Most people would jump at the chance to hold a phone for $5 million. James Bond isn’t like most people, however.
Emails leaked from last year’s Sony hack have revealed that James Bond actor Daniel Craig turned down $5 million to be photographed holding Sony’s next flagship, the Xperia Z4, because he didn’t think it was good enough. This was all part of product placement negotiations for Spectre, the next Bond film.
Andrew Gumpert, president of “worldwide business affairs” at Columbia pictures, said in one of the emails: “BEYOND the $$ factor, there is, as you may know, a CREATIVE factor whereby [director Sam Mendes] and Daniel [Craig] don’t like the Sony phone for the film (the thinking, subjectively/objectively is that James Bond only uses the “best,” and in their minds, the Sony phone is not the “best”).”
The email goes back to October 2014 and mentions the possibility of using a Samsung device instead of a Sony handset. The leaks suggest that Sony had an $18 million advertising commitment for the next Bond movie, but Samsung was apparently going higher with $50 million.
The previous James Bond film, Skyfall, had bond using an Xperia T handset.
For more on Sony, visit What Mobile’s dedicated Sony page.
