On April 12, 1994, The Living Daylights and Licence To Kill actor, Timothy Dalton, announced he was stepping away from the role of James Bond. 

“This has been one of the hardest decisions of my life,” declared Dalton at the time. “But it has been six years since the last Bond film and if I committed to the new one. It would be another two years of my life, what with timing and promotion. I think the time is right to say goodbye to it all.”

The search for a new Bond was on — “We looked at younger people and different kinds of people who were available,” said GoldenEye co-producer Michael G. Wilson. “I think we all came to the conclusion early on that Bond is a veteran” — but there was always one name in the frame. After Roger Moore departed the role following A View To Kill, one of the actors who came in for an audition was Pierce Brosnan. The star of US TV show Remington Steele, Brosnan auditioned on May 12, 1996, playing scenes opposite Annie Lambert before being put through his stunt paces by Clive Curtis. Yet, there was a sticking point.

“We made it a stipulation to his agent: if he could be cleared completely out of his TV series, cutting all ties with the network, we’d consider him,” said producer Cubby Broccoli. “Pierce was wildly keen to play the part. But when talks began with the network, there was a lot of stalling. In the end, his TV contract was renewed and our search had to continue.”

As well as the legal complications, there were other factors at that time that ruled Brosnan out of The Living Daylights.

“In terms of looks and style, he’d have taken us down a Roger Moore route,” continued Broccoli. “At that time, we were looking for a harder-edged actor who could take Bond into a new dimension.”

When the role became free again following Dalton’s departure, Brosnan was going through a period of career disappointment tinged with personal tragedy. In 1987, his wife Cassandra Harris was diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer, causing the actor to put work on hold until her passing in 1991. So, at the point 007 became available again, Brosnan chose not to pursue it. 

“The moment Timothy jumped ship I thought, ‘No, it wouldn’t happen a second time,” Brosnan observed.

Ultimately, lightning did strike twice. Brosnan was announced as the fifth James Bond at a press conference that was transmitted globally on June 8, 1994. At the same time, the film’s title was announced as GoldenEye, inspired by the name of Ian Fleming’s house in Jamaica where he penned the novels and short stories. 

Two days after the announcement, Brosnan was back on location in a remote village in Papua New Guinea shooting drama Robinson Crusoe. During a break in filming, the actor was approached by a gang of children shouting “James Bond! James Bond!” 

“I was dumbstruck,’ recalled Brosnan. “Here I was, in the middle of nowhere, being recognised as Bond as a result of all that international publicity. At that moment any lingering doubts I had that GoldenEye was just another film left me completely.”

You know the name. You know the number. Premiering on 13th November 1995, GoldenEye introduced Pierce Brosnan as James Bond, reacquainting audiences with the character after a six-year hiatus following Licence To Kill. To celebrate, here are 30 facts to mark its 30th anniversary.

1. 1. GoldenEye marked the first time Barbara Broccoli was credited as a producer. Previous to this, she was credited as an Assistant Director on Octopussy and A View To A Kill and as an Assistant Producer on The Living Daylights and Licence To Kill. 
4. 2. The film’s title was inspired by the name of Ian Fleming’s house in Jamaica where he penned the novels and short stories. 
7. 3. The film was directed by Martin Campbell. The filmmaker would later go on to steer Daniel Craig’s first 007 outing Casino Royale. 

2. 4. Because Pinewood Studios — Bond’s spiritual home — was fully booked, GoldenEye was shot at Leavesden Airfield, a former Rolls-Royce helicopter engine factory only 20 miles from London. The studio space ultimately took up 1.25 million square feet of interior space, with one of the biggest backlots in the world.
5. 5. GoldenEye became the first film with a title sequence designed by Daniel Kleinman. He subsequently went onto create title sequences for Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough, Die Another Day, Casino Royale, Skyfall, Spectre and No Time To Die.
8. 6. The swallow dive in the pre-credit title sequence was shot at the top of the Lago di Vogorno dam at Ticino in Switzerland.
11. 7. The jump was performed by British stuntman Wayne Michaels. The team consulted bungee-jumping experts at Oxford University, who advised that a jump from such a tall structure meant the stuntman would be “jumping into the unknown.”

