Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman starred as “John Steed” and “Dr. Emma Peel” in the 1998 theatrical film version of THE AVENGERS. The “top professional” (Steed) and “talented amateur” (Peel) combine forces to stop megalomaniac “Sir August de Wynter” (Sean Connery) from destroying the world with a weather-changing machine.
Sean Connery in THE AVENGERS
In the original script, the part of Sir August was much smaller, but when Sean Connery joined the project, he asked for the part to be expanded. Eddie Izzard, who played “Bailey,” Sir August's (mostly mute) henchman, said that he took a role in this movie in order to meet Connery.
Sean Connery in THE AVENGERS
Jeremiah S. Chechik directed the 1998 release. Michael Kamen originally began scoring this movie, having impressed Chechik with his tongue-in-cheek style on 101 DALMATIONS (1996). Kamen likened the attempt to "aiming at a moving target" after being provided five or six revised edits of the movie. Because of this upheaval, he left the project, electing to work on LETHAL WEAPON 4 (1998) instead. Despite this, his name was featured on early trailers and on the pre-release poster below. Joel McNeely was brought in to provide the replacement score. McNeely’s score was released by Compass III in the U.S. and Silva Screen in the UK. Atlantic Records issued a separate CD of songs from the film. The $60 million production was a big flop in the U.S., grossing less than $24 million.
Sean Connery was part of the ensemble cast in the romance PLAYING BY HEART, in which eleven articulate people work through affairs of the heart in Los Angeles. “Paul” (Connery) produces “Hannah's” (Gena Rowland’s) TV cooking show, and they must move beyond gentle barbs when she wants to know about an affair of his years ago. “Mark” (Jay Mohr) is dying of AIDS, and his mother (Ellen Burstyn) comes to his bedside: they must talk truthfully. Men have scalded “Meredith” (Gillian Anderson) so she rebuffs “Trent's” (Jon Stewart’s) charm, but he persists. The trendy, prolix “Joan” (Angelina Jolie) tries to pull the solitary “Keenan” (Ryan Phillippe) into her orbit: why is he reluctant? An adulterous couple (Madeline Stowe and Anthony Edwards) meet at hotels for evening sex, but she is unwilling for the relationship to grow. “Hugh” (Dennis Quaid) tells tall tales, usually tragic, to women in bars. By the week's end, their parallel stories converge.
Angelina Jolie, Sean Connery, and Gena Rowlands in PLAYING BY HEART
Sean Connery took just $60,000 as his salary for this movie, as he was keen to play a character his age in a relationship with someone else his own age. This was a far cry from the $14 million he earned on THE ROCK.
Willard Carroll wrote and directed this 1998 film. Miramax’s Harvey Weinstein didn’t think that John Barry's score was working, so Christopher Young was brough in to replace Barry’s “fifties’ jazz” with “nineties’ jazz. Barry's main credit on the movie was retained, however, and Young received an end credit mention. A CD was released by Decca with Barry's largely unused score, while none of Young’s music has been release. EMI released a CD of songs from the film. Although the independent production was filmed for a reasonable $20 million (given the name stars involved), it foundered at the box office, yielding less than $4 million.
In 1999’s ENTRAPMENT, “Gin” (Catherine Zeta-Jones), an insurance investigator, is sent by her employer to track down and help capture an art thief, “Mac” (Sean Connery).
Ronald Bass' original screenplay contained numerous additional spectacular action sequences involving Mac, including a robbery taking place onboard a moving luxury train, but Twentieth Century Fox balked when the initial budget for this script was estimated at over $130 million.
Similarly, when Antoine Fuqua was briefly attached to direct, he wanted to increase the action sequences. Fuqua envisioned a rather large, epic scale car chase for the scene where Gin and Mac escape from a shady antiques dealer, and the climactic heist was to feature more high-tech gadgets and a much more intricate escape. Co-producer Sean Connery was not happy about Fuqua's plans for the movie. In a 1999 issue of Premiere magazine, he said that Fuqua tried to turn the movie into THE ROCK, which Connery believed wouldn't have worked for the picture.
Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones in ENTRAPMENT
As directed by Jon Amiel, the released film contained just a handful of action scenes and came in at a final cost of $66 million, $2 million below its budget. Co-producer Rhonda Tollefson credits this to fellow producer Sean Connery's thrifty Scottish ways. Connery drove his own car instead of hiring a driver, and flew on commercial planes instead of using private ones, so that all of the money would show up on-screen.
ENTRAPMENT was Sean Connery's last role as a romantic lead in a movie, perhaps because Connery’s and Catherine Zeta-Jones' love scene was voted the second worst of all time by readers of American movie magazine Film in 2003. They were narrowly beaten by Sharon Stone and Joe Pesci in CASINO (1995). Connery did several more movies after this, but they were all character roles.
