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| :. The World Is Not Enough - Little Known Facts .:
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- The film's title comes from the Bond coat of arms seen in the 1969 film On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Its literal translation is "The World is Insufficient."
- Filming also took place in Azerbaijan, Cappadocia in Turkey, Bilbao in Spain and London after the Bond producers were persuaded to bring 007 home.
- Wearing fireproof underwear, Pierce Brosnan becomes the first man to land on top of the Millennium Dome...attached to the end of a hot air balloon.
- Pierce was eased gently into his third Bond role - his dialogue on the first day of filming consisted of just two words: "Stop! King!"
- The ski chase lasted exactly four and a half minutes as researchers discovered that audiences start to get bored if they go on any longer.
- Filming was halted by an avalanche which swept away 17 chalets and killed 18 people in the French Alps, with the Bond crew helicopters sent in to help in the rescue.
- A mile of the Thames had to be closed off for up to two hours each day for three weeks during filming. A slipway was constructed by the side of the real MI6's HQ to launch James Bond's jetboat.
- Sharon Stone was in line for the role of Elektra King, but she was ditched in favor of Braveheart star Sophie Marceau as she was thought to be more classy.
- Director Michael Apted, who made his name with Gorillas In The Mist, was chosen because he was regarded as being sympathetic to his woman characters and the producers wanted Bond girls who were not just bikini-clad bimbos but had brains as well.
- Brosnan had to pretend to make love to Sophie 16 times before Apted was happy. Ten couldn't be used as they showed nipples and risked the film's PG-13 rating.
- A final scene in which a nuclear submarine slams into the bed of the Bosphorus, was painfully slow because, at depths of 100ft, the crew could stay underwater for no more than 19 minutes a day.
- The World Is Not Enough is the first Bond film since Licence To Kill in 1989 to be shot at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire - the traditional home of 007.
- The idea for the film was dreamed up by producer Barbara Broccoli - daughter of Cubby - while she was on a flight to Miami back in 1997. There was an item on the in-flight entertainment which claimed oil in the Caspian Sea might determine global economic growth in the next century.
- The scene with the para-hawks was filmed near Mont Blanc and involved the 170-strong crew having to hire chained vehicles from the Swiss army to help them get to 12,000ft.
- The crew had planned to film part of the movie on oil platforms in Azerbaijan. But when they got there they found the platforms up to 50 miles out to sea, with a putrid smell of raw oil and gas everywhere.
- The name of Christmas Jones (Denise Richards) was inspired by Christmas Humphreys, prosecuting counsel in the famous Craig and Bentley court case.
- The film wasn't shot in chronological order, so Dr Jones went through months of hell with Bond as they avoided bullets, fireballs and giant helicopter saws before being introduced to him for the first time in Spain.
- To prepare for her role, Dame Judi Dench actually went for lunch at MI6.
- Full Monty star Robert Carlyle, 39, was chosen to play bad guy Renard after producer Michael Wilson saw him in TV's Cracker.
- The Bond crew, as usual, tried to make both the stunts and the scenery as real as possible, but when it came to the nuclear bombs a little dramatic licence was permitted. Aluminium was used instead of the rather riskier plutonium.
- Robbie Coltrane, back as ex-KGB agent Valentin Zukovsky had to spend two and a half nights in a huge tub of sago dyed black to look like caviar.
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