See 007 for real

James Bond and his MI5 colleagues are appearing alongside their darkest enemies at the Royal Albert Hall tonight.

Catch a glimpse of Pierce Brosnan, Hally Berry and their enemies when they arrive before Her Majesty the Queen at the world premiere of Die Another Day. The stars will be arriving from 5pm onwards.

An exclusive West End presentation will be held in Leicester Square on November 19 and the film is on national release on November 20.

Until then, Alexander Walker takes time out to talk to the family behind the phenomena that has made them one of the richest in the film industry.

At a round table in a Piccadilly office overlooking Green Park, Barbara Broccoli and her stepbrother Michael G Wilson sit with me patiently. Barbara, daughter of Albert R Broccoli, aka "Cubby", is a vivacious, fortyish brunette, dressed ultra-simply in a black trouser suit. Her lipstick - fire-engine red - is her sole colourful dab of executive power. Michael Wilson is in his mid-to-late fifties, I'd say, and is also not the standout mogul: dusty khaki shirt, dark tie, greying hair, large reading glasses, a stubble of moustache and beard.

Broccoli has a 10-year-old daughter; Wilson, two sons in the film industry, and one of the country's most important vintage photograph collections. They live in London. The rest is silence. Very wise, when your "niche" industry has grossed more than $6 billion.

"You know," Wilson begins, "The first Bond film, Dr No, did not get all that good a press." It did from me, I say. When Cubby asked me after the press screening if he and co-producer Harry Saltzman had a hit, I said: "Not a hit - a smash hit."

My first inkling of the phenomenon," says Broccoli, "came as a kid, when I saw daddy helicoptering in to land on the Piz Gloria alp in Murren, where they were shooting On Her Majesty's Secret Service." What she saw was producer power: "Wow! Daddy is a big deal!"

Wilson began his involvement as a legal adviser on the Bond films, then co-wrote and co-produced; Broccoli, now an assistant director, joined her step-brother on Cubby's death in 1996.

How do they start to create each new Bond? "Not with the plot, but with the character. What's his emotional journey going to be? How does this James fit his times, his women, his villains?" says Wilson. North Koreans in the new film, I interject.

"Yeah, Hollywood doesn't release too many movies there," he quips. "Bond's enemies usually operate outside political systems ... they are renegades," adds Broccoli. "The films are popular even in Russia, despite all Bond did in the Cold War. The world is morally grey, but Bond is black-and-white.

"The trick is keeping that simplicity, but varying the complexity of his challenges. We put him up against new situations that call for fresh emotional responses."

But isn't Bond a rather limited character? "Definitely not," says Wilson. "New facets emerge, depending which leading man plays him." Wilson and Broccoli enumerate: "Connery was sexy, looked as if he could be a bit cruel to a woman before he was kind." Roger Moore?

"More romantic, a different cocktail - stirred rather than shaken." They're surprisingly warm towards George Lazenby, who made only one Bond outing. "He took the biggest risk, falling in love and breaking up over the body of his dead wife." Timothy Dalton? "He wanted to go back to the darker Fleming elements."

The six-year gap between the last of Dalton's films and the first of Pierce Brosnan's was helpful: it allowed time to reposition Bond in a fastchanging world of political uncertainties and sexual mores. "Pierce has gravitas... and edge," says Broccoli. "He weighs the choices Bond makes more realistically. You'll notice it in the new film. Bond suffers."

Sneakily, I observe that any new Bond has to be an established player, but not a megastar who'd bring a memory of his previous screen parts to the character. I'm hoping Wilson and Broccoli will agree, so that I can say: "Then that rules out Russell Crowe," who is currently being touted for "007" status. Broccoli spots my ruse.

"When people ask about the 'next Bond', I say it is like asking a bride who'll be her next husband. Bond is Pierce Brosnan. And for the moment, I can't think of marrying anyone else."

Just how rich have the Bond films made them? They insist that the collateral fortune the films supposedly generate from merchandising is not that huge. "The big spin-offs come from cuddly toys, and the Bond films are short on those. And we don't encourage licensing toy guns. Die Another Day is the first Bond with a 12A certificate: quite young kids can see it. Great! But for us it brings added responsibility."

How long will they continue making Bonds? They roll their eyes at the ornate ceiling. Broccoli says: "My little girl asked me the other day, 'Mummy, do I carry on the business?'" I ask what she replied. She flashes me a scarlet-lipped smile. But it's my bet mother didn't say no.

Die Another Day opens nationwide Wednesday, 20 November.

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