To celebrate the launch of Forza Horizon 4, which includes The Best of Bond Car Pack, four classic Bond cars were on display at Goodwood House in the UK. The home to the famous Festival of Speed was the backdrop to two Aston Martin DBS’ from Quantum Of Solace (2008), an Aston Martin DB10 from Spectre (2015) and the iconic Aston Martin DB5 seen on screen in GoldenEye (1995), Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), Skyfall (2012) and Spectre. All four cars feature in the game.
The Best of Bond Car Pack for Forza Horizon 4 allows players to drive 10 classic Bond cars and is included as part of the Forza Horizon 4 Ultimate Edition. The pack will be playable with early access to the game, beginning on September 28. Players will also be able to purchase the Best of Bond Car Pack separately at the global launch of the game on October 2.
Focus Of The Week: GoldenEye
GoldenEye (1995), the seventeenth film in the series, is named after author Ian Fleming’s Jamaican residence.
The plot pits Bond (Pierce Brosnan) against his old MI6 mentor Alec Trevelyan (Sean Bean) who, as the film begins, fakes his own death. In cahoots with Russian General Ouromov (John Gottfried) and Mafia Assassin Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen), Trevelyan gains control of the GoldenEye weapons system at the Severnaya satellite control centre. His plan is to punish Britain for betraying his Cossack parents who committed suicide. Bond, working alongside Severnaya computer programmer Natalya Simonova (Izabella Scorupco), tracks Trevelyan to Cuba and breaks into his facility. Natalya reprograms the GoldenEye and Bond fights Trevelyan in the installation’s giant radio dish, the latter crushed by a falling antenna.
Timothy Dalton had decided not to return as Bond so the search was on for a new 007. Pierce Brosnan had been offered the role when Roger Moore departed but his contract to US TV show Remington Steele had prevented him from slipping on the tux. “The moment Timothy jumped ship, I thought ‘No it won’t happen a second time’,” recalled Brosnan. But it did and the Irish-American actor won the coveted role. Echoing the real life head of MI6 Stella Remington, Dame Judi Dench joined the series as the first female M, a role she made her own for seven films.
With Pinewood Studios booked up, the team needed a new home. Production designer Peter Lamont took over an abandoned Rolls Royce factory and created a new studio space dubbed Leavesden, now one of the leading filmmaking hubs in the world.Production began on January 16 1995 under the direction of Martin Campbell (TV’s Edge Of Darkness), the exact month and day that Dr. No started shooting in Jamaica 33 years before.
Perhaps the most complex set-piece saw 007 drive a tank through the streets of St. Petersburg leaving maximum devastation in his wake. After negotiating with Government bureaucracy, stunts and explosions were staged in the heart of the city by the 2ndUnit and augmented by carnage created with a 42- ton tank (nicknamed Metal Mickey) on a two block stretch of St. Petersburg built at Leavesden.
GoldenEye proved to be immensely popular. The success confirmed the relevance of Bond in a post-cold war world and firmly established Pierce Brosnan as the new 007. But it also saw something else; the passing of the series’ reigns from Cubby Broccoli to new producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli. A new era had begun.
Bond Cars In Forza Horizon 4 Ultimate Edition
Gamers will be able to drive an iconic car from the James Bond films in The Best of Bond Car Pack as the Day One Car Pack included in Forza Horizon 4 Ultimate Edition. It will be playable with early access to the game beginning on September 28. Players will also be able to purchase the Best of Bond Car Pack separately at the global launch of the game on October 2.
The Best of Bond Car Pack features 10 cars including the Aston Martin DB5 from Goldfinger (1964), the AMC Hornet X from The Man With The Golden Gun (1974) and the Jaguar C-X75 from Spectre (2015).
The full line-up of James Bond Edition cars inspired by the films in the James Bond Car Pack:
• The Aston Martin DB5 from Goldfinger (1964)
• The Aston Martin DBS from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)
• The AMC Hornet X Hatchback from The Man With The Golden Gun (1974)
• The Lotus Esprit S1 from The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
• The Citroën 2CV6 from For Your Eyes Only (1981)
• The Aston Martin V8 Vantage from The Living Daylights (1987)
• The BMW Z8 from The World Is Not Enough (1999)
• The Aston Martin DBS from Quantum Of Solace (2008)
• The Jaguar C-X75 from Spectre (2015)
• The Aston Martin DB10 from Spectre (2015)
Several of the cars will feature film-inspired gadgets that players will be able to view while in Forzavista mode. For example, the Aston Martin DB5 from Goldfinger (1964) will feature numerous gadgets such as revolving number plates and retractable tyre slashers. In addition, the Lotus Esprit S1 will feature a special body kit option inspired by the “Wet Nellie” submarine vehicle from The Spy Who Loved Me (1977).
