragic figure: a former sex slave now working for Silva.
Other actresses were rumored for both parts, such as Freida Pinto, Olivia Wilde, and Rachel Weisz, but Harris and Marlohe were selected for their ability to fit the film’s more character-driven, emotionally resonant tone.
Locations
Skyfall featured a mix of international and UK locations. It included practical shoots in Turkey, Shanghai, and Scotland, plus extensive work in and around London. Many interiors were filmed at Pinewood Studios.
The pre-title sequence was shot in Istanbul, including Eminönü Square. The dramatic train fight on the viaduct used the Varda Viaduct, near Adana in southern Turkey.
Shooting occurred in Shanghai, but the bulk of the scenes set there, including the skyscraper where Bond fights Patrice, were largely shot in the UK with Broadgate Tower standing in for a Shanghai skyscraper, and Royal Ascot’s grandstand concourse doubling as Shanghai airport.
Hashima Island in Japan influenced the abandoned island look, though it was recreated on a backlot at Pinewood.
London is heavily featured, reflecting the story’s MI6 focus, with locations including Whitehall, Parliament Square, Westminster Bridge, and various other government buildings.
National Gallery hosted a night shoot for Bond and Q’s meeting, while St Bartholomew’s Hospital and the Old Vic Tunnels under Waterloo stood in for the MI6 underground HQ and training areas. Smithfield Market car park, Charing Cross, Tower Hill, and Cadogan Square (for M’s home), all featured. The rooftop scene at the end was shot from the roof of the Department of Energy and Climate Change.
Bonds Of Home
The Highlands climax, set at Bond’s childhood home of Skyfall lodge was shot across several locations. Exterior driving scenes with the Aston Martin DB5 were filmed around Glencoe and Glen Etive, including roads near Buachaille Etive Mòr and Buachaille Etive Beag. These provided the dramatic landscapes, lochs, and mountains that made the moody backdrop for Bond and M’s journey north.
The actual Skyfall house, including the outbuildings and chapel, were built as large sets on Hankley Common in Elstead, Surrey. This was on Ministry of Defense land, allowing the huge explosion at the climax that would have been difficult to stage in public spaces in Scotland.
Skyfall featured a high degree of practical stunt work, with Daniel Craig performing many of his own stunts under stunt coordinator Gary Powell. Craig received several serious injuries in the course of this.
Craig performed the London Underground elevator dive and slide himself, and worked with Ola Rapace, as Patrice, on the sequence that required a fight on top of a real moving train traveling at 50 kph. Stuntman Andy Lister performed the high fall from the bridge, around 300 feet up.
The other major contribution to the unique feel of Skyfall is the cinematography by Roger Deakins, with Bond’s arrival at the Macau casino and the skyscraper fight being stand out sequences.
For the theme song, the producers wanted something classic, that harkened back to the classic themes in the series. Adele delivered exactly that. Working with Paul Epworth, she created a song that deliberately echoed the grand orchestral style of early Bond. The recording process was kept relatively secret. When the song was released, it became an immediate hit and eventually won the Academy Award for Best Original Song.
Outcome and Legacy
Skyfall was a massive critical and commercial success. It made over $1.1 billion worldwide and was credited with cementing Craig’s place as the most critically acclaimed Bond. It remains the highest-grossing James Bond film of all time at the time, and was the second-highest-grossing film of 2012, beaten only by The Avengers.
Skyfall still sits at 92% on Rotten Tomatoes, and 81/100 on Metacritic. Alongside the Academy Award for Best Original Song, it also won another for Best Sound Editing. It was nominated for another five.
It won numerous BAFTAs, including Best British Film, and was also endowed with several Critics’ Choice Awards.
Building on the approach laid out across Casino Royale and Quantum Of Solace, it leaned even further into the more vulnerable, world-weary 007 and opened the door to a more auteur-driven, cinematic style in the franchise, with acceptance of themes like legacy, loyalty, aging, and technology vs. tradition.
Adele’s theme has become a karaoke favorite, and a modern Bond theme benchmark, while the Britain-centric nature of the movie reinforced Bond’s status as a British cultural export.
Skyfall is often seen as the peak of the Daniel Craig era and a high-water mark for the modern Bond films. Commercially dominant, and an artistically ambitious entry that proved the franchise could be both blockbuster entertainment and prestige cinema at the same time.
Many fans and critics still consider it one of the best (if not the best) 21st-century Bond movies.
Do You Expect Us To Talk?
Stark: So here we are. A Bond movie that was a genuine phenomenon at the time, but one that it has become somewhat fashionable to rag on. I think this is because Skyfall goes full, full, full “Craig-Bond” so people who want Roger Moore and his double-taking pigeons back are almost pre-programmed to hate it.
