Navigating the Creative Process: Hits and Misses

I’ve got two more Bond films left, but before I get to them I wanted to expand upon a thread I made over on X today regarding the complex relationship of creative partnerships, and what happens when films don’t work out and why?

Looking across films as diverse in quality and lovability as the Bond series, it made me really think a lot about what goes into a film and its creative process. As I was reviewing Die Another Day, I found myself asking: where did this film go so wrong? Of all the films I watched over the past month, it was only this one where I felt compelled to watch the special features to at least hear from the filmmakers themselves. I also looked up interviews on YouTube as well as in the press. 

Nobody wants to make a bad film. Sure not everyone is setting out to make a critically acclaimed film either but most filmmakers are at least trying to entertain for profit. No one is trying to fail at their job. Even what that job is, is subjective. Obviously Die Another Day was extremely successful at the box office. It was the highest grossing Bond film of Brosnan’s tenure as 007. That’s hardly a failure! However, it is near universally considered to be among the worst films of the franchise critically. So if that’s your measure of success, then it failed.

I would imagine that if you asked director Lee Tamahori what he thinks of Die Another Day, he would have probably given some flippant comment about just going for it, or whatever. He never felt the need to defend his misses, and again it was a successful film at the box office so good for him, I suppose. Sadly he passed away in 2025, but throughout his life he never wavered from defending his vision. Yet there is no denying that his directing is one of the biggest problems with this feature. Doesn’t mean he’s bad at his job, or that he was phoning it in, his vision just didn’t vibe with audiences. It didn’t vibe with me! His direction style is dependent upon a lot of action clichés at the time. It’s also unfocused and not very good with character exposition. He’s got great big ideas, but then when it comes to execution of them, he largely misses and delivers something which feels absurd and not in a good way.

The script is also deeply problematic in this film. Neil Purvis and Robert Wade delivered the screenplay for this outing and it is both an example of bad dialog as well as contrived plot-writing. This is of course the writing duo behind modern James Bond, with their first outing in the series being The World is not Enough (1999). They have written or co-written every single Bond film since then. I think it is fair to say that this duo has a mixed at best reputation as quality writers, something talked about quite often over on r/JamesBond on Reddit. Nonetheless they have written some of the highest grossing films in the franchise, so again if that’s their job, they delivered. 

It’s also fair to assume that producers and executives have a large say in the screenplay of a film this size too. It’s entirely feasible as well to imagine director Lee Tamahori selling writers on some of his set piece visions. It’s very common for large action blockbusters, especially in the 21st century, to work from a set-piece idea (commonly referred to as pre-visualization) before a script is even finished. So what often happens is that big spectacle is the first focus, with all matter of actual storytelling secondary to that. I think that is quite evident here with Die Another Day.

I didn’t seek to write this post to again review a subpar Bond film, I wanted to extrapolate on these ideas as it relates to some films I mentioned in that review, specifically the director of them: Timur Bekmambetov. Often referred to as Russia’s Uwe Boll by dissatisfied film snobs, he has a checkered resume of critical hits and misses. I don’t think that comparing him to Uwe Boll is wrong either, nor is it intended from me as an insult, in fact I think it’s quite accurate. In many ways he knows what his shtick is and he delivers exactly what you would expect from him with no apology. He is undeniably a good producer and businessman as much of what he does, while critically loathed, is still often successful.

With that said, I think his early emergence on the Hollywood scene subverted some creative expectations. Wanted was a fantastic film, and holds up even today as a solid action film with comic influences. I think it’s a shame we never got a sequel to that film, and I think it’s a world that is still ripe to be further explored if it can ever escape development hell. A big part of its success is the direction of Timur. So why then did his subsequent directing efforts fall so flat on a critical level? I think it’s quite simple: he lacks the range to work outside his wheelhouse. What he knows and does well worked for Wanted, it did not translate well to Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter or Ben Hur.

His more recent films tend to focus on the use of a technology he helped to invest and develop, screen life. This format is deeply divisive and controversial, and is mostly critically panned because it is objectively a terrible way to experience cinema. It is objectively bad at visual story telling and limits the scope of narrative as well. Not every visionary, of which he certainly is one, is going to be successful in the bets they make. When assessing his more traditional directing work, even his misses say something about selection of him as director to begin with. Why did fellow producer Tim Burton not take the helm of ALVH? He seems like the much better choice subject-matter wise with a much bigger draw for an audience. I think the novelization is very good, Seth Graham Smith is a terrific writer. I think that creative pairing would have made for a better film in both tone and direction. I don’t think Ben Hur needed a remake at all! Some things should just be left alone.

