The World Is Not Enough

Yacht used in the opening boat chase, on display at boot Düsseldorf in spring 2000

In November 1997, a month prior to the release of Tomorrow Never Dies, Barbara Broccoli watched a news report on Nightline detailing how the world's major oil companies were vying for control of the untapped oil reserves in the Caspian Sea in the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse, and suggested that controlling the only pipeline from the Caspian to the West would be an appropriate motivation for a potential Bond villain.[8] She and Michael G. Wilson hired screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade to work on the film following their work on Plunkett & Macleane; Purvis and Wade would eventually write or co-write all of the proceeding Bond films up to No Time to Die.[9] Broccoli was especially impressed by the writers' suggestion of a female villain, stating that "With Elektra, Bond thinks he has found Tracy, but he's really found Blofeld".[8]

Joe Dante, and later Peter Jackson, were initially offered the opportunity to direct the film. Barbara Broccoli enjoyed Jackson's Heavenly Creatures, and a screening of The Frighteners was arranged for her. She disliked the latter film, however, and showed no further interest in Jackson. Jackson, a lifelong Bond fan, remarked that as Eon tended to go for less famous directors, he would likely not get another chance to direct a Bond film after The Lord of the Rings.[10] Hoping to find a director capable of eliciting strong performances from women, the producers eventually hired Michael Apted, as his work with Sissy Spacek in Coal Miner's Daughter, Sigourney Weaver in Gorillas in the Mist and Jodie Foster in Nell has earned all three actresses Oscar nominations (with Spacek winning). Apted's then-wife Dana Stevens did an uncredited rewrite, primarily to strengthen the female characters' roles, before Bruce Feirstein, who had worked in the previous two films, was hired to work on Bond's role.[8][11]

Initially the film was to be released in 2000, rumoured to be titled Bond 2000. Other rumoured titles included Death Waits for No Man, Fire and Ice, Pressure Point and Dangerously Yours.[12] The title The World Is Not Enough is an English translation of the Latin phrase Orbis non sufficit, which in real life was the motto of Sir Thomas Bond. In the novel On Her Majesty's Secret Service and its film adaptation, this is revealed to be the Bond family motto. The phrase originates from the epitaph of Alexander the Great.[13]

Russian Victor III-class submarine used in filming

The pre-title sequence begins in Bilbao, Spain, featuring the Guggenheim Museum. After the opening scene, the film moves to London, showcasing the SIS Building and the Millennium Dome on the Thames. The sequence lasts for about 14 minutes, the longest pre-title sequence in the Bond series to date. Originally, the pre-credits sequence was to have ended with Bond's leap from the window and descent to the ground, finishing as Bond rushes away from the area as police cars approach. Then, after the credits the sequence in MI6 headquarters would have been next, with the boat scenes the next major action sequence. However, the pre-credits scenes were viewed as lacklustre when compared to ones from previous 007 films, so the credits were pushed back to appear after the boat sequence. The Daily Telegraph claimed that the British Government prevented some filming in front of the actual MI6 Headquarters at Vauxhall Cross, citing a security risk. However, a Foreign Office spokesperson rejected the claims and expressed displeasure with the article.[14] Following the title sequence, Eilean Donan castle in Scotland is used by MI6 as a location headquarters. Other locations include Baku, Azerbaijan, the Azerbaijan Oil Rocks and Istanbul, Turkey, where Maiden's Tower and Küçüksu Palace are shown.[15]

Principal photography began on 17 January 1999, and lasted until June of that year. The studio work for the film was shot as usual in Pinewood Studios, including Albert R. Broccoli's 007 Stage. Bilbao, Spain was used briefly for the exterior of the Swiss bank and flyover-bridge adjacent to the Guggenheim Museum. In London outdoor footage was shot of the SIS Building and Vauxhall Cross with several weeks filming the boat chase on the River Thames eastwards towards the Millennium Dome, Greenwich.[16] The canal footage of the chase where Bond soaks the parking wardens was filmed at Wapping and the boat stunts in Millwall Dock and under Glengall Bridge were filmed at the Isle of Dogs. Chatham Dockyard was also used for part of the boat chase.[17] Stowe School, Buckinghamshire, was used as the site of the King family estate on the banks of Loch Lomond. Filming continued in Scotland at Eilean Donan Castle which was used to depict the exterior of MI6 temporary operations centre "Castle Thane". The skiing chase sequence in the Caucasus was shot on the slopes of Chamonix, France.[15] Filming of the scene was delayed by an avalanche; the crew helped in the rescue operation.[18]

The filming occurred a few months before the BMW Z8 (unit pictured) was released

The interior (and single exterior shot) of L'Or Noir casino in Baku, Azerbaijan, was shot at Halton House, the officers' mess of RAF Halton. RAF Northolt was used to depict the airfield runway in Azerbaijan.[15] Zukovsky's quayside caviar factory was shot entirely at the outdoor water tank at Pinewood. The exterior of Kazakhstan nuclear facility was shot at the Bardenas Reales, in Navarre, Spain, and the exterior of the oil refinery control centre at the Motorola building in Groundwell, Swindon.[19] The exterior of the oil pipeline was filmed in Cwm Dyli, Snowdonia, Wales,[20] while the production teams shot the oil pipeline explosion on Hankley Common, Elstead, Surrey. Istanbul, Turkey, was used in the film, and Elektra King's Baku villa was actually in the city, also using the famous Maiden's Tower which was used as Renard's hideout in Turkey. The underwater submarine scenes were filmed in the Bahamas.[21]

The BMW Z8 driven by Bond in the film was the final part of a three-film product placement deal with BMW (which began with the Z3 in GoldenEye and continued with the 750iL in Tomorrow Never Dies) but, due to filming preceding release of the Z8 by a few months, several working mock-ups and models were manufactured for filming purposes.