2. 8. The pre-title skydiving sequence was conceived by B.J. Worth at Big Sky Productions in Montana. It was Worth’s idea to add Bond on a motorcycle into the scene.
5. 9. The sequence was captured in two parts. The first half featured base jumper Jacques “Zoo” Malnuit speeding a motorcycle over the cliff and leaping off the bike into a freefall. He rode a bike over the edge seven times. 
8. 10. The second half saw Worth diving after the out-of-control aircraft as it plummeted. The stuntman was never able to catch up with the plane as planned and, much to Worth’s frustration, the sequence was completed by VFX.
11. 11. The first draft screenplay was penned by Michael France, the screenwriter of Cliffhanger and a former editor of 007 fanzine Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. France noted: “The problem with my draft was that there was too much action. Wall-to-wall action. Every ten minutes you had a $20 million sequence.”
14. 12. Subsequent drafts were written by Kevin Wade, Jeffrey Caine and Bruce Feirstein. With ‘90s action cinema dominated by Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger playing blue-collar heroes, Campbell was keen to retain Bond’s air of sophistication.
17. 13. GoldenEye was the Bond movie that introduced the prototype BMW Z3 Roadster. Still, the filmmakers retained the classic Aston Martin DB5, making its first appearance since Thunderball, in the chase sequence with Russian assassin Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen) driving a Ferrari F355.

2. 14. Pierce Brosnan’s entry into the series was delayed, firstly by minor surgery for a back problem and then by severing a tendon in his little finger after reaching for a porcelain towel rail which snapped and cut him. “I feel like such a prat for making that one public,” he said at the time. “On the way to the hospital I was thinking, ‘I don’t believe it. So close to the role of a lifetime — and now this!” The injury kept him out of action for five weeks.
5. 15. Photography on GoldenEye began on January 16 on Leavesden’s A stage. The first scene shot involved computer programmers Natalya Romanova (Izabella Scorupco) and Boris Grishenko (Alan Cumming) inside the Severnaya control room.
8. 16. Due to insurance issues surrounding his severed tendon, it was stipulated that for the first fortnight, Brosnan could not do any physical scenes or even hold a Walther PPK, which rests on his little finger, and might exacerbate his injury. 
11. 17. Pierce Brosnan’s first scene was Bond’s encounter with Russian arms dealer Valentin Zukovsky (Robbie Coltrane) captured on January 18.

2. 18. The scene where Onatopp murders a Russian admiral by strangling him with her legs during lovemaking had to be reshot in a less racy version to get past the American censors.
5. 19. The Cuban radar-radio telescope was actually shot in Puerto Rico. The real dish, based at Arecibo, had created maps of Venus and, during 1974, beamed the Arecibo message, an interstellar radio message carrying basic information about humanity and Earth.
8. 20. A miniature version of the radar-radio telescope that could rise out of a lake was built back at Leavesden by Derek Meddings and his model crew.
11. 21. Other scenes shot in Puerto Rico featured Bond’s encounter with CIA agent Jack Wade, played by Joe Don Baker. Baker had previously appeared in the series as the villainous Brad Whitaker in The Living Daylights and reprised the role of Wade in Tomorrow Never Dies.

2. 22. On February 7th, Judi Dench made her first appearance as M, a characterisation inspired by the 1992 appointment of Stella Rimington, the first female head of MI5. 
5. 23. The high-tech train boarded by Trevelyan in St. Petersburg was dubbed the “Darth Train” by the crew due to its resemblance to the helmet of a particular Star Wars character.
8. 24. The St. Petersburg authorities initially agreed to let the production shoot the tank chase on the city’s streets but when the authorities intimated the filmmakers would be financially liable for any damage to the historical buildings, the decision was taken to relocate to Leavesden Studios.

1. 25. The Soviet tank, weighing 42 tons and capable of speeds of 35mph, was dubbed “Metal Mickey” by the crew. To maximise its impact, it was often shot with a minimum of four cameras and, on one occasion, six.
4. 26. Two crew members spent almost a week emptying approximately 90,000 cans of Perrier to avoid a fizzy explosion when the tank careened into a lorry.
7. 27. GoldenEye became the first 007 film to use the then cutting-edge computer generated technology (CGI), seen in the fight between Bond and Trevelyan on the radio dish. The film ultimately utilised 140 digital effects shots.

2. 28. Brosnan’s final day on the production — June 1, 1995 — saw the actor driving the tank around Leavesden. Principal photography wrapped on June 6.
5. 29. On July 19, a test audience saw a preview of the film at the Odeon Wimbledon in London. In a subsequent focus group quizzing viewers on Brosnan’s charisma, one participant observed, “You either have it or you don’t and Brosnan has it.”
8. 30. Following a glitzy world premiere at Radio City Music Hall in New York, GoldenEye went on to take over $350 million worldwide. Next up: Tomorrow Never Dies.

