From London with love. The James Bond producer Barbara Broccoli was present at a special media event staged in an impressive and spacious interior at Battersea Power Station, London, on Thursday 2nd November. The event was for the premiere of the new Bond-themed TV game show, 007: Road To A Million. She was joined by actor Brian Cox, who plays The Controller in the new series, and contestants from the show’s first series were also present (nine pairs are sent around the globe in the show).
At one stage during the event, Broccoli posed in front of a black helicopter which was decorated with the Road To A Million logo. Asked if there could be more Bond-related TV spin-offs in the future, Barbara told the PA News Agency: ‘I think this is a one-off. I hope we’ll do more of these with [producer] David [Glover] and [production company] 72 Films but I don’t think we’re going to do anything else’.
She said Brian Cox, who recently won acclaim for his role as Logan Roy in the TV show Succession, was the first choice as The Controller because he is ‘phenomenal’, and she said she thought the new show was ‘tremendous entertainment’. The Controller is a kind of shadowy puppet-master, rather in the tradition of Blofeld and other Bond baddies, mostly stern and manipulative but sometimes quite witty.
Cox himself also spoke to the media at the Battersea event. The veteran Scottish actor told the PA News Agency that hosting the new series was as near as he would get to the actual Bond film series so he is ‘quite happy’. He described The Controller as incredibly wealthy, ‘villainous and cultured’, and as a man who ‘revels in the increasingly difficult journeys and questions the contestants must overcome’.
Cox’s comments during the special event echoed various other comments he has made to other media outlets in recent weeks. Speaking to the BBC’s Radio Times magazine, for example, he said: ‘Now I can finally say I have been in a Bond production! I always thought I’d be a very good villain but nobody’s ever offered. Having played one of the most misunderstood men in television history [in Succession], it was a no-brainer to be a Bond villain of sorts’.
Attendees at the event, which screened the first episode of the new series, were also able to view a range of classic Bond vehicles on display outside the iconic building. Interestingly, Battersea Power Station is near the River Thames, which was utilized for key scenes in the EON James Bond movies The World Is Not Enough, Skyfall and Spectre. The former Power Station, which is a now a major location for cultural events and new product launches, is a striking presence on the Thames embankment.
The new series of 007: Road To A Million is available on Amazon Prime from Friday 10th November. The Bond universe is now expanding slightly, and we have been expecting it.
Brian Cox as The Controller.