In addition to the cars, players who own the Best of Bond Car Pack in Forza Horizon 4 will also receive some Bond inspired goodies, including Bond outfits, and exclusive “Quick Chat” phrases.
Focus Of The Week: Kamal Khan
Charismatic and captivating, Octopussy’s Kamal Khan (Louis Jourdan) is an exiled Afghan prince with a taste for the finer things in life; priceless art, fine wines, expensive jewels. Yet Khan is as corrupt as he is cultured. The suave art dealer and international gem smuggler is in cahoots with the power-crazed Soviet General Orlov (Steven Berkoff) – the two men are plotting to create a ‘nuclear accident’ on a US air base in West Germany.This mishap will encourage NATO to abandon nuclear arms, allowing Orlov’s armies to invade Western Europe while Khan makes a fortune selling priceless masterpieces.
To finance this crazed scheme, the pair generate funds by Orlov stealing Soviet art treasures from the Kremlin Art Depository and replacing them with forgeries designed in the basement workshop of Khan’s Monsoon palace. They use Khan’s mistress Octopussy (Maud Adams)’s travelling circus as a front to smuggle the treasures into the West. Kahn and Orlov betray Octopussy by replacing the treasures with a nuclear warhead.
Bond (Roger Moore) first encounters Khan at an auction where the art collector is clearly desperate to purchase a real Fabergé egg. Bond swaps the real one for a fake, forcing Khan to pay £50,000 for a forgery. 007 tracks Khan back to his palace in India and exposes his cheating at backgammon. Bond is subsequently chased by Khan’s henchman Gobinda (Kabir Bedi) and his hoodlums but evades his pursuers in an auto rickshaw. Gobinda later knocks 007 unconscious and brings him back to Khan’s palace. Bond discovers Khan is working with Orlov and escapes.
As the action switches to Germany, Khan discovers Bond on board Octopussy’s circus train and forces him off. Bond chases the train in a stolen car but Khan is confident Bond will cease to be a problem. Preparing to return to India, unaware that Bond has defused the nuclear bomb (disguised as a clown), Khan starts to pack the smuggled treasures. His departure is thwarted by Octopussy and her gymnast guards who infiltrate his palace. While Octopussy’s guards deal with Khan’s men – Octopussy confronts Khan but he pulls a gun on her. Bond and Q (Desmond Llewelyn) arrive to the chaotic battle in a Union Jack hot air balloon. Khan kidnaps Octopussy and escapes first on horseback and then on a light aircraft. Bond gives chase.
Bond jumps onto the outside of the plane and engages Gobinda in hand-to-hand combat as Khan puts the plane through aerobatic manoeuvres. After flicking a metal antenna at Gobinda’s head, causing him to lose his grip, Bond detaches the fuel line sending the plane into a nosedive. 007 and Octopussy leap clear as Khan desperately tries to land the plane on a short runway. Unable to stop the plane falling off a cliff, Khan falls to an expensive death.
Focus Of The Week: Moonraker
Within weeks of The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) opening, Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli announced the team would next be tackling Moonraker (1979), an adaptation of Ian Fleming’s third novel. Realising the movie could coincide with the launch of the first NASA space shuttle, Broccoli announced he wanted Moonraker to be “science fact” not science fiction. The idea was simple but enticing: James Bond in outer space.
While Fleming’s novel centred on a nuclear rocket, Christopher Wood’s screenplay sees Bond (Roger Moore) investigate the hijacking of the Space Shuttle Moonraker. The trail leads him to aeronautics mogul Hugo Drax (Michael Lonsdale) who Bond discovers is developing a highly toxic nerve gas. Teaming up with CIA Agent Holly Goodhead (Lois Chiles), Bond uncovers Drax’s plan to launch multiple Space Shuttles to fire globes filled with the deadly gas towards Earth so he can repopulate the planet with his own master race of perfect specimens. Bond and Goodhead infiltrate Drax’s space station, alert the US Marines to the space station’s location, and take part in a huge laser battle to decide the fate of the human race.