Christopher Young’s score for the 1999 film was released by Restless Records. ENTRAPMENT did well at the box office with an $88 million domestic gross and an additional $125 million in foreign receipts. Sean Connery was the person who presented Catherine Zeta-Jones with her Best Actress in a Supporting Role Oscar for CHICAGO at the 2003 Academy Awards.
The drama FINDING FORRESTER is about “Jamal” (Rob Brown), a young black writing prodigy, who finds a mentor in reclusive author “William Forrester” (Sean Connery).
In addition to being based on J.D. Salinger, the William Forrester character is also heavily inspired by John Kennedy Toole. Toole wrote the book "A Confederacy of Dunces", a mysteriously autobiographical book, but when no one would publish it, he committed suicide in his car. Several years later, the book was published and won the Pulitzer Prize.
Sean Connery and Rob Brown in FINDING FORRESTER
The artist’s sketch used to portray a young Forrester in the New Yorker magazine and on the wall of famous writers at his school was based on a young Sean Connery. The same picture was on a desk in “Mark Trevor's” house in ANOTHER TIME, ANOTHER PLACE (1958), in which Connery was introduced to a big American audience.
During filming, it was discovered that Sean Connery could not type. When you see Forrester's hands on the keys, they are someone else's hands.
Gus Van Sant directed this 2000 release. Much of the film was scored with jazz tracks by Miles Davis and Ornette Coleman, with guitarist Bill Frisell providing additional tunes, which appeared on the Sony Legacy soundtrack CD. The film snuck into the top 50 at the U.S. box office, with a $51.8 million gross.
In THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN, a group of 1800s literary heroes, led by aging explorer “Allan Quatermain” (Sean Connery), get together to fight a villain intent on setting the nations of the world at each other's throats. The first part of the film is concerned with the League's formation, which includes the introduction of “Captain Nemo” (Naseeruddin Shah), an “Invisible Man” (Tony Curran), and “Mina Harker” (Peta Wilson), the main female character in Bram Stoker's Dracula. Also included are “Dorian Gray” (Stuart Townsend), “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” (Jason Flemyng), and, as the token American, “Tom Sawyer” (Shane West). In the second part of the film, the group travels to Venice and beyond in pursuit of the villain
Sean Connery previously declined the roles of the Architect in THE MATRIX trilogy and Gandalf in THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy, the latter of which would have reportedly earned him $450 million, because he said he didn't understand the scripts. Nevertheless, when he was offered this movie, another screenplay he didn't quite get, he took it. Connery was paid $17 million for his role, which left the filmmakers little money to attract other big-name stars for the ensemble cast.
In the original graphic novel, Allan Quatermain had withdrawn from public life and become an opium addict. At the start of the story, he is rescued from a Cairo opium den by Mina Harker and enlisted as a member of the League. Sean Connery reportedly refused to play an opium addict in the movie adaptation. The writers changed his story so he was merely hiding from the public.
Sean Connery in THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN
Sean Connery had a particularly bad working relationship with director Stephen Norrington. Both disagreed over almost everything, with Norrington constantly changing set-ups during the shoot, much to Connery's annoyance. According to anonymous sources on the set, there were frequent shouting matches, and in one infamous incident, Norrington challenged Connery to hit him in the face, to which Connery responded by walking off the set. Norrington did not attend the party after the film’s opening, and when Connery was asked where Stephen could be, he is said to have replied, "Check the local asylum."
In a Q&A with Empire magazine, Jason Flemyng was asked if the arguments between Connery and Norrington were as bad as reported. He replied that they were much worse. "You know when someone in your class is getting told off and your toes curl in your black Clarks' shoes? That's how it was. My favorite bust-up was in Venice. The League had to walk from Captain Nemo's boat down the street, Magnificent Seven-style. At the end of the take, Sean shouted to Norrington, 'What? You want us to do that again?' He replied, 'For $18 million, I don't think it's too much to ask you to walk down a road.' To which Connery's reply was unprintable."
When Allan Quatermain is teaching Tom Sawyer to fire long-distance shots, Sawyer's arm and shoulder shake from the strain of holding the gun. Shane West said he was quite embarrassed because Sean Connery, who was 71, seemed to have no problem holding the solid wood and metal gun while firing a shot. West, in his early twenties, found it incredibly heavy, and strained to hold it still while aiming at the target.
