Timothy Dalton

Timothy Peter Dalton (born March 21, 1946) is a Welsh-born English actor of stage and screen most famous as the fourth official James Bond.

James Bond

In 1986, after Roger Moore's final, definitive retirement from the James Bond role, Dalton was approached to replace him, but obligations to the film Brenda Starr kept him from accepting the role. Sam Neill was then screentested for the part of Bond but was ulimately rejected by Cubby Broccoli. Pierce Brosnan was then approached for the role. Brosnan was forced to relinquish the role due to television commitments with the revival of Remington Steele.

Related Topics:
Roger Moore - James Bond - Brenda Starr - Sam Neill - Cubby Broccoli - Pierce Brosnan - Remington Steele

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Previously, Dalton had been offered the role several times before, as early as 1968, to replace Sean Connery, but had turned down the role each time, feeling he was too young for it. Work commitments made him again refuse the role in 1986, but when asked a second time, he agreed to appear in three James Bond films. The first, The Living Daylights (1987) was successful and grossed more than the previous two Roger Moore Bond films as well as contemporary box office rivals such as Die Hard and Lethal Weapon.

Related Topics:
Sean Connery - The Living Daylights - 1987 - Die Hard - Lethal Weapon

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The second film, Licence to Kill (1989) did less well at the box office, particularly in the US, in part due to a lacklustre marketing campaign. Licence to Kill was relatively successful compared to previous Bond films such as 1985's A View to a Kill however, and was one of the most profitable of the series thanks to its relatively small budget, a mere $25 million (the actual production cost was $42 million, but $17 million of that cost was covered by outisde marketing investors, an unique deal even for the Bond series, which even in the Pierce Brosnan era 007 films generally only got money towards additional free marketing and avdertising.) The total cost of Licence To Kill to shoot, market, and distribute was about $47 million. MGM/UA reports a net earnings after all costs of about $28.2 million just off of Licence To Kill's box office take, which is higher than Dalton's first film, or Pierce Brosnan's last 3 Bond films. Just the net profit of Licence To Kill from box office gross alone is even higher than the total net earnings after all costs of the 1999 Bond film The World is Not Enough, which netted $26 million after costs from all revenue forms, not just box office. Licence To Kill is mainly reported as being a "flop" financially because it performed so poorly in the United States, the worst of any Bond film in adjusted terms, but overseas it performed very strongly and the Bond film studios had an excellent revenue sharing deal with the theatre chain owners on the film's profits.

Related Topics:
Licence to Kill - 1989 - 1985 - A View to a Kill - 1999 - The World is Not Enough

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Dalton's third Bond film (rumoured title: The Property of a Lady) was slated for a 1991 release, but its production was scuttled by internecine corporate litigation between EON Productions and Danjaq, L.L.C.. In 1994, Dalton officially dropped the James Bond role, re-opening the door for Pierce Brosnan.

Related Topics:
The Property of a Lady - EON Productions - Danjaq, L.L.C. - 1994

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Dalton's portrayal of Bond - darker, more grittily realistic, and truer to the original character as portrayed in Fleming's novels - was something of a double-edged sword. Critics welcomed a more serious interpretation after more than a decade of Roger Moore's lighthearted approach, but the reaction of aficionados and the general public, many of whom were unfamiliar with Ian Fleming's original novels, was mixed.

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