Wrenage: I am one of those people. I genuinely loathed Skyfall upon release. I have not watched it in probably 12 years. I am curious to see if time has lent perspective and warmed my cold, dead heart.
Ranking And Rating
Let’s get to the ratings and rankings. Wrenage and Stark will give their opinions on the Bondian elements found in Skyfall and come up with a score and ranking to place them appropriately in their league table of all things Bond.
Bond
Stark: I think you would struggle to find anything wrong with Craig and his performance again, not a foot wrong. This just gives more credence to the theory that some fans simply don’t like the idea of a more human Bond, who thinks, feels, bleeds and, in the books, has a lot of introspection and internal monologue. Craig is the avatar for that Bond.
Wrenage: Upon this rewatch, I do not have much to complain about regarding Craig. He is generally in the pocket as a disillusioned, broken Bond who pulls himself up by his bootstraps to kill again.
And yet… and yet, I can never forgive Craig for implying Bond dabbled with the gay — either jokingly, seriously or to mess with the villain psychologically — during that horrible scene where Silva runs his fingers over Bond’s chest. It’s icky, and it feels like Craig stops playing Bond at that point and starts playing himself.
Stark: Bond went to two private schools (Eton – expelled – and Fettes) plus he was in the Navy. Institutions that, frequently for comedic effect, would be linked to homosexuality. What was it Churchill said about the Navy and “rum, sodomy, and the lash”? I think it is Silva attempting to un-nerve Bond, and Bond completely disarming him with one comment.
Wrenage: Somewhere, Rachel Weisz tries to convince herself of that. Oh well, a Bond scene I did enjoy was the word association test. “Murder.” “Employment.” That was a good one! That’s when Craig is at this best.
Stark: Particularly his initial demeanour, seeing it all as a game and having had enough of this shit for one day, to genuine annoyance at when they bring his childhood into it to provoke a reaction.
Bond Girls
Stark: As we said in the behind the scenes section, this movie kinda cheats in that it doesn’t really have a “Bond Girl”, and the female lead is really Judi Dench as M. Eve is revealed as Moneypenny, and leaves the field to spend the rest of her days filing. Sévérine is shot by Silva within five minutes of having a go on Bond, and this just leaves M… until the end.
Wrenage: This one has a severe lack of Bond girls, yes. Berenice as Severine is good in the little screentime she has. She gives off an intriguing weird vibe when she smiles while under emotional pressure. One gets the sense her character is genuinely unhappily trapped in her situation in a way Maude Adams did not achieve in The Man With The Golden Gun. Berenice could have made a better Moneypenny than Harris. Harris never settled into that character in a satisfactory way. In every scene, she gives off too much of a “Aren’t I the clever one?” vibe.
It is interesting. There have been numerous Bonds, and they’ve all laid claim to the role in someway. There have been numerous Felix Leiters that worked. Yet, Lois Maxwell still remains the definitive version of Moneypenny.
Stark: Poor Caroline Bliss (from Dalton’s run) never really got a chance. I think she understood the assignment. Moneypenny can be adversarial, but in a flirtatious way that shows she genuinely does have Bond’s back and really is pining for him. I think Moneypenny also needs to be the one person who gets behind M’s gruff exterior to occasionally glimpse a man who knows he couldn’t cope without her efficiency. Building blocks this version doesn’t really get a chance to have, given just 3 movies and 2 different M’s.
Wrenage: Caroline was solid. I would have liked to see her continue into the Brosnan era. Samatha Bond gave off too much of a Mary Poppins vibe.
Stark: Bliss always looked like she was one glasses removal and hair shake from going full bombshell.
Villains
Stark: Cyber-terrorism was a hot-topic back then, and tying the past of the villain into M was a good way of getting through the required story beats without making it simply a re-run of Bond vs 006 from GoldenEye. I liked how Silva keeps on insisting on comparing himself to Bond, but Bond is almost dismissive of it.
Wrenage: While I have no major complaints about Craig (save the one), Silva is a different story. As soon as Bardem shows up, he sucks all the air out of the movie. His choice (or Mendes’s choice) to play the villain so feminine is a chore to watch. If Bardem would have played it straight (pun intended), it would have helped the movie dramatically. On the other hand, is this the last time a homosexual was portrayed in a negative way in a major motion picture?
Stark: Is he homosexual, or just completely open to swinging both ways? Or is he just in that Bond villain tradition of being camp?
Wrenage: I genuinely don’t know what Bardem is thinking at times. His performance is so perpendicular to the rest of the film that he kills the movie whenever he is onscreen. For example, there is a moment in the climax where Bond falls through the ice of a frozen pond, and the camera cuts to Bardem having a reaction that is so clumsy I can’t believe it made the final cut.