More recently the prolific director-producer has been heavily criticized for his willingness to adopt AI for feature development and even the use of AI actors. Is that necessarily surprising when you look at the narrative qualities of some of his recent producing work? I am not trying to be disrespectful in asking that either. What I am attempting to draw attention to with this piece is that some people have good business instincts, but bad creative instincts. That will have impacts on creative partnership! I think that the focus on screen life is good from a business perspective if the goal is to license it to other filmmakers, but it’s pretty bad from a creative perspective. The same applies to adopting AI.  It’s interesting to see someone who is very much interested in bringing science fiction to the screen, often from the perspective of asking and answering grand questions, turn to AI in developing stories.

I currently work in tech, and write about both the past and future. The past we learn from, and the future allows writers to explore where we may be heading. However, it is important to still consider the best vehicle for grand questions we may have. Some questions do not lend themselves to cinematic exploration or even novel exploration. Medium matters, but so too does selecting which story works to explore what we want. I feel like a lot of science fiction, including that produced by this director-producer’s company, focuses first on a log-line (often some grand question) and then it works from that to build an idea around it. I think this is the wrong way to approach good science fiction, or any story for that matter. We need to think first as writers of character, world, setting and what happens before we ever get to logline or central premise. Often times by focusing on character and world building, we actually wind up with more questions and go in different directions based on how we understand our character and their journey. Also asking questions doesn’t mean as creatives we need to provide answers. Sometimes we don’t have them. too often SciFi is plot focused to the detriment of character. That is evident in Die Another Die as it is in many other extravagant blockbusters which choose style over substance.

The question most creatives need to ask themselves is:  why am I making this and/or why am I partnering with X person? Either the answer is because you want to make a shit ton of money irrespective of quality OR you aspire to make something meaningful while still hoping that it resonates and is financially successful because of that reception. I think in modern Hollywood, too often, the answer seems to be the former and not the latter. 

When I think of my first mentor who worked with that aforementioned director, I always wanted to ask him, why did you make these films and why that creative partnership? I know he is very interested in science fiction, and I always wondered why he didn’t seek to make an original SciFi or at least explore adoption of a novel or IP that could lend itself to exploration of some of the themes that probably mattered to him more than adapting a popular pulp fiction novel. I suppose the stop-motion film he produced was as close to a science fiction, and it was okay. Sometimes it comes down to one for them, one for me. But on some level I suspect that he never got one for him… so what did he get out of all this? Only he can answer that, but I am very much of the belief that he deserved more. I understand as well that some opportunities are too good to turn down, and hindsight is always 20/20, especially in a business which relies on subjectivity.

What I will say is that I do think my novella Closer to God is the sort of project he would really enjoy if he ever endeavored to return to that world. However, I have my doubts given the current landscape of that industry. That said I am a much more serious writer now than I was fifteen years ago. I’ve admittedly gotten a late start, including having to change careers and then return to writing while enduring a legal battle to keep a safe roof over my head along with the health/personal issues resultant from that which has made focusing properly on my work a big challenge (but a resolution is close). Nonetheless it is a project that is rooted in the fear of losing my own mother (which I nearly did over the holidays). While my historical fiction novel takes precedence, I have been concurrently developing this story about immortality through AI and what it means to be human or have a relationship, what is truth and what makes a person who they are… because my story is rooted in the human experience and not only in grander questions, there is an emotional connection and through point throughout its narrative. I think that human connective tissue is so essential to a creative process and what is so often absent in modern cinema and popular entertainment. Considering how much that person means to me as well, there is really nothing I wouldn’t do for him if I could. I would love to be the person that helps give or make the one for him… he deserves that. But I write without any such expectation, I write today because I love it. So whatever happens, happens. I hope he still finds another creative partner if he so chooses.

Finally there will be a moment in this grand existence where someone will mention your name one last time, don’t you care about the context with which they will mention it? I think about this often, especially as someone without progeny to carry forward my memory. The only thing I have are my words, my ideas and that which I hope to leave behind. The creative process for me isn’t a pursuit of maximum profit, it is about legacy and providing art with meaning. Whatever I leave behind, I hope that it is something another strongly cares about; that it affects them deeply even if I am not alive to hear of their reaction to it.