The cast was an international one: French actor Lonsdale was cast as the cultured, messianic Drax, American actress Lois Chiles won the role of Dr. Holly Goodhead, an astronaut and CIA agent who is undercover in Drax’s organisation. Due to popular demand, Richard Kiel was brought back to reprise his role as the metal-toothed Jaws, who this time round finds love and undergoes a change of allegiances. Sadly, Moonraker would prove to be the last 007 film to feature Bernard Lee as M.
The production moved from Pinewood to Paris, booking every studio in Paris to accommodate the film. The globetrotting location shoot found logistical challenges at every turn. For the pre-credit sequence, Bond is pushed out of a plane without a parachute. It took over 83 jumps over five weeks to complete the aerial action in the skies above California. A high speed boat chase through Venice’s centuries old canals took careful negotiations with the Italian authorities. And in France, weightless sequences on Drax’s space station required days of rigging to allow a dozen performers to float in Zero G.
Hundreds of effects shots were needed depicting space shuttles, the space station and space debris customised for each shot. Visual Effects Supervisor Derek Meddings created all the special effects in camera, shooting one element, winding back the film in camera and then shooting the next element — for one shot of the space battle, a single piece of film might require 48 exposures. To realise the moment of Drax’s space station exploding, the team obtained two shotguns, closed the doors at a stage on Pinewood and blew the model to smithereens. The effects work earned Meddings and his team an Oscar nomination.
John Barry wrote the score and theme song with lyrics by Hal David. Johnny Mathis was the original choice to sing the song yet didn’t click with the song so Barry quickly recruited Shirley Bassey to lend the song her stunning vocals. The film would break office records during the summer of 1979, grossing $210 million.
Focus Of The Week: May Day
Stylish and deadly, May Day (Grace Jones) is the bodyguard and lover of millionaire Max Zorin (Christopher Walken) in A View To A Kill (1985). She has an eye for high fashion — we first see her in a striking red suit trying to tame Zorin’s horse, Pegasus — her ensemble is the result of a collaboration between Grace Jones’ friend, Paris designer Azzedine Alaia and costume designer Emma Porteous.
May Day is strong enough to lift a man over her head and is the perfect partner for Zorin: both share a near complete lack of regard for human life coupled with a manic personality. May Day’s main role in Zorin’s life is killing his opponents. She murders French detective Aubergine (Jean Rougerie) with a poisoned barbed butterfly prop. Bond (Roger Moore) gives chase up the Eiffel Tower but she takes a death defying leap from the top and skydives onto a wedding boat. 007 gives chase by car but she manages to evade him.
The pair meet again at Zorin’s chateau where May Day assassinates Bond’s MI6 cohort Sir Godfrey Tibbett (Patrick Macnee) while he is taking a Rolls-Royce through a car wash. She later takes part in an attempt to drown Bond in the same car and later kills 007’s CIA contact Chuck Lee (David Yip) in San Francisco.
Yet, when Zorin unleashes his plan to set off a double earthquake, flood Silicon Valley, and monopolise microchip production, May Day is forced to reconsider her allegiances. After she dutifully chases Bond and Stacey Sutton (Tanya Roberts) into a mine, Zorin floods the caverns while she is trapped inside. When May Day realises Zorin has left her to die, she helps Bond disrupt the millionaire’s scheme. Using her upper body strength, she puts the bomb in a cart to send it outside the mine. When the brake suddenly activates, blocking the cart, May Day stays on board to hold the brake open, knowing she will die when the detonator explodes. Bond implores her to save herself but she simply tells him: “Get Zorin for me.”
Zorin escapes in an airship from which he watches her exit the mine on the cart. She throws back one last defiant stare. As Zorin falls to his death following an encounter with Bond on top of the Golden Gate Bridge, her dying request comes true.
Focus Of The Week: From Russia With Love
After creating a cinematic smash with Dr. No (1962), producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, along with director Terence Young, were locked into creating a follow up for an October 1963 release date. The filmmakers chose Ian Fleming’s fifth 007 novel ‘From Russia With Love’, believed by aficionados to be among the best books — President John F. Kennedy was a fan. Novelist Len Deighton contributed briefly to the project before Richard Maibaum and Johanna Harwood worked on subsequent drafts. Although producers wanted to remain faithful to such a well loved novel, the screenplay shifted the villainy from Soviet Union’s SMERSH to the non-affiliated criminal organisation SPECTRE, a conscious decision by Broccoli to steer the series away from current international politics.
