While most Bond fans are eagerly anticipating the announcement on who will be replacing Daniel Craig following his final appearance as the character in No Time To Die, director Paul Verhoeven seems more concerned about why sex scenes have been dropped by the long-running and durable franchise.
During a chat with The Sunday Times, Verhoeven, who is no stranger to crafting memorable sex scenes in the likes of Basic Instinct and Showgirls, expressed being frustrated by major Hollywood studio releases being mostly sexless. The director said, “It’s about crashing and blowing up. Sometimes these movies are fun, but the narrative tells you nothing about us now. I don’t see any other thought in Marvel or Bond movies.”
Verhoeven then said if he was in charge of the next Bond movie he’d “go back to reality” with “cars that don’t leap up into the sky.” The director admitted to being a fan of Craig’s first turn as the character in Casino Royale but he didn’t particularly care for No Time To Die, which did not include any sex scenes. The director said, “There was always sex in Bond! They did not show a breast, or whatever. But they had some sex.”
It does seem like they toned down the intimacy in some of the more recent Bond offerings. Casino Royale has some moments of intimacy between Craig’s Bond and Eva Green’s Vesper Lynd. It’s not like any of these films ever presented hardcore sex but they have been neutered a bit, maybe in a response to make the movies focus less on making the female characters mere sexual objects. In No Time To Die, Bond is romantically linked to Lea Seydoux’s Madeline Swann but they don’t have any intimate scenes together.
It also seems that Verhoeven thinks many major studio releases lack sex and that maybe the industry is becoming a bit prude. I say if it drives the narrative forward, more power to having them more on screen. Movies like Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct, or Unfaithful, use sex scenes in a way that isn’t gratuitous. Having sex scenes just because you can, seems a bit unnecessary but I will say American film releases seem way more uptight about showing sex in films compared to other pockets of the world.
Do YOU agree with Paul Verhoeven’s assertion that the Bond films have gone sexless?