Did You Know? Daniel Craig’s Skyfall Was Supposed To Be Shot In India? Find Out The Conditions Laid By The Indian Government ( Photo Credit – IMDb )
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Who doesn’t love watching James Bond films and see them doing jaw-dropping stunts? We sure do, and the makers keep impressing us with such content in each and every film. Today, we bring you one such story of where the makers of Daniel Craig’s Skyfall wanted to incorporate the trains of India in their films but failed to meets the government’s condition.
For the 2012 James Bond film, the makers approached the Indian Railways for permission to shoot in and on the trains. The government in return, set down a couple of condition, and one was then proved to be the trigger in the makers shifting the shoot to another country.
In a 2014 parliament discussion, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter, Former Union Minister for Railways, Dinesh Trivedi, said that he had put forth a list of conditions for the producers of Skyfall to shoot in India. And interestingly, one of these conditions included Daniel Craig’s James Bond endorsing the Indian Railways.
The site reported Dinesh Trivedi saying, “I put three conditions: that they will not show that passengers in India travel on roofs of trains; that there will be no compromise with safety during the shoot; and that James Bond would sign up as a brand ambassador for Indian Railways.” He added that as per the third condition, “which was only added in jest” Daniel Craig’s character would be required to say that “Indian Railways is stronger than James Bond.”
The reports stated that the Skyfall producers agreed to the second and third conditions (can you imagine that!) but didn’t budge on the first one. Trivedi continued,” ‘There will be a scene where James Bond is going to fight on the roof of a train. Otherwise, why would we come to India?’ they said.” The talks fell through because Trivedi wouldn’t allow them to “show us in poor light.”
A 2011 report claimed that the makers of Daniel Craig’s Skyfall had been granted permission to shoot in Daryaganj, Sarojini Nagar market and Ansari Road in Delhi. Goa was also considered as a location. Talking about it, the James Bond film director, Sam Mendes, told the Hollywood Reporter in 2012 that it was too dangerous to film in the narrow streets of Mumbai.
He said, “It is logistically incredibly difficult to shut down the centre of an enormous Indian city. We tried to make it work and to embrace the chaos, but in the end, there were too many dangers – I don’t mean from people trying to sabotage production, but there are narrow streets that are difficult to film in. I was very disappointed.”
Eventually, the train sequence for Daniel Craig’s 2012 James Bond film was shot in Turkey. A market chase sequence for Skyfall was then filmed in Istanbul.