The story that emerged sees 007 assigned to help young Russian Tatiana Romanova defect from her job as a clerk in the Russian Embassy in Istanbul with an invaluable Lektor cipher machine. Tatiana is an unwitting pawn in a plan by terrorist organisation SPECTRE who plan to use her to kill Bond and discredit the USSR and British secret service agencies. With the help of Kerim Bey, Bond and Tatiana escape on board the Orient Express. Bond defeats SPECTRE agent Donald “Red” Grant in a fist fight onboard a cramped train compartment but is chased by a SPECTRE helicopter and speedboats across the gulf of Venice. After defeating one final adversary, Rosa Klebb, the architect of the SPECTRE murder organisation, Bond and Tatiana are left alone on a romantic boat ride.
With Sean Connery returning as Bond, the rest of the casting encompassed actor and novelist Robert Shaw as Grant, Academy Award nominee and singer Lotte Lenya as Klebb (aka SPECTRE No. 3) and Mexican character actor Pedro Armendáriz (a suggestion from legendary Westerns director John Ford) as Kerim Bey, head of British Secret Service ‘Station T’ in Istanbul. Yet the tricky role to cast proved to be Tatiana Romanova. Press releases put a request out for a “young Greta Garbo” — Italian actress and runner up in the Miss Universe competition Daniela Bianchi won the role.
Shooting started on April 1 1963. On April 8-9, Young shot the first meeting between Bond and Tatiana, a scene so perfectly realised it became a piece for actors and actresses auditioning for the series over the next 40 years. Young’s ambition to up the ante on the action in the series also provided complications for the shoot. The Turkey boat chase was scrapped because the boats were moving too slowly and was subsequently re-shot in Scotland, along with the helicopter attacking Bond and Tatiana.Young’s rapid shooting style was augmented by editor Peter’s Hunt’s faster, more kinetic editing style. The approach was typified by the fight between Bond and Grant on the Orient Express, which only utilised stunt doubles in two shots. Hunt also suggested putting the scene of Grant seemingly murdering 007 before the titles, thus creating the pre-credit sequence that has become a hallmark of the series.
Composer John Barry delivered a rich lush score, adding a new composition ‘007’ that captured the adventurous spirit of the character. The composer of the musical Oliver! Lionel Bart wrote the theme song performed by Matt Munro that reached #20 in the UK charts, the soundtrack album charting on both sides of the Atlantic.
Premiering on October 10, 1963, From Russia With Love became the highest grossing film in the UK to that point and broke box office records across Europe, cementing Bond’s place as a cinematic phenomenon.
Aston Martin Recreate 25 Goldfinger DB5 Cars
The iconic Aston Martin DB5 is back, thanks to a unique collaboration between Aston Martin and EON Productions. A series of 25 Goldfinger DB5 continuation editions, will be created for customers based on James Bond’s legendary car from 1964 and built by Aston Martin Works at Newport Pagnell – the original home of the DB5. They will be authentic reproductions of the DB5 seen on screen, with some sympathetic modifications to ensure the highest levels of build quality and reliability.
This authenticity will extend to include functioning gadgets, such as revolving number plates, which were made famous in Goldfinger. The gadgets will be co-developed with Oscar®-winner Chris Corbould OBE, special effects supervisor from the James Bond films. Officially sanctioned by Aston Martin and EON Productions, all the Goldfinger edition cars will be produced to one specification – Silver Birch paint – just like the original.
Since its seminal appearance in Goldfinger the DB5 has featured in a further six James Bond movies: Thunderball (1965), GoldenEye (1995), Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), Casino Royale (2006), Skyfall (2012) and Spectre (2015). James Bond and his DB5 have become two icons of popular culture and one of the most successful and enduring movie partnerships of all-time.
Andy Palmer, President and Chief Executive Officer, Aston Martin, said: “The connection between Aston Martin and James Bond is something of which we are very proud and it is remarkable that the DB5 remains the definitive James Bond car after so many years. To own an Aston Martin has long been an aspiration for James Bond fans, but to own a Silver Birch DB5, complete with gadgets and built to the highest standards in the very same factory as the original James Bond cars? Well, that is surely the ultimate collectors’ fantasy. The skilled craftspeople at Aston Martin Works and the expert special effects team from the James Bond films are about to make this fantasy real for 25 very lucky customers.”
