‘Bond films sacrifice humour for sake of big money’

Comedy star and former Q actor John Cleese has criticised the later James Bond movies for their over-long action sequences and for sacrificing their British flavour to secure "big money" from Asia.

The Monty Python actor, 74, starred in two 007 movies, The World Is Not Enough, in 1999, and three years later in Die Another Day.

But he hinted to Radio Times magazine that he was dropped as gadget inventor Q partly because film bosses wanted to please audiences in Asia.

He suggested that the spy films, which have enjoyed renewed success with Daniel Craig in the lead role, had dispensed with their subtle British sense of humour.

“I did two James Bond movies and then I believe that they decided that the tone they needed was that of the Bourne action movies, which are very gritty and humourless,” he said of the thriller spy films starring Matt Damon, which have been a box office and critical hit.

“Also the big money was coming from Asia, from the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, where the audiences go to watch the action sequences, and that’s why in my opinion the action sequences go on for too long, and it’s a fundamental flaw.”

Cleese’s character did not appear in the recent Casino Royale or Quantum of Solace but was resurrected by Ben Whishaw in Skyfall in 2012.

Cleese, who split from his third wife, Alyce Eichelberger, in 2008, also told the magazine that recent years had not been creatively satisfying because he was making divorce payments.

He said of the success of the Pythons: “We literally sat down to do what made the rest of the group laugh. We had no idea of a target audience or any of that crap. There was something about the joy of the silliness of it.”

Fellow Python Michael Palin, 71, said: “The BBC was confident enough at the time to commission a series like Python on the merest whim. We gave them very, very little information as to what should be in it and that helped us a lot.”