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Steven Spielberg long wanted to direct a James Bond film.
Producer Albert “Cubby” Broccoli repeatedly turned the Jaws filmmaker down.
On a podcast Wednesday, Spielberg said the franchise could not afford him now.
If you’re James Bond, you only live twice. But if you’re Steven Spielberg, you only get rejected from directing a Bond film twice.
The legendary filmmaker has revealed that early in his career he was “consistently turned down” by late Bond producer Albert “Cubby” Broccoli.
“I’d always wanted to make a James Bond film from the day I saw Dr. No, so I called Cubby after Jaws and volunteered,” Spielberg said on Wednesday’s episode of The Rest Is Entertainment Podcast. “I said, ‘If you need a director, I would love to direct one.’ And he said no.”
Broccoli circled back to Spielberg a few years later for a favor. He wanted to use the iconic five-note musical melody from Spielberg’s 1977 sci-fi classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind in the new Bond film, Moonraker, set for release in 1979.
“I said, ‘I’ll make you a deal. I’ll give you permission to use the five notes if you let me direct a Bond film,'” Spielberg shared. “And he said no. But I gave him the five notes anyway. So they consistently turned me down — at least, Broccoli did. He never explained why he wasn’t letting me into the Bond family.”
Steven Spielberg at ‘Disclosure Day’ premiere in London on June 4
Credit: Karwai Tang/WireImage
Spielberg got the last laugh, as he soon released what would end up being two of his biggest films: Raiders of the Lost Ark and E.T. And it turns out that he first heard about the idea for Indiana Jones during a conversation about his Bond rejection.
“When I told that story to George Lucas in 1977, when we were in Hawaii together getting ready for the release of Star Wars: A New Hope, he said, ‘I have something better than Bond. It’s called Indiana Smith,’ which is what it was called at the time,” Spielberg revealed. “He told me the premise of the Indiana Jones series, and that’s how I got that job.”
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Now with even more classics under his belt, the three-time Oscar winner has a message for those currently running Bond: “If they ever asked me to make a Bond film now, my answer would be: ‘You can’t afford me.’”
Spielberg’s latest film, Disclosure Day, opens in theaters Friday.
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
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