Rock band Garbage (pictured in 2016) sang the film's title song.

The soundtrack to The World Is Not Enough is the second Bond soundtrack to be composed by David Arnold.[22] Arnold broke tradition by not ending the film with a reprise of the opening theme or, as with the previous three films, a new song. Originally, Arnold intended to use the song "Only Myself to Blame" at the end of the film; however, Apted discarded this and the song was replaced by a remix of the "James Bond Theme".[23] "Only Myself to Blame", written by Arnold and Don Black and sung by Scott Walker, is the 19th and final track on the album and its melody is Elektra King's theme. The theme is heard in "Casino", "Elektra's Theme" and "I Never Miss".[23] Arnold added two new themes to the final score, both of which are reused in the following film, Die Another Day.

The title song, "The World Is Not Enough", was written by David Arnold with Don Black and performed by Garbage. It is the fifth Bond theme co-written by Black, preceded by "Thunderball",[24] "Diamonds Are Forever",[25] "The Man with the Golden Gun",[26] and "Tomorrow Never Dies".[27] IGN chose "The World Is Not Enough" as the ninth-best James Bond theme of all time.[28] In 2012 Grantland ranked the song as the second-best Bond song of all-time, behind only "Goldfinger."[29] The song also appeared in two "best of 1999" polls: #87 in 89X's "Top 89 Songs of 1999"[30] and No. 100 in Q101's "Top 101 of 1999".[31]

The film opened at the top of the North American box office with $35.5 million. Its final worldwide gross was $361.8 million worldwide,[2] with $126 million in the United States alone.[2] It became the highest grossing James Bond film of all time until the release of Die Another Day.[34] The film was also selected for the first round of nominations for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects but failed.[35] The film was nominated for a Best Action/Adventure/Thriller Film Saturn Award, Pierce Brosnan won both the Empire Award and the Blockbuster Entertainment Award as Best Actor, and David Arnold won a BMI Film Music Award for his score. The film became the first in the Bond series to win a Golden Raspberry when Denise Richards was chosen as "Worst Supporting Actress" at the 1999 Razzie Awards. Richards and Brosnan were also nominated for "Worst Screen Couple" (lost to Will Smith and Kevin Kline for Wild Wild West).[36] The initial release of the DVD includes the featurette "Secrets of 007", which cuts into "making of" material during the film; the documentary "The Making of The World Is Not Enough"; two commentary tracks—one by director Michael Apted, and the other by production designer Peter Lamont, second unit director Vic Armstrong, and composer David Arnold; a trailer for the PlayStation video game, and the Garbage music video.[37] The Ultimate Edition released in 2006 had as additional extras a 2000 documentary named "Bond Cocktail", a featurette on shooting the Q Boat scenes, Pierce Brosnan in a press conference in Hong Kong, deleted scenes, and a tribute to Desmond Llewelyn.[38]

Denise Richards (pictured on the film's premiere) was widely criticized for her performance.

Reception was mixed. Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert said the film was a "splendid comic thriller, exciting and graceful, endlessly inventive", and gave it three-and-a-half stars out of four.[39] On the other hand, Eleanor Ringel Gillespie of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution disliked the film, calling it "dated and confused".[40] Rotten Tomatoes gave The World Is Not Enough a 52% rating, the lowest of the Bond films. The site's consensus states: "Plagued by mediocre writing, uneven acting, and a fairly by-the-numbers plot, The World Is Not Enough is partially saved by some entertaining and truly Bond-worthy action sequences."[41] Metacritic gives the film a score of 59 out of 100.[42] Nathan Rabin from The A.V. Club opined that "enough fun moments are scattered throughout to make it a decent Bond entry. But the series still needs a massive shot of fresh ideas if it wishes to become anything more than a nostalgia-fueled commercial sure thing".[43] Antonia Quirke from The Independent said that the film "is certainly less definitively feeble than other recent Bond offerings, with an at least two-dimensional female character in the bold and oval Marceau. But my reaction is much the same as to a new Rolling Stones album: I'm just grateful that it's not embarrassing".[44] Negative criticism was focused on the execution of the plot, and the action scenes were considered excessive.[45]

Pete Debruge of Variety wrote that "[The World Is Not Enough] presents a conflicted persona torn between the corny antics of the Roger Moore era and the grim seriousness of where things would eventually go under Daniel Craig’s tenure. It also contains a dose of Timothy Dalton-esque toughness [...] Much of what made Brosnan such a great Bond is thrust into the backseat by lame jokes and a premature attempt to mix up the formula", concluding that it was "nothing but a reversion to the franchise’s most adolescent tendencies".[46] Entertainment Weekly picked it as the worst Bond film of all time, saying it had a plot "so convoluted even Pierce Brosnan has admitted to being mystified".[47] Norman Wilner of MSN chose it as the third worst film, above A View to a Kill and Licence to Kill,[48] while IGN chose it as the fifth worst.[49] Richards was also widely criticized for not being credible in the role of a nuclear scientist, with Variety calling her "the least plausible nuclear physicist in the history of movies, who makes even the electrochemist Elisabeth Shue played in 1997’s The Saint sound like a Nobel laureate"; Nathan Rabin panned her performance and called it "so laughably awful that the film comes to a dead stop whenever she's on screen".[50][51][46][43] She was ranked as one of the worst Bond girls of all time by Entertainment Weekly in 2008.[52]