Daniel Craig was against Samsung and Sony smartphones being used in the new James Bond movie, Spectre. According to reports, Craig, who has starred as James Bond, since the movie Casino Royale, was offered $5 million to use the Sony Xperia Z4 in the movie. In addition, Sony also offered $18 million for the marketing and promotion for the upcoming Bond flick. Samsung on the other hand, came over the top, trumping Sony’s offer with a $50 million bid. The South Korean smartphone giant also offered $5 million for Bond to use a Samsung smartphone in the movie.
Craig wasn’t the only one against the use of devices from these two OEMs though. Reports say that director Sam Mendes, was also against the multi-million dollar product placement and promotion deals. The reason for this being that Bond uses only the best and they didn’t find the Sony phone to be the ‘best’. The information was revealed through leaked emails to Broccoli, from Andrew Gumpert, who is the President of Worldwide Business Affairs and Operations for Columbia Pictures. It is worth noting that the leaked emails were part of those that were compromised during the recent hack of Sony’s internal emails.
"BEYOND the $$ factor, there is, as you may know, a CREATIVE factor whereby Sam and Daniel don't like the Sony phone for the film (the thinking, subjectively/objectively is that James Bond only uses the 'best,' and in their minds, the Sony phone is not the 'best'," Andrew Gumpert, President of Worldwide Business Affairs and Operations, Columbia Pictures, wrote.
The emails also discussed a scenario where the Sony Xperia Z4 would be promoted without Daniel Craig, in which case, $4 million from Sony’s offer would go to Barbara Broccoli, producer of the movie. The other $1 million would be going to the actor playing Q in the movie.
Sony had earlier introduced the 'Made for Bond' monicker for the Xperia Z5, in an advertisement featuring Moneypenny, picking up the phone for James Bond. While Daniel Craig doesn’t feature in the ad, it implies that James Bond uses the recently launched Xperia Z5 smartphone in the movie.