Daniel Craig’s third Bond film went through various story changes and rewrites before settling on Skyfall. One of those scriptments we;ve talked about before, Once Upon A Spy, in which The Crown producer Peter Morgan turned in a John Le Care-esque Bond film that focused on M and ended with 007 forced to kill her.
The idea was canned, but when director Sam Mendes was brought on board to helm Bond 23, he asked EON Productions co-head Barbara Broccoli if he could keep the death of M. She agreed, though both were smart enough to not have Bond be the one who killed her.
A story was written around M’s death. A man from her past–a former agent–is hellbent on revenge. The former agent was first named Raoul Sousa before his last name was changed to Silva. Raoul Silva is the villain of Skyfall. And in an early script draft, the story takes an abrupt change in direction when both Bond and Silva make an “uneasy truce” and join forces to bring down an even greater threat.
According to the book, Some Kind of Hero, Neal Purvis, co-writer of Skyfall, explained that:
“[Silva] was going to be the man who knocked Bond off the train during the fight in the pre-titles. Bond recovers, tracks him down to the Andes … a Heart of Darkness feel … When he discovers him they’re both attacked. So they team up to find who did it. This is the case where yo try too many ideas before you find the one that fits the story best.”
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Mendes added:
“They teamed up in the middle of the movie, in a kind of uneasy truce. And it didn’t work because Bond works alone. He might have a woman at his side or partner with one along the way, but it didn’t feel right to be paired with another alpha male. [Bond] needs someone to fight against, and I read it and thought: ‘No, that doesn’t work.'”
Mendes seems to forget that Bond worked with 006 at the beginning of Goldeneye. Two alpha males that happened to be friends operated very effectively until Alec Trevelyan (Sean Bean) decides to betray Bond.
The key is that the partnership would have been an “uneasy truce.” While the film we eventually got is one of the best Bond films ever and Silva became one of the best Bond villains, the uneasy partnership between hero and villain to take down an even bigger threat is an interesting idea that is hopefully shelved but not forgotten. There are many ways the idea could play out with Bond killing him too in the end after handling the bigger threat, or both men going in separate directions with the villain returning in a later film for Bond to deal with once and for all.
The Bond series has a history of using ideas shelved from previous projects. Hopefully this idea will make it into a future Bond film in some form.