Why Did a James Bond Stunt Require $70K Worth of Coca-Cola?

Daniel Craig's tenure as James Bond has been all over the place. There have been so many directors and co-stars and villains, not to mention the overall quality of the films, which go from some of the best to a few of the worst in the franchise. 

The one constant has been stunt coordinator Lee Morrison.

That's because Morrison is Craig's preferred coordinator to work with. The two have been collaborating since 2001’s Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. They like working with each other because each man brings fun and exhilarating ideas to the table. 

Like the idea of dumping 8,400 gallons of Coca-Cola on a street in Italy to make a cobbled street less slippery for a James Bond motorbike stunt.

Yeah, you read that right. 

According to stunt boss Morrison, Craig came up with the trick. 

His stunt double rider, Paul Edwards, hits a 25-foot ramp at 60 miles per hour, clears a gigantic wall, and then lands on cobblestones. That sounds dangerous enough, but the cobblestones themselves were slippery. They needed a solution, so the film crew spent £55,000 (or around $70K in USD) on the soda. Once it was spread, the cobbles were sticky and allowed for a safer landing. 

In a recent interview with Total Film, Morrison said, “I spent nearly €60,000 spraying Coca-Cola around Matera. I’ve been spraying Coca-Cola on slippery surfaces for a very long time.”

This sounds like an epic stunt and an even more exciting idea of watching how it went down behind the scenes. I think it's the bike jump in the trailer below... 

I also love the trick of using tacky Coke to slow down a superbike traveling that fast. I might need to steal that for a scene in my next script. 

No Time to Die was supposed to come out this year, and I was supposed to be enjoying it right now. Coronavirus changed that. It changed everything everyone had planned this year. Warner Brothers had to move the movie until next year, after moving it from spring to fall of 2020. 

Craig has defended the studio's decision, saying, “This thing is just bigger than all of us. We just want people to go and see this movie in the right way, in a safe way.”

We've been covering every step of this film's somewhat rocky journey to release.

The actor added, “Cinemas all around the world are closed at the moment. We want to release the movie at the same time all around the world and this isn’t the right time. So fingers crossed, 2 April [2021] is going to be our day.”

We have to wait and see with this one, but whenever the movie comes out, I'll be enjoying it with a huge bottle of Coke. 

What about you? Let me know what you think in the comments.