Friday, January 25, 2008

Clevering up?

Apparently, Timothy Dalton's second outing as James Bond, Licence to Kill (1989), was originally going to be called "Licence Revoked", until market research deduced that the majority of the target audience didn't know what "revoked" meant.

Roll along a couple of decades, and what's the title of Daniel Craig's sophomore effort? Quantum of Solace, for crying out loud.

6 comments:

Rog said...

I may be able to help here being in the target demographic.

"Revoked" sounds as though it's a proper word which one ought to understand but doesn't. It looks like the sort of word that would be rubber stamped on credit applications.

"Quantum of Solace" sounds like a typical Harry Potteresque mumbo jumbo expression which rolls off the tongue like Azkaban or Nissan Qashqai or any Airport Novel Title. It was probably dreamt up (and named after) a bunch of saddos.

Anonymous said...

I'm strangely happy that they used Quantum of Solace as the title, it's wonderfully old-fashioned and was the title of a Fleming short-story, of course, which is how things should be.

However, in the Triffid household, the latest Bond will forever be known as Crumb of Comfort.

Unknown said...

so, what does that mean??

Anonymous said...

Perhaps this speaks well of the generation(s) after 1989's target market? Perhaps we're no longer the hip, action seeking croud that the film studio is looking to draw in. Or perhaps all the good titles were taken by cyber-squatters.

Regardless, with Olga Kurylenko and Gemma Arterton in it, this is a film I'll be in line to see. Title be damned.

Anonymous said...

It means: a crumb of comfort!

Annie said...

Haha. I had no idea what that meant until Wyndham made it clear.