2012 marks the 50th anniversary of James Bond on the big screen. To celebrate, SFX's Nick Setchfield revisits each and every 007 adventure in a week by week countdown to Skyfall ...
MISSION 16: LICENCE TO KILL (1989)
TANKING CRISIS Licence To Kill ’s centrepiece action scene finds Bond at the wheel of a tanker, manoeuvering its long, gleaming bulk through tortuous Mexican mountain roads filled with dust and fireballs and the chatter of machinegun fire. There’s a muscular Monster Truck Show vibe to this stunt sequence, never more so than in the moment the tanker performs a gravity-mocking wheelie (Kenworth Trucks fitted a 1000 horsepower engine, close to three times the amount of horsepower on a normal tanker – five tons of weight were also placed over the back wheels so it could attempt the feat). Filming took place at the La Rumorosa Mountain Pass in Mexicali and required a total of 16 18-wheeler trucks, corralled by veteran stunt co-ordinator Remy Julienne, who performed the astonishing tanker-tilt without recourse to a special rig that had been constructed for the shot.
TRIV AND LET DIE
Originally titled Licence Revoked , the movie was renamed after the studio fretted that the word revoked would be a hard sell in the US.
Robert Davi played Bond in the screentests for Lupe.
JAMES BOND WILL RETURN IN GOLDENEYE