I imagine someone like Gary Oldman inhabiting this role and channeling his character from The Professional and can’t help but think such a thing would have helped Skyfall tremendously. Sure, it would have been more cliche, but cliche is cliche because it works.
Stark: Now you mention it, Oldman really does feel like he should have a Bond villain in his future somewhere. I do very much like the rat story that Silva tells, and the single take approach on his reveal.
Plot
Stark: I appreciated starting mid-mission, and linking the pre-title into the main plot. I do fear, on revisiting this, that the plot is in service of the characters in Skyfall, rather than the characters having to move through the plot. There are some big emotional beats required, and the plot is getting you to them, rather than the emotional beats happening because of the plot.
Wrenage: Stripped to the wire, the plot is good. Ex-agent wants revenge. Bad agent vs. good agent. M’s actions coming back to haunt her. A bit on Bond’s past. But I see what you mean. It is like they set out to make a character-driven film and then asked themselves, “what do character-driven movies do?” Then they made a list of emotions characters should have in a prestige film and worked them in.
“Okay, now we need a scene where Bond looks in the mirror and is filled with resolve amidst weakness…”
I imagine a better version of Skyfall could be made where that same plot is used for an action romp rather than an actor ramp.
Stark: Then it wouldn’t be Skyfall. Like all of Craig’s 007 movies, he really is very close to the James Bond of the books.
Action Sequences
Wrenage: The action scenes left me flat on my initial viewings. I was curious to see how they played now. The pre-title is pretty good. The fight scene in the skyscraper looks pretty, but it is cut to be dull — just a one-shot. Then there is a bit of fisticuffs in the Macau casino. Bond disarms some thugs on Silva’s island. An interminable walking chase through the tubes. The climax also drags on and on and on…
Stark: I appreciated the Komodo dragons, given Bond movie history with various dangerous beasties.
Wrenage: The climax also contained one of my movie pet peeves. I hate when movies bring a new character into the third act that has zero meaning to the audience and participates in meaningful events. In this case, it is Albert Finney as Kincade. Why is he there? Is it some sort of Bond lore? Otherwise, he is a doddering old man wandering in and out of the climax. The climax already is well represented by the elderly with Judi Dench.
Stark: Nothing I can recall from any of the books, and they do go into Bond’s backstory in those novels including his learning to ski and climb, why he can take and throw a punch, and so on. Of course, the character was created with a Connery cameo in mind, but he also then gives exposition in the final scenes so couldn’t be simply written out when Connery declined.
Wrenage: I’m glad Connery passed on the role. His presence would have been too distracting and sad to witness. It would have been like watching Carrie Fisher stagger around in The Force Awakes. She clearly looked unhealthy to me in that film. Just let the characters exist in our imaginations forever in their prime, Hollywood! I like to think Connery understood this.
Stark: The lure of the golf course was never going to be defeated for a retired Connery.
Pre-Title Sequence
Wrenage: The pre-title is fine. No changes. It is a bright spot of the film. It has action, gags and ends on a nice cliffhanger.
Stark: Segues nicely into the title sequence, which is also a very good one. As I said, I like that it starts mid-mission and links directly to the main plot. I like that it ends badly for Bond.
Theme Song And Score
Stark: The theme that launched a million karaokes! It’s become almost a byword for Bond theme. You say “Sing a Bond theme!” to anyone and they probably either belt out Goldfinger, or Skyfall.
Wrenage: This must be a completely British thing. I don’t think I could round of 10 people in the entire USA that ever heard Skyfall sung at karaoke. We are too busy still singing “Livin’ on a Prayer.”
Stark: America will never be cured of hair-rock, no matter how ridiculous everybody secretly knows it is.
Wrenage: Whoa, we’re halfway there-ere! Whoa-oh! Livin’ on a prayer! Take my hand, and we’ll make it swear-ere, whoa-oh…
Hmmmm, “Living on a Prayer” might be a good name for a James Bond movie now that I think about it. Or maybe “Dying on a Prayer” is the proper way to spice it up for such things.
Stark: Please God, no… just no…
X-Factor
Wrenage: Ben Whishaw knocked it out of the park in Perfume, but his Q is lame. Q is like Moneypenny. The originals are too good to replace effectively. Whishaw brings none of the nobility Desmond Llewelyn possessed. I get they wanted a young vs. old-type conflict, but every time Whishaw is onscreen, I want to punch him in the nose. He’s too much of a twerp in this context.
