I understood you perfectly well, amana. You wrote:

>audiences were NOT used to (or as used to) having a wildly popular leading character be replaced by a different actor in a sustained film franchise<

That statement is simply factually not correct, going back through all of film history. If you want to pick at "popular" (I guess, defining it as, "popular in the Sixties"?), and "sustaining" (I guess, defining it as, "by one producer"?) in a Clintonian "what is 'is' " way, you can, but the facts are the facts.

And then of course, add to that the connection that Ghost cites: John Clayton - especially his recent big-budget, international films - were in some ways a template for the early Bond entries. (Connery even coming out of one of them.) Again, I'm not even a major fan of the character; but I think we can safely assume that myriad production entities have not continued to invest in him from 1918 - 2016 because they expected to lose money with an unpopular character.

-Craig

Monsterkid since the Kennedy Era
Last Edited By: Wich2 Apr 23 15 10:22 AM. Edited 3 times.