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MARKETING
For GOLDENEYE, long gone were the days where pencil artists like Robert McGinnis or Daniel Gouzée drawn impressive artworks of agent 007 in perilous situations. By 1995, the year where the film was being heavily marketed and then released, Photoshop was a common tool for poster designers and the Marketing department of MGM directed by John Parkinson and Gordon Arnell made sure the new James Bond was well into the digital era of the 1990s and the campaigns for the movie would be attractive enough to equal the other action movies of the times, but with that unique classy and sophisticated touch James Bond has always had - an element sorely missing from the campaign for the previous Bond film, 1989's LICENCE TO KILL.
With photographs taken by John Stoddart, Terry O'Neill, Keith Hamshereand George Whitear, designers Randi Braun and Earl Klasky from theInSync + Belmis Balkind company created two posters using the faceof the new Bond, Pierce Brosnan. A US Advance poster featureda gold-hued closeup of Bond's eyes pointing his trusty Walther PPK handgun, accompanied by the 007 logo and thetagline "There Is No Substitute".This artwork was considered a bit shocking for foreign territories, where a still of Bond posingwith his silenced Walther PPK in a tuxedo wasused, a way to remind audiences that the classicBond was still alive and well in the last decade ofthe 20th century. "You know the name. You know the number", could be read over Bond's image, as ifall was said and done.
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The international theatrical poster combined a number of action scenes from the film with the imposing image of James Bond flanked by his two female companions: the deadly Xenia Onatopp and the good girl Natalya Simonova, all of this set over a solid black background making a striking contrast with the yellow hues of the explosions triggering the scenes and a red-hued 007 logo added to the mix. "No limits. No Fears. No Substitutes" was the tagline this time, with the logo of the film in a vectorized MatrixWide font.
Evolution of the GOLDENEYE logo
In the US, a slightly different version was used, where the golden-hued and shadowed face of Bond, again flanked by Natalya and Xenia, was seen pointing his gun with no trace of wearing a dinner jacket as in the other campaigns.
For the Home Video releases, the poster advertisements reworked these designs but retained the same elements.
Poster Gallery
Unused Concept Artwork
Naturally, a great movie would need a great trailer and the case of GOLDENEYE was no exception. Directed by Joe Nimziki and narrated by Nick Tate, both trailers released for the film proved James Bond was back and confirmed he was indeed here to stay. "It's a new world with new enemies and new threats... but you can still depend on one man", teased the first trailer as the new 007 walked to the audience, asking "You were expecting someone else?"
The second trailer was more generic, but it still offered a great look at the film with clips over Starr Parodi and Jeff Fair's electronic reversion of the classic James Bond Theme.
This version is still among the fans' favourite and by popular demand, it was included in the 2002 version of the "Best of James Bond" CD compilation.
The TV spots recreated elements from the trailers, some were tied in with the Christmas and New Year seasons.
As it happened before in the franchise, many enterprises weighed in to join the "bondwagon" and place their products in this very much awaited James Bond movie: from Church's shoes and Yves Saint-Laurent cosmetics to Smirnoff vodka and Bollinger champagne, from IBM computers to BMW automobiles and Omega watches, the latter initiating a tradition still going on now with the Daniel Craig 007 movies. Did you know that Ferrari's condition to lend one of their 355 models was that the car should end ahead of the classic Aston Martin DB5 on the Bond vs Xenia car race?
Concept artwork courtesy of Twitter user 007 In Los Angeles
Indian poster thanks to Instagram user Take (@gettkd)
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