Trivia - Tomorrow Never Dies

The first draft of the script was set during the transfer of Hong Kong from British to Chinese rule with Carver a zealot bent on destroying Hong Kong rather that hand it over to the Chinese. According to director Roger Spottiswoode, this plotline was dropped when former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who was acting as a consultant on the production, warned that if something actually did occur during the handover in real life the film (which was set to open a few months later) would look ridiculous. This led to a last-minute rewrite.

James Bond has a new gun in this film. It is the Walther P99, which is the replacement for his trademark Walther PPK. He picks up the gun in Wai Lin's apartment. Sales of real and toy replica Walther P-99 pistols went through the roof after this movie was released.

Gupta has to run a background check on Bond and deduces from his impeccable employment history that he must be working for the British Secret Sevice. In earlier films, everyone and his dog knew who James Bond was - so why does Elliot Carver, the man with a global information exchange system at his fingertips, fail to recognise him?

Presumably it was Q or some of his assistants who modified the BMW - so why does 'she' talk with a German accent?

Monica Bellucci was originally cast and scheduled to appear in the film but was replaced before shooting began. The role of Elliot Carver was initially offered to Anthony Hopkins.

The ships used in the film are Type 23 Duke Class Anti-Submarine Frigates. The interior shots were all filmed at HMS DRYAD ship simulator at Portsmouth, and most of the personnel in the background are real Royal Navy personnel. Most of the dialogue and commands are very accurate, though some has been modified so the viewing public can understand it.

The BMW 750iL that Bond is issued with has the number plate B-MT 2144; his Aston martin DBV has the plates BMT 214A [both here and in Goldeneye [1995]] or BMT 216A [in Goldfinger [1964] and Thunderball [1965]].

The American Embassy in Bangkok had a bit of a scare when one of the production helicopters hovered overhead for a while, causing staff to fear that they were being spied on.

Some have commented on a possible Star Trek gag - in Tomorrow Never Dies, a general named Chang [in the pay of Elliot Carver] plans to start a war between England and China using stealth weaponry. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country [1991] features a Klingon general named Chang trying to start a war using a stealth ship. Coincidence?

Director Roger Spottiswoode had hoped that the descent outside the building could be done by computerized special effects, but in the end a 7-storey section of wall was constructed and the stars lowered down alongside it.

The film made particularly heavy use of gadgetry because some fans thought there was too little of it in GoldenEye (1995).

The original title of the film was "Tomorrow Never Lies", which makes sense when you consider media mogul Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce) was creating the next day's headlines in advance, then causing those events to happen. But a typo on an early script draft was adopted by the producers, and "Tomorrow Never Dies" was used instead. Another rumour circulated that the film was originally going to be called "Tomorrow never comes". There are apparently video tapes that were in distribution when the film was released on video that do have the caption "Tomorrow never comes" at the very beginning of the tape, not the beginning of the movie.

When Bond and Wai-lin prepare to send a radio message, Bond apparently can't use the keyboard because it uses Chinese characters. This contradicts the earlier film You Only Live Twice (1967) in which Bond says he has a first class degree in oriental languages from Cambridge University.

The stealth ship is not a fictional invention. Lockheed secretly constructed and demonstrated one in the early 1980s, but the US Navy finally decided they didn't want any. The prototype, called the Sea Shadow, was 160 feet long and the movie's ship closely resembles it in shape.

15 BMW 750's were destroyed in the making of the film.

When Bond gets out of his BMW and hands the keys to the valet, he says "Lass dich nicht verarschen." This is a German idiom which means, approximately, "Don't let him/them/it make an ass of you."

In several scenes of Bond's approach to the final battle onboard the stealth ship, the island used by "Francisco Scaramanga" in "The Man with the Golden Gun" (1974) is visible.

Because the second half of the film is set in Vietnam, the production negotiated for some time for permission to film there. Although it appeared close, the Vietnamese Ministry of Culture and Information eventually refused to allow it. The production decided to use Thailand as Vietnam, with Bangkok substituting for Saigon.

Teri Hatcher's scenes had to be filmed quickly because after she got the part she found out she was three month's pregnant. She said that she accepted her role in this movie to fulfill her husband's lifelong dream of being married to a Bond girl.

Producers considered starting a film series based on the character played by Michelle Yeoh but so far, no film has been made.

In the original drafts of the script Stamper was to have suffered a brain injury that caused pleasure to be registered as pain (an vice versa). The idea was dropped, but a version of it made it into the next Bond film The World is Not Enough, where the main villain is unable to feel pain.

British pop group Pulp wrote a theme song for this movie, which was ultimately rejected by the producers. The song later appeared on the B-side to the group's single "Help the Aged" following a title change to "Tomorrow Never Lies"

Towards the end of the movie 'M', (Judi Dench) muses upon a probable newspaper story concerning the death of Elliot Carver. She mentions similar events which surrounded real-life British media tycoon Robert Maxwell's death in 1991.

Vincent Schiavelli's character is a hit man who kills Teri Hatcher's character. He also played a hit man in one episode of "MacGyver" (1985), who was again, after Teri Hatcher's character, though not as successfully.

This is the first movie in film history to have its entire budget be covered in product placement campaigns: BMW, L'Oréal cosmetics, Heineken beer, and other companies each chipped in enough in endorsements to allow for the film's 100$ million budget.