Paul Spires, Managing Director at Aston Martin Works, added of the Goldfinger DB5 continuation editions: “The connection between Aston Martin and James Bond originated more than half a century ago. Creating 25 Goldfinger continuations and working with EON Productions and special effects supervisor, Chris Corbould, is something truly unique and a real career highlight for everyone involved here at Aston Martin Works.”
Each Goldfinger DB5 continuation car will be priced at £2.75m plus taxes. First deliveries to customers will commence in 2020.
Focus Of The Week: The World Is Not Enough Boat Chase
The World Is Not Enough opens with the longest pre-credit sequence in 007 history lasting 14 minutes. After retrieving a large sum of money from a Swiss banker in Bilbao, James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) hands it over to oil tycoon Sir Robert King (David Calder) at M16 HQ in London. When the money explodes killing King, Bond sees the Cigar Girl assassin (Maria Grazia Cucinotta) in a boat trying to shoot him so steals a small experimental boat from Q branch to give chase. The high-speed pursuit takes place along the Thames, past the Houses of Parliament and through a restaurant, ending at the Millennium Dome where the Cigar Girl comes to a spectacular end in a hot air balloon rather than give up her secrets to Bond.
“In the past we had not really used London as a location,” said Producer Michael G. Wilson. “When I saw the logistics involved in arranging the chase up and down the Thames, I understood why.
The sequence was filmed between March 29 and May 7 1999. On the first day of filming, a burst of gunfire prompted a member of the public to call the emergency services but the production already had police officers on set. Other challenges saw the highly tuned engines of the speed boats often breaking down and the tide played havoc with continuity. “The visual difference can be quite large with sand banks appearing and disappearing during shots,” recalled Second Unit Director Vic Armstrong.
On April 16 at Millwall docks, the production captured debatably the most spectacular moment in the sequence as Bond’s boat performs a mid air barrel roll. Unable to achieve the stunt with a ramp like the AMC Hornet corkscrew jump in The Man With The Golden Gun (1974), the roll was performed by stuntman Gary Powell using Vickers air mortars attached to the side of the boat — six cameras captured the stunt.
“Everybody’s in love with Bond and everybody wanted to co-operate,” remembered director Michael Apted about the smooth running of the sequence. “The doors were opened for us to work on the Thames; to shoot around the Houses of Parliament to shoot on, in, and around the Millennium Dome. It’s a great credit to the people who had made the previous Bonds.”
Focus Of The Week: Kissy Suzuki
In You Only Live Twice (1967), Kissy Suzuki (Mie Hama) works as a local field agent for Japanese Intelligence Chief Tiger Tanaka (Tetsuro Tamba). Based on the island of Matsu, she works as an Ama diver (female divers known for collecting pearls), a skill, along with her courage and tenacity, that makes her invaluable in assisting 007 (Sean Connery) in his mission to track down captured US and Soviet spacecraft.
Kissy first meets Bond when he must pose undercover as a local fisherman. She is chosen by Tanaka to marry Bond in a pretend wedding ceremony, allowing Bond invisibility to continue his search of the islands as a local. During a meal at Kissy’s house, she makes it perfectly clear to Bond that, despite their faux marriage, their relationship is purely business.
Later, Kissy offers Bond useful information for his investigation when she explains that an Ama girl died in Ryuzaki, a cave on the mainland that served as an ancient vent for a nearby volcano. The following day, Kissy takes Bond to the caves and the pair discover it is filled with lethal phosgene gas, and so swim underwater to escape danger. Continuing to look for clues, the couple share an intimate moment cut short by a helicopter flying into the mouth of the volcano. Kissy tells Bond the volcano has never been active in her lifetime and, on further investigation, they discover what looks like a lake within the crater’s surface is actually a canopy for a SPECTRE rocket base below.
As 007 infiltrates the base, Kissy heads back to meet Tanaka. During the swim home, she is targeted by a SPECTRE helicopter taking shots at her. Employing her skills as an Ama diver, she stays beneath the water to protect herself. She makes it to the mainland and joins Tanaka and his ninjas on an assault on the volcano. She saves Tanaka’s life by shooting an assailant during the battle. When Blofeld blows up his own base, Kissy and Bond escape via the Ryuzaki cave. They find a raft and relax in each other’s arms — until their dinghy is scooped up by M’s submarine.