The follow up to Skyfall (2012) sees Bond (Daniel Craig) acting on a message left by the late M (Dame Judi Dench), and uncovering the murky world of SPECTRE, a sinister underworld organisation run by Franz Oberhauser/Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Christoph Waltz), who describes himself as “the author” of Bond’s pain. On a globetrotting adventure that begins in Mexico, and travels across Rome, Austria, Morocco and London, Bond confronts the ghosts of his past, before embarking on a brighter future with new love Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux). To mark its 10th anniversary, this is the behind-the-scenes story of Spectre in ten episodes…

1. 1. A Returning Director

Skyfall earned $1.1 billion at the global box office, becoming the highest grossing film of all time in the UK. Despite such success, director Sam Mendes was reluctant to return so soon to the director’s chair. But, with a delay to the start date, the tenacity of producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli managed to woo the filmmaker back. 

“Skyfall was a very dark picture because of the locations — a lot of it was shot at night, underground — and because of what Bond was going through as a character. I wanted a more proactive Bond, with more locations and a greater variety of tone. Once those possibilities had been unlocked for me, I really wanted to do it.”

Mendes signing on the dotted line also proved popular with his star. 

“I’m working with a friend,” Craig remarked, “that makes me very happy.”

1. 2. First Thoughts

The initial concepts for the Spectre story were very different to the finished film. Screenwriter John Logan’s early ideas had Blofeld, an African National, living in a Japanese castle in the mountains with a poison garden (an idea that resurfaced in No Time To Die). The plot revolved around Blofeld seeking to control the chemical elements integral to the creation of computers and cell phones. “It wasn’t a strong enough threat, so we had to rethink it,” said co-producer Michael G. Wilson.  Logan’s next ideas included foiling the plot of a toxic-waste dumping in the Mediterranean with SPECTRE’s leader Charlotte King — Blofeld’s daughter — in her radioactive volcano. Ultimately, the story pivoted around Bond’s personal connection to his biggest nemesis. 

1. 3. A Dark Icon Returns

Mendes always wanted the Skyfall follow-up to be about the series’ arch enemy Ernst Stavro Blofeld and SPECTRE, but the character was tied up in legal wranglings. When the rights complications were cleared up, the story, inspired by Ian Fleming’s Octopussy short story, explored the personal history and connection between Bond and Blofeld. The backstory saw an orphaned Bond sent to live in Austria with a man named Oberhauser and his son Franz. Bond becomes “the golden boy” of the family, much to Franz’s anger. This jealousy sees Franz kill his father and swear revenge on his adopted brother by faking his own death and transforming into Ernst Stavro Blofeld.

“I thought that was a really cool idea that both unlocked a section of Bond’s past,” Mendes told author Mark Salisbury for the book Being Bond, “but also linked him to all the various sources of his pain, as Blofeld puts it.” From here, Spectre moved towards a story that saw Blofeld puppeteering the misfortunes Bond faced in his previous three films.

1. 4. The Day Of The Dead

Spectre opens in Mexico City, with Bond on assignment in the middle of the Day of the Dead parade. To seduce the audience into the world, Mendes conceived the action in one long seemingly continuous take. In actuality, it was a number of separate shots digitally spliced together, combining moments on location in Mexico and scenes staged at Pinewood Studios. The parade itself was mounted across several days, featuring 1520 extras, 77 dancers and musicians, and 10 huge puppets. 

“People were in the streets until five in the afternoon doing the same thing over and over again,” remembered Mendes. “I thought they would mutiny, but if anything, they got more enthusiastic as the day went on. We had live musicians and there was a sense of party about it, which is what you want but is so rarely achieved on a movie set.”

Ending with a fight on a helicopter high above Zócalo square, the sequence not only delivered a huge spectacle but also set out the themes the film would explore.

“One of the things that is said about the Day of the Dead celebration is that ‘Los muertos vivos están’ – ‘The dead are alive.’ That has a direct bearing on our story.”

1. 5. When In Rome 

Bond’s journey to Rome on the trail of the Pale King was the first time a 007 film was shot in the Eternal City. The spectacular capital became the backdrop for a car chase between Bond and SPECTRE assassin Mr. Hinx (Dave Bautista). In another series first, the production collaborated with Aston Martin on a new car created specifically for the film: the DB10.

“I was looking for a way to get a new car into Bond 24,” says Sam Mendes. “I wanted what comes with the cars; mischief, fun and speed.” The subsequent game of cat and mouse — Bond in the DB10, Hinx driving a Jaguar C-X75 — through the empty night-time streets of Rome and along the Tiber was conceived as a duel on wheels. The city’s historic buildings were covered with protective cladding to stave any damage from vehicles travelling at speeds of 120 mph. The set-piece utilised eight Aston Martins and seven Jaguars, the cars often fitted with remote driving pods allowing stunt drivers to steer while Craig and Bautista appeared to be driving. Still, within the thrills and spills Mendes was keen to inject some lightness.

