Spectre
10th Anniversary
2015-2025

On December 4, 2014, a press conference took place on the 007 Soundstage at Pinewood Studios where it was announced the title of the 24th James Bond adventure would be Spectre. Together with Daniel Craig, Director Sam Mendes presented the returning cast, Ralph Fiennes (playing M), Naomie Harris (Moneypenny), Ben Whishaw (Q) and Rory Kinnear (Tanner), as well as introducing Christoph Waltz (Franz Oberhauser), Léa Seydoux (Madeleine Swann), Dave Bautista (as Hinx), Monica Bellucci (as Lucia Sciarra) and Andrew Scott (as Max Denbigh/C). Absent from the press conference was Jesper Christensen, who the following day gave an interview with the Danish website Euroman revealing, in a key spoiler that doubtless infuriated EON and SONY/MGM, that the character of Mr. White would also feature in the new film. However, this revelation was nothing compared with what followed 10 days later! It was revealed that an early version of the screenplay for Spectre was among the material stolen and illegally made public by hackers who infiltrated the SONY Pictures Entertainment computer system. Also released were details of confidential e-mails between SONY executives regarding several high-profile film projects. Included within these e-mails were several memos relating to the production of Spectre, claiming that the film was over budget, detailing early drafts of the script written by John Logan, and expressing SONY’s frustration with the project. EON Productions later managed to secure tax incentives and rebates, such as $14 million from Mexico where portions of the film were shot. Filming on Spectre finally began on ‘B Stage’ at Pinewood Studios on December 8, 2014, where Daniel Craig and Naomie Harris filmed the scenes where Moneypenny delivers Bond’s personal effects recovered from ‘Skyfall’, including the documents that set the scene for the backstory of Bond’s childhood and his association with father and son Hannes and Franz Oberhauser.

From December 17, 2014 filming continued at Pinewood with the scenes involving Jesper Christensen at Mr. White’s Alpine chalet. The preceding scenes of Bond’s arrival at Lake Altaussee were then shot on location in Austria for two days from January 5, 2015. The crew then moved to the Ice Q gourmet restaurant in Sölden, which doubled as the Hoffler Klinik and cable-car station beside it. Second Unit Director Alexander Witt then filmed the scenes with Dave Bautista (as Hinx) as Bond tries to prevent Madeleine Swann’s kidnap by chasing a convoy of cars in a plane which ultimately crashes through a wooden chalet at the end of the chase. The second unit filming finished in Austria on February 17, 2015, and returned to England to shoot scenes at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, which stood in as the exterior of the building used for the SPECTRE meeting in Rome. The main unit had earlier shot the ‘love scene’ between Lucia Sciarra (Monica Bellucci) and James Bond at Pinewood Studios on January 20, 2015, standing in for Rome in the screen story. Also shot on the ‘007 Stage’ at Pinewood in late January were the scenes on board the train carriage taking Bond and Madeleine Swann to Blofeld’s lair in Morocco. This included the brutal fight between Hinx and Bond, which was filmed on February 2nd, resulting in Daniel Craig sustaining an injury to his knee, which temporarily halted production while he recovered. The scenes of the interior of the SPECTRE meeting were filmed from February 12, 2015, and included the introduction of Hinx (Dave Bautista) when his character kills a SPECTRE operative by pushing steel-capped thumbnails into his eyes.

The crew then moved to Rome for a five-week shoot across the city, with locations including the Ponte Sisto Bridge and the Roman Forum. The car chase between Bond and Hinx was filmed by the second unit from February 23, 2015, with great care taken not to damage any of Rome’s historic sites. As the second unit worked in Rome, the main unit back at Pinewood Studios filmed the scenes in Q’s laboratory on February 26th and 27th, then capturing footage on the L’Americain hotel set for four days, followed by those of the interiors of Oberhauser’s desert lair. James Bond and Madeleine Swann meet Oberhauser for the first time on the observatory set built on the ‘007 Stage’, filmed on March 6, 2015. Studio filming wrapped on March 17th and the production then moved to Mexico City to film the ‘Day of the Dead’ celebration that became the pre-credit sequence of Spectre. March 20, 2015, saw 1,040 extras in elaborate makeup designs and costumes rehearse for the opening sequence which was filmed several times on that day. Daniel Craig filmed his rooftop scenes the following day, and on March 23rd he was joined by actress Stephanie Sigman as Estrella, and their journey and entrance into their room was filmed to look as if it was one continuous sequence by cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, as a homage to the famous opening tracking shot in Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil (1958). Spectre saw the production return to 35mm film after Skyfall was shot with digital cameras by Oscar-nominated Roger Deakins. Whereas Skyfall had a very colourful final grade, Spectre was given a rather drab colour palette in post-production, and the final overall look of the film is somewhat muted and dull when compared with its predecessor. During the three days of filming beginning on March 24th, 2015, where Bond chases Marco Sciarra (Alessandro Cremona) through the parade toward Zócalo Square, Daniel Craig compounded the injury to his knee. Filming of the helicopter stunts in and above Zócalo Square began on March 27th, and the main unit wrapped the following day. As production briefly shut down for Easter, Daniel Craig flew to the USA to have surgery on his injured knee.

Filming resumed back at Pinewood Studios on April 15th, 2015, with the scenes involving Ralph Fiennes and Andrew Scott (as Max Denbigh/C) in the offices of the Centre For National Security set. The scene where Oberhauser/Blofeld tortures Bond on the Operating Room set, as Madeleine Swann observes, was a late addition to the script. The scene was lifted directly from COLONEL SUN – the 1968 James Bond novel by Kingsley Amis (writing as Robert Markham), with much of the dialogue retained intact from the book. Although EON Productions/DANJAQ had acquired the screen rights to COLONEL SUN after it was written, very little material subsequently found its way to the screen, other than short sequences used by screenwriters Neal Purvis & Robert Wade, such as the kidnap of M in The World Is Not Enough (1999), and the none-too-subtle reference in the naming of the character Colonel Moon in Die Another Day (2002). The origin of the torture sequence very likely went unnoticed by most viewers of Spectre (2015) despite the end credits having a brief acknowledgment to the Estate of Kingsley Amis.

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Spectre FACT FILE