Shane West and Sean Connery in THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN
At one point in the film, Peta Wilson does a humorous impersonation of Sean Connery's voice. According to Wilson, this was a last-minute addition to the scene, and she felt nervous doing it, since Connery impersonations were considered a no-no on the set. Before the shoot, she called Connery and offered not to do the accent, but he insisted she should. Afterwards, she asked him what he thought. He replied, "You were great!" She was taken aback and asked if he really meant it. He said, "Yeah, it's terrible! It's the worst impersonation I have ever heard, and it's perfect."
THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN was not the big financial disaster that many think it was. Although the $78 million production grossed only $66 million in the U.S., foreign receipts pushed its worldwide total gross to $179 million. Video rentals and sales added an additional $86 million. Trevor Jones’ score for the 2003 film was released by Varese Sarabande.
This was the final live-action acting role for Connery before his retirement in 2006. Connery claimed that the production of the film and the film's final quality caused his decision to permanently retire from filmmaking, saying in an interview with The Times, “It was a nightmare. The experience had a great influence on me; it made me think about showbiz. I get fed up dealing with idiots.”
In 2012, two filmmakers, Sascha and Tessa Hartmann, approached a businessman in Scotland who was friends with Sean Connery and got him to agree to pass on their materials to the actor. Sean Connery was being asked to do the voice for an animated character called SIR BILLI, a retired veterinarian living in a remote Scottish village who encounters a goat who thinks he's a dog, an Admiral who's afraid of the water, and a beaver who was raised by rabbits.
SIR BILLI was the first full-length animated movie to be created and produced entirely in Scotland, and featured many references to James Bond, poking fun at Sean Connery's career.
Sean Connery doing voice overs for SIR BILLI
Sascha Hartmann directed the film, which has an unreleased score by Patrick Doyle. The Hartmann’s wrote the movie’s theme song, “Guardian of the Highlands,” which was sung by Shirley Bassey.
As in most other countries, in the U.S. the film went directly to video, where it was titled GUARDIAN OF THE HIGHLANDS. Sean Connery’s work on the picture was his last film-related work of any kind before his death.
Er...because of Goldfinger, and Diamonds are forever, no?
Well, since she did actually sing the theme song for SIR BILLI, I didn't see it as a joke per se, but as a shrewd business move by the producers to enhance the sales potential of their video. It seems to me it was somewhat of a coup for them to get both Connery and Bassey for their project (because of the connection you cite), and it's no accident that their names are the only ones featured on the cover.
After THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN, Sean Connery said, "The time came for me to retire because of my rather unfortunate last movie . . . The cost to me in terms of frustration and avoiding going to jail for murder cannot have continued.”
Leading up to and following his retirement, Connery was the recipient of numerous honors:
He was the recipient of the 22nd Annual Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime contribution to arts and culture, presented by President Bill Clinton in Washington, D.C. on December 5, 1999.
He was made a Knight Bachelor in the 2000 Queen's Millennium Honors List for his services to Film Drama. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in an hour-long investiture ceremony at Edinburgh's Holyrood Palace in Scotland on July 5, 2000. He was accompanied by his wife, Micheline, and brother, Neil.
He was voted Best British Actor of all time in a poll for Sky TV [February 2005].
He was delighted to be honored with the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award, which he received on June 8, 2006 in Los Angeles, since he was honored despite his reputation as a harsh critic of the movie industry. "It means a tremendous amount, especially because of some of the things I have said about Hollywood.". At the ceremony, Harrison Ford told him, "John Wayne gave us the old West. James Stewart gave us our town. You gave us the world."
He received a BAFTA Scotland Lifetime Achievement Award at the Cineworld complex in Edinburgh, Scotland on 25 August 2006.
He remains the only British male actor to be the #1 box office star in America.
He was voted People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive" in 1989, and at the turn of the millennium in 1999, he was voted People’s “Sexiest Man of the Century."
Connery once remarked that “A silent gesture can convey more in a flash than a minute of spoken dialogue. Unlike most actors, who resist directors cutting their lines, I have spent my whole career filleting mine. There are few directors who have not seen my cuts as improvements. Steven Spielberg paid me the ultimate compliment on INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE by adopting nine out of ten of my ideas that traded dialogue for added visual interaction.”
Indeed, when we think of Connery’s acting, we don’t think of great speeches or even great roles. We think of the undeniable presence that he brought to all of his films. He had it for more than 40 years. And what star can claim to have it today? Beannachd leat, Sean.
with Michael Caine
with Meg Ryan
with Robert Conrad, Katherine Ross, and Leslie Nielsen (1992)
...when we think of Connery’s acting, we don’t think of great speeches or even great roles.
I respectfully disagree, as Connery’s “What are you prepared to do?” dialogue from The Untouchables and of course, Connery’s unsurpassed take on James Bond exemplify what you claim are not a part of Connery’s legacy.
