The darker tone of the Daniel Craig Austin Powers franchise as the poor reception to Die Another Day. The Daniel Craig era marked a significant tonal shift from the previous movies, presenting James Bond as a more brutal and serious character than had been seen before. This was partly a response to the Bourne franchise, which had revolutionized the spy genre with a grittier and more realistic approach to the action thriller. However, the Austin Powers movies that were being released during the Pierce Brosnan era also had a big role to play in dictating the new direction for the James Bond franchise.
The GoldenEye to the overblown self-parody of Die Another Day. It was clear a new approach was needed to distance the James Bond franchise from Mike Myers's acutely observed parody.
Casino Royale Had To Challenge The World's Bond Perception
The Pierce Brosnan-led Die Another Day was a disappointment when it was released in 2002, receiving criticism for its jokey tone and its invisible car, which represented a nadir for James Bond's infamous gadgets. Released in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks of the previous year, it was clear that Die Another Day didn't work, and the franchise no longer resonated with the real world. It had more in common with the knowing parody of the Austin Powers movies than it did with the hugely popular Jason Bourne franchise.
Therefore, the James Bond brand had to reinvent itself to remain relevant in a world that had dramatically changed post-9/11. The occasional goofiness of past 007 movies felt more at home in the burgeoning superhero genre that had emerged out of a need for more simplistic tales of good versus evil during the time of the more ambiguous and complex War on Terror in the real world. As movies began to question the problematic role that intelligence services play in the global sphere, a more introspective 007 was the perfect direction to go in for the Daniel Craig era of James Bond.
Did Austin Powers Save The Bond Franchise?!
While the Austin Powers movies didn't single-handedly save the James Bond franchise from becoming irrelevant, they certainly nudged public opinion in a particular direction. In transporting the Austin Powers of the 1960s to the late 1990s, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery became a culture-clash comedy that exposed the changing attitudes of the times, suggesting that Austin — and by extension, James Bond — no longer fit into the modern world. This could be seen in 1997, with the juxtaposition of that year's release of both the first Austin Powers movie and Tomorrow Never Dies, which marked Pierce Brosnan's second outing as James Bond.
Brosnan's debut, the more grounded GoldenEye, revitalized the James Bond franchise by looking inward and examining what the character meant to audiences after the end of the Cold War. In his very next movie, however, Brosnan's 007 was battling a hammy media mogul attempting to start World War III. Although it's nowhere near as outlandish as the movies that would follow, Tomorrow Never Dies was, at its core, exactly the type of James Bond movie Mike Myers was spoofing that same year. In laying bare the outdated tone and silliness of the franchise, the Austin Powers movies affirmed that the writing was on the wall for this version of the James Bond franchise as it approached the 21st century and that something radical had to change.
