The plot for a canceled 2003 James Bond spinoff called Jinx details the origin story of female NSA operative Giacinta “Jinx” Johnson. Back in 2002, the Bond franchise was on the cusp of saying goodbye to arguably one of the series’ least popular 007’s, Pierce Brosnan. Die Another Day marked the fourth and final outing for Brosnan, and at the time, the series was very much in need of some new blood.
Just how the long-running franchise was going to reinvent itself was uncertain, but for many, it felt as though an end of an era was at hand. James Bond, the classic Ian Fleming character who had navigated an untold number of life-threatening moments, seemed to have peaked. Reduced to schlocky gimmickry like driving an invisible car, Bond films had begun to feel as though they were simply going through the motions of evolution without doing any actual evolving. The time was definitely ripe for a major change, and between 2002 and 2006, some major restructuring of the franchise took place. During that time, many different ideas and concepts were undoubtedly considered, but ultimately it was the introduction of Daniel Craig as Bond and a more pared down and straightforward approach that won out.
Thanks to the @007inLA Twitter account, however, Bond fans are now able to take a look at one of the options for change that occurred in 2003. Screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, now synonymous with the successful direction that the Bond franchise ended up going in, had written a spinoff script that told the origin story of Halle Berry’s Die Another Day character, Jinx. The basic plot has been broken down by @007inLA, with more highlights from the script promised in the coming days:
Based on the recent Tweets, it’s clear that Jinx was orphaned during her childhood when a bomb killed both her parents. After being taken under the wing of “hardbitten career spy” Damien Falco, Jinx eventually grows up and begins to work for a think-tank called The Rand Corporation. She remains in close contact with Falco and eventually agrees to do a job for him. From the sounds of it, the script has the usual Bond-like cues, but ultimately, it was dropped as a legitimate possibility. It’s unclear as to whether or not the original plan had been to bring Halle Berry back as the character, but it’s certainly interesting to see a project like this having been considered all the way back in 2003.
In the end, there’s no direct answer as to why Jinx was scrapped, but one of the reasons could be that the spinoff still seems to contain the sort of clichés and somewhat trite storytelling that made the Brosnan Bond era so bland. There’s still ample reason to believe that a female-led Bond spinoff could occur in the future, but the lack of solid popularity of 007 films like Die Another Day suggested that the concept was best saved for another time.
Source: @007inLA
