Pierce Brosnan Shares The Story of The Time Quentin Tarantino Pitched Him a James Bond Movie

Before Daniel Craig took over the James Bond franchise, Quentin Tarantino really wanted to make his own Bond movie with Pierce Brosnan. His idea was to tell his own version of Casino Royale, which would be set in the ’50s or ’60s, and Uma Thurman would have possibly starred alongside Brosnan. I think Tarantino would have made a cool and badass Bond film, but it was never meant to be.

During a recent live-watch of Golden Eye via Esquire, Brosnan shared his story of the time he met Tarantino to talk about the possibility of making a Bond film together. The actor said:

“It was after Kill Bill Vol. 2, and he wanted to meet me, so I went up to Hollywood one day from the beach, and I met him at the Four Seasons. I got there at 7:00 P.M., I like to be punctual. 7:15 came around, no Quentin, he was upstairs doing press. Someone sent over a martini, so I had a martini, and I waited till 7:30, and I thought, where the heck is he? Word came down, apologies, so I thought, okay, I’ll have another.”

Brosnan went on to say that he was "fairly smokered" or drunk when Tarantino finally did show up. Tarantino went ahead ordered more martinis, and the two of them got even more “smokered” while Tarantino excitedly pitched his Bond film idea with passion. Brosnan explained:

“He was pounding the table, saying you’re the best James Bond, I wanna do James Bond, and it was very close quarters in the restaurant and I thought, please calm down, but we don’t tell Quentin Tarantino to calm down. He wanted to do James Bond, and I went back to the shop and told them but it wasn’t mean to be. No Quentin Tarantino for James Bond.”

When previously talking about his pitch, Tarantino said:

“After Pulp Fiction, I tried to get the rights to Casino Royale away from the Broccolis, but that didn’t happen. That wouldn’t have been just throwing my hat in the franchise ring; that would have been subversion on a massive level, if I could have subverted Bond.”

I don’t know, it’s kind of a shame that this didn’t happen. As a fan of Tarantino, I would have loved to see him make a Bond movie! But hey, at least we ended up getting some wicked cool original stories from him.