August 08, 2010

Tom Mankiewicz has died. If you like 70s Bond, you've enjoyed Tom Mankiewicz's work. He wrote "Live and Let Die," and "The Man With the Golden Gun," and "Diamonds Are Forever." Mediageek says it has a version of his script for "Batman."

"I want The Batman's outfit to be truly frightening," Mankiewicz told Goldberg. "I hope we can do something with his eyes so he has a penetrating and mesmerizing gaze that will give him a Svengali look. Really, when you look at The Batman character, he's only one step removed from Charles Bronson in DEATH WISH." In 1983 this sounded rather extreme as the true darkening of the Batman character wasn't as far along then and didn't truly occur to the degree we recognize today until Frank Miller's THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS was published in 1986. "

  • He wrote "Live and Let Die," and "The Man With the Golden Gun," and "Diamonds Are Forever." All very good movies. Though with no disrespect to the deceased, he did also have a hand in "Moonraker"