“We added a bit of a twist. Bond steals the car without knowing what it does and then has to work out what it does during the chase.”

6. A Match For 007

At one point in the development of Spectre, John Logan’s log-line for his screenplay was ‘Bond falls in love.” Initially called Kaja, Dr. Madeleine Swann became the daughter of Mr. White and was envisaged as an intelligent, independent woman who reveals to Bond the identity of the sinister organisation he has been pursuing as SPECTRE. Searching for an actor capable of going toe to toe with Daniel Craig’s Bond, Mendes met with Léa Seydoux, the breakout star of Cannes-winner Blue is The Warmest Colour, in London.

“I was early for the appointment and I was a little bit anxious,” recalled Seydoux. “I started to have a panic attack and lost my text. I felt very stressed about it.”

She needn’t have worried. She won the role and became an even more important figure in Bond’s life during No Time To Die.

1. 7. Mountain Madness

Bond first encounters Madeleine at the Hoffler Klink, an incredible mountain top institute in the Austrian Alps. The production found the perfect location in the newly built ICE-Q restaurant and cable car atop the 3000 metre Gaislachkogl mountain in Sölden, Austria. While the interiors were recreated back at Pinewood against a 360-degree photographic backdrop, Mendes kept the exteriors on location. After Madeleine is bundled away by Hinx and his operatives in black Range Rovers, Bond gives chase in a small plane that becomes a toboggan after the wings are ripped off in a mountainside forest, the shell of the aircraft driven by the stunt team in hidden skidoos.

1. 8. Train and Pain

After arriving in Tangier, Bond and Madeleine take a train towards Blofeld’s lair inside a meteor crater in the middle of the desert. En route, they are attacked by Hinx, creating in-carriage carnage reminiscent of the train fight in From Russia With Love. 

“Sam saw Hinx as a 21st Century Oddjob,” said Stunt-Co-Ordinator Gary Powell, “so the train fight was to be presented as a David and Goliath situation. Normally Bond gives a couple of punches to somebody and he’s out of it. But this time he knows he is in a fight. Dave Bautista is a big guy. Generally when you see somebody big they are quite cumbersome and slow, but he moves really fast. I wanted to use that.”

Mapped out in a rough wooden train carriage by stunt co-ordinator Olivier Schneider, the battle begins in the dining car and crashes through the carriages. “I remember we called that fight ‘the tornado fight’ because it was basically like a tornado, these two guys moving forward as everything behind them was completely destroyed,” Schneider told 007.com.  

1. 9. The River Wild

After blowing up Blofeld’s base (which earned a Guinness World Record

for the biggest on-screen explosion), Bond and Madeleine return to London but are separately abducted by SPECTRE heavies. The action takes place in the abandoned MI6 building (a throwback to Skyfall) and develops into a full-on boat versus helicopter chase along the Thames. To secure a six week night shoot was a logistical challenge, involving gaining the support of the Port of London Authority and sending 11,000 letters to residents and businesses, warning them of the disruption. Lighting the scene at night became a monumental endeavour, illuminating the river from Vauxhall Bridge to Westminster, utilising some 80 lighting positions. 

But the moment where Blofeld’s helicopter crashed onto Westminster Bridge was recreated in the safe confines of the 007 stage. For all the digital technology available, photo panels gave the set an illusion of depth. “I love that old fashioned in-camera trickery,” Daniel Craig told Mark Salisbury. “It’s the trickery of making believe.”

1. 10. A Huge Impact

Spectre had its world premiere at the Royal Albert Hall on October 26, 2015 before opening in the US on November 6. The film went on to earn a box office gross of $880 million worldwide. The film’s theme song, Writing’s On The Wall, sung by Sam Smith and written by Smith and Jimmy Napes, won the Best Original Song at the 2016 Academy Awards and the 73rd Golden Globe Academy Awards the same year. It also became the first Bond song to reach number one in the US Singles Chart. 

“In Casino Royale, Bond fell in love, got double-crossed, and decided that he could never have an emotional life again,” said co-producer Barbara Broccoli about the film’s place in Bond’s emotional arc. “In Spectre, he meets Madeleine Swann who asks him, ‘Is this really what you want? Living in the shadows. Hunting. Being hunted. Always looking behind you. Always alone.’ For the first time since Vesper Lynd, he sees the possibility of another life.”

The complex narrative of Spectre ends with Bond and Madeleine driving off in the Aston Martin on a new adventure. It was a journey that would be resolved five years later in No Time To Die.