Worst to First: Ranking the Sequels of 1989

https://lebeauleblog.com/2019/01/25/worst-to-first-ranking-the-sequels-of-1989/

1. Licence to Kill

Rotten Tomato Score: 77%

Domestic Gross: $34,667,015

Place in Franchise: 16 of 24

Years Since Last Movie: 2

Actors Replaced: David Hedison replaced John Terry as CIA agent Felix Leiter. Hedison had played the character previously in Live and Let Die making him one of only two actors to play Felix twice (the other is Jeffrey Wright.)

Summary: Timothy Dalton’s second outing as 007 was also his last.

Two years prior, Dalton successfully took over the role from veteran Bond actor, Roger Moore, with The Living Daylights. That movie had been written for Moore and it continued the relatively lightweight tone of the series. The Dalton Bond was supposed to go back to the darker tone of the Fleming novels, so Licence to Kill was a departure from the Moore era.

Audiences at the time didn’t love it. Adjusted for inflation, Licence to Kill is the worst-performing movie in the entire Bond franchise. After its disappointing performance, there was a six year delay before the next movie was released.

Pierce Brosnan replaced Dalton in Goldeneye which led many to believe that Dalton was fired after Licence to Kill. But that is not the case. Dalton was invited to come back for another movie, but after the delay caused by legal wrangling over the film rights to the character, Dalton decided he was ready to pass the torch.

Licence to Kill isn’t a great movie. If I were to pick my favorite Bond movies, I’m not sure it would crack the top ten. But time has been reasonably kind to Dalton’s 007 and his attempt to go back to the Fleming source material almost twenty years before Daniel Craig did it in Casino Royale.