When Neal Purvis and Robert Wade were students together in the late 1970s, they formed a band and wrote their own James Bond theme. “It was called Never Say Thunderballs Dr No,” Purvis tells me. “Musically, it was quite good,” offers Wade. The group is still going strong, with Rat Scabies of the Damned on drums. A decade ago, they even played their Bond theme to the producer Michael G Wilson, who with his half-sister Barbara Broccoli is one of the custodians of the franchise. “He said: ‘Don’t give up your day job,’” Purvis shrugs. “Which I thought was a bit unnecessary.”
Not too hurtful, though, when your day job is writing James Bond movies. Purvis (60) and Wade (59), have had a hand in every instalment since The World Is Not Enough, back when Pierce Brosnan was still rocking the tuxedo. They oversaw the bare-bones Daniel Craig reboot (Casino Royale), the first Bond movie to be a direct sequel (Quantum of Solace), the death of Judi Dench as M (Skyfall), the return of arch-villain Blofeld (Spectre) and the twists and shocks of No Time to Die. This is no time for spoilers, but it is giving nothing away to reveal that Craig’s swansong is not simply a Bond farewell. It’s an absolute James-changer.
It hasn’t all been plain sailing. “When Casino Royale was released, we were introduced somewhere as the people who saved Bond,” says Purvis. “They were forgetting we were also the ones who’d done Die Another Day.” That maligned movie, Brosnan’s last in the role, has come in for no end of stick over the years, mostly for its invisible car. “We actually featured that car in every one of Daniel’s Bonds,” says Wade. “You just never saw it.”
We meet in their agent’s London office on the morning that No Time to Die has become the sixth-highest-grossing film in UK box-office history: it took more than £87m in its opening weekend in the UK, while the global tally stands at around $667m. Not bad for a movie that was old news, its release delayed 18 months by the pandemic. “It’s a wonderful way of feeling like we’re coming out of this whole thing,” says Wade, whose sandy-coloured, windblown hair and partially unbuttoned shirt make it look as if he has just stepped off a yacht. Purvis, shaven-headed and stubble-faced, wears a dark roll-neck jumper that calls to mind the Milk Tray man. The smell of expensive aftershave hangs in the air.
The duo, who also co-wrote one of the other top six titles (Skyfall, which took £103.2m domestically), mapped out the complete story of No Time to Die in 2017. “You’re always asking yourself: ‘What are people going to fear in a couple of years’ time?’ and ‘What emotional journey can Bond go on?’” says Purvis. They got the fear part right. The film’s villain gains control of a DNA-targeting virus, a concept first pitched for The World Is Not Enough. “If they’re good ideas, they tend to stick around,” says Wade.
They flew to New York to pitch the full outline to Craig (“He embraced it immediately,” Purvis says) and to work with him on finessing it. When Danny Boyle was announced as the film’s director, bringing along his regular writer John Hodge, the Purvis and Wade script was set aside; then, once Boyle and Hodge departed over creative differences, they were brought back in. Four writers are now credited on the finished movie: Purvis, Wade, its director, Cary Fukunaga, and Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Others were involved, including Scott Z Burns (Contagion, The Bourne Ultimatum), which is normal for a project of this scale. “The budgets are a million quid a page,” says Wade. Purvis corrects him: “A couple of million now,” he says. “Oh yeah, it’s gone up,” Wade replies, as though they’re discussing the price of a pint.
How does it feel to see their film covered in so many other fingerprints? Wade quotes Graham Greene, who likened the average screenwriter to “the only spectator who remembers what happened once – like a man who has witnessed a crime and is afraid to speak, an accomplice after the fact”. Purvis echoes that: “You run your own film through your head as you’re watching.” This can lead to some rash responses, such as when they first saw a cut of Casino Royale. “We gave a couple of pages of notes on what they needed to fix it,” he says. “I don’t think they took any notice. After a while, we realised it’s a really good film.”
What surprised them about the new one? “There’s no denying that what goes down very well with an audience is the whole Paloma sequence,” says Purvis, referring to the delirious episode in which Bond teams up with a fizzy CIA operative played by Ana de Armas. “We had Paloma in our script, but she was just a contact. Cary wanted more, so one assumes that’s an area that Phoebe dealt with.” They approve wholeheartedly. “It’s really fun,” says Wade, “and very much like a Bond movie,” Purvis adds.
There is an emphatic female presence in the film but Wade dismisses any suggestion that this is a result of the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements. “I don’t think we did anything differently because of that. We’ve never wanted to be sexist: it doesn’t look good for Bond. I’ve got daughters, and I wouldn’t want him not to be a good role model.” Their track record bears this out. In The World Is Not Enough, they introduced the franchise’s first principal female villain and positioned the central conflict as one between her and M, a shift in dynamic that was rumoured to have irritated Brosnan. (“He may have been,” is all Wade will say.) The liveliest parts of Die Another Day involve Halle Berry and Rosamund Pike, while that film ends with a subversive shift to the female perspective by showing the erotic inner life of Moneypenny. Purvis and Wade also wrote a spin-off movie for Berry’s character, Jinx, which was set to be directed by Stephen Frears until the studio pulled the plug.
Their boldness has not been confined to gender. Even as the Bourne movies began to encroach on Bond’s territory – “We listen to the Bourne music quite a lot when we’re writing,” admits Purvis – they have kept the character fresh. On their watch, Bond has been left raggedy and long-haired in his North Korean prison cell, alluded to gay experiences, and become a parent. “The most radical gear-shift we effected was probably in Skyfall,” says Wade. “When Bond drives M to the home nobody knew about, that shifted the whole emotional register of what a Bond film could be.” Not everyone was impressed. Purvis mentions an actor friend who sent congratulatory emails after Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace. “We saw him at a party and I said: ‘You never told us what you thought of Skyfall.’ He said: ‘Wasn’t a Bond movie.’”
What he will make of No Time to Die is anybody’s guess. It begins with an extended flashback to the early life of a supporting character, breaks the unspoken ban on children in Bond movies by showing two different infants in peril, and is intertwined with the four previous films in a way that is redolent of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Then there is that ending.
How aware are they of bending the formula to breaking point? “We’ve wondered in the past whether we can get away with, for instance, voiceover,” says Purvis. “But you don’t want to go too far because then it ceases to be Bond.” Wade is happy to have brought a ubiquitous aspect of British life to the series. “It didn’t used to rain in Bond movies,” he says proudly.
Ask what is next for Bond and they are no clearer than anyone else. Decisions on Craig’s replacement won’t be made until next year; Purvis and Wade don’t know yet whether they’ll be asked back. Who needs more Bond movies anyway? “I think the world would be a lesser place without him,” says Purvis. Wade goes further: “You know you can rely on that guy. He’s everyone’s dad.” Even if they don’t get to write another one, there’s always the band to keep them busy. “We’re still hoping to make it as musicians,” says Wade. “This is just what we’re doing while we wait for that to happen.”
• No Time to Die is on general release.