Focus Of The Week: Diamonds Are Forever
For the first James Bond film of the seventies, producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman were facing a challenge. While the filmmakers believed On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969) worked as a film, they also felt the need to return to the entertainment values of Goldfinger (1964). This hunch was confirmed when studio United Artists released Thunderball (1965) and You Only Live Twice (1967) barely six months after On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the double bill opening to full houses and cheering crowds. The message was clear: with Diamonds Are Forever (1971) audiences wanted the return of classic Bond. They also wanted the return of the original 007. Although the producers originally chose John Gavin, an American actor, to take over from George Lazenby, they reverted to wooing back Sean Connery.
To direct and also ensure the “Goldfinger” touch, Broccoli and Saltzman hired that film’s director Guy Hamilton and co-screenwriter Richard Maibaum. Maibaum’s first draft included a story involving Auric Goldfinger’s twin brother and a boat chase on Lake Mead. Later, American screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz was hired to bring some wit and pace within the remit of 007’s essentially British tone. To further consolidate the return to the series’ core values, all agreed to bring back Bond’s arch nemesis Ernst Stavro Blofeld (this time played by Charles Gray) whose story arc was left unresolved. Mankiewicz’s final screenplay also saw a return to memorably sinister henchman — Mr. Wint (Bruce Glover) and Mr. Kidd (Putter Smith) — a grand villainous scheme and lots of humour amidst the action.
The final story saw MI6 assign Bond to investigate who is hoarding the world’s supply of diamonds. Posing as criminal Peter Franks, Bond meets small-time smuggler Tiffany Case (Jill St. John) and the pair smuggle a stash of diamonds to Las Vegas, where Bond believes industrialist Willard Whyte (Jimmy Dean) is involved in the conspiracy. 007 infiltrates Whyte’s laboratory and discovers the diamonds are being used as a part of a laser-beam satellite. Bond’s detective work leads him to a run-in with Blofeld who has kidnapped Whyte and is planning to hold the world hostage for ransom with the deadly satellite.
Shooting began on April 5 1971 with the desert outside Las Vegas doubling for South Africa. Cooperation from billionaire Howard Hughes (whose use of doubles and reclusive behaviour inspired Willard Whyte) helped pave the way for a spectacular car chase through downtown Las Vegas. The memorable moment in which Bond turns a Ford Mustang on two wheels had to be shot three times: once at Universal and then twice more in Las Vegas to capture the car emerging from an alley. The climax, an attack on Blofeld’s base, was filmed at an oil rig off the coast of Oceanside, California.
Yet the biggest challenge facing the team occurred when the main unit returned to Pinewood Studios. Every shot with Connery had to be completed within 18 weeks. On August 13, 1971, Hamilton called cut on Connery’s last shot in an EON 007 film. He finished the shoot with a game of golf, a grudge match against production designer Ken Adam.
John Barry returned to score the music, bringing back Goldfinger chanteuse Shirley Bassey to sing Don Black’s lyrics. Barry’s score captured the glamour and glitter of diamonds without diluting Hamilton’s tone and visuals. Gordon K. McCallum, John Mitchell and Alfred J. Overton were nominated for Best Sound Oscar. Bond had returned with a spectacular success and a fitting goodbye for Sean Connery.
New LEGO Aston Martin DB5
Today, the LEGO Creator Expert James Bond Aston Martin DB5 was unveiled at its Global launch in London.
Naomie Harris exclusively revealed the new 1:8 scale LEGO DB5 model at LEGO’s UK flagship store in Leicester Square alongside a real silver birch Aston Martin DB5.
Speaking at the launch, Naomie Harris said: “It’s such an honour to be here. To see the iconic DB5 reimagined in LEGO brick form is such an exciting moment to be part of and the attention to detail on the model is truly remarkable.”
LEGO designer Michael Psiaki said: “James Bond fans will go wild for all the authentic features and functions we’ve put into this car including the tyre-scythes, pop-up machine guns, and working ejector seat. The iconic status of James Bond’s DB5 makes this car a perfect fit for the LEGO Creator Expert series. We’re really excited to unveil our LEGO brick version of this elegant and timeless machine.”
The DB5 is available now from LEGO stores and shop.lego.com. It will also be available at 007store.com from 1 August.