Stark: Cost of transition to the digital age. It’s all modems and hacking now, rather than mechanical oil spreaders and revolving number plates. I guess the white haired old inventor approach wouldn’t work. I had a crazy idea for a new Q actor when the new movies role around… no, it’s just too silly…
Wrenage: Tell me! We already have the title: Dying on a Prayer! If we get a Q, all we need is the new Bond, which should be announced soon now…
Stark: OK… brace yourself… Danny Dyer as a working class Q? Kind of like the Q from Never Say Never Again.
Wrenage: Works for me. Or Pedro Pascal might be a good choice…
Also, it was also nice to see the Aston Martin again.
Stark: Always welcome. I like that the entire backstory of the car is confused by the lackadaisical approach to continuity in the Bond movies. Almost a hallmark now.
Scoring Breakdown
| Stark | Wrenage | |
| Bond | 8 | 7 |
| Bond Girl | 7 | 4 |
| Villain | 7 | 3 |
| Plot | 7 | 7 |
| Action Sequences | 6 | 4 |
| Pre-Title Sequence | 7 | 7 |
| Theme Song | 7 | 7 |
| X-Factor | 7 | 7 |
| TOTAL | 56 | 46 |
Stark: Once again Craig doesn’t really put a foot wrong. Lot’s of Outposters throw shade on him, but when you look at his performances in the role in isolation, he really is good. I think I scored down the action sequences because, as you point out, they are somewhat muted among the character stuff in this one. For the Bond girl score I have assumed this is M for Skyfall.
Wrenage: As I sat through the beginning of Skyfall through the China sequence, I thought, “This isn’t as bad as I remembered.” Then Silva showed up, and the hate flowed through me once more. The movie started to gradually become more and more of a chore at that stage. Then Dench is reading Tennyson, and everything gets even more serious. I don’t mind seriousness in Bond. Casino Royale is my number-one Bond film, but Skyfall pushed it to a pretentious level.
That is totally Mendes, though. I never liked the decision to put him in the director’s chair.
Stark: Bardem really triggers you! Hold up, I thought you said in your own villains article recently that it is important you hate the villain? I liked the Tennyson scene, M using it to put some pompous MPs in their place, juxtaposed over Bond racing to the enquiry as he’s figured out M is the target.
Wrenage: This is not fun hate. This is hate that would probably get me banned on the old style Twitter. I have to force myself to not score this as the worst Bond movie so far. I do not plan to watch it for another dozen years. Bardem reduces me to Charlton Heston pounding his fist impotently into beach sand as his world crumbles around him. I probably have to go watch A View to a Kill again to let the balm of Tanya Roberts soothe my angst.
Stark: She will wrap you in her Sheena-like embrace and make the bad man go away.
Overall Rankings
We solved out longstanding issues with the second tier running hot, and after Casino Royale stole top spot, Quantum of Solace only made the third tier, much to Stark’s chagrin. Meanwhile, Wrenage screams “BARDEM!” into the sky…
This one will be interesting, because Skyfall was such an event in Bond history, and critically and commercially loved at the time, but recently it has seen detractors emerge. So where does our highly scientific, never to be doubted Bond-O-Meter rank it…?
First Tier:
Casino Royale (68.5)
From Russia With Love (61.5)
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (61)
The Spy Who Loved Me (59.5)
Dr. No (56.5)
Licence To Kill (56)
Second Tier:
Goldfinger (54.5)
Thunderball (53.1)
Live and Let Die (53)
Tomorrow Never Dies (52)
You Only Live Twice (51.5)
For Your Eyes Only (51.5)
Third Tier:
Skyfall (51)
Octopussy (51)
Quantum Of Solace (50.5)
The Living Daylights (50.5)
Moonraker (48.5)
A View To A Kill (48)
Fourth Tier:
GoldenEye(47)
The World Is Not Enough (43)
Die Another Day (42)
The Man With The Golden Gun (38.5)
Diamonds Are Forever (34.5)
That’s A Wrap
Stark: Third tier. Below You Only Live Twice? I know we can’t argue with the highly scientific methods of your self-invented scoring system here… but….? Anyway, Amazon really, really need to hurry the fuck up, we are running out of Bond movies here!!
Wrenage: Dying on a Prayer, starring Pedro Pascal as Bond and a transwoman as the Bond Girl. Man, think of the names that could be created for that character!
NEXT TIME… We tackle the contentious Spectre.
Meanwhile, check out the rest of our Bond On series as we take a walk through all the Bond movies in order: Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Diamonds Are Forever, Live And Let Die, The Man With The Golden Gun, The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker, For Your Eyes Only, a two-way Battle Of The Bonds for Octopussy and Never Say Never Again, A View To A Kill, The Living Daylights, Licence To Kill, GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough, Die Another Day and Casino Royale. Last time out we tackled Quantum Of Solace.
