The French Armee de l'Air provided a prototype Eurocopter Tiger and its testing ship, the FS La Fayette, for its Monte Carlo scenes.
The actual Pentagon initially declined to support the film as they suggested that the murder of an American Admiral by Xenia's thighs was an unflattering portrayal of American military personnel. The Admiral was quickly changed to be Canadian.
I had commitments, two projects I was really keen on and I just had a newly born son, so I wanted to have time with him and enjoy that side of my life.
This was the first Bond film not to be filmed at Pinewood Studios, as they were accommodating First Knight. It was filmed at Leavesden, which was actually converted into a studio for the film.
The film's Cuba scenes were all filmed in Puerto Rico; Janus' secret base was specifically filmed on the island's Arecibo Observatory.
A number of St. Petersburg locations were actually shot in Hertfordshire; a limited amount of footage was taken in Russia including portions of the tank chase, however the majority of that scene was shot at Leavesden due to the city's concerns about causing too much damage.
Career Resurrection: After Remington Steele ended, having itself torpedoed his initial agreement to play James Bond,note Brosnan was intended to take the role as early as The Living Daylights, only for Remington Steele's producers to suddenly renew the series at the last possible moment just for the publicity having James Bond as the leading man would bring - nevermind that he was thus forced to give up the Bond role thanks to contractual obligations with Remington SteelePierce Brosnan had a quiet period where Mrs. Doubtfire and The Lawnmower Man were his most prominent appearances, but GoldenEye revitalized his career greatly, to the point where he's had one of the most successful post-Bond careers.
Cast the Runner-Up: Sean Bean was a candidate to play Bond in the late 1980s; he also auditioned for Bond when casting for GoldenEye was taking place.
GoldenEye: The Return of Agent 007 (Latin America).
Contest Winner Cameo: Around the time License to Kill was released, a woman won a contest and was promised a cameo role in the next Bond film. Despite the six-and-a-half-year hiatus between that film and GoldenEye, the producers honored the promise; she's in a black-and-gold dress, behind Xenia Onatopp in the baccarat scene.
Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: Part of the St. Petersburg tank chase was filmed on site, faking all of the relevant statutes and treasures and smashed replicas on a UK Backlot. However, that didn't stop a few breathless "They're destroying our art!" newscasts in Russia.
Creator Backlash: Martin Campbell would later express his disappointment with Éric Serra's score, citing budget constraints and difficulty working with Serra, who became uncooperative when asked to re-score the St. Petersburg tank chase after Campbell rejected his submitted track.
In the completed film has a much Bondian-sounding piece by the score's orchestrator/conductor John Altman with more emphasis on Monty Norman's theme in its place. Serra's unused cue is called "A Pleasant Drive In St. Petersburg" on the soundtrack album.
Deleted Scene: The home media releases feature a selection of deleted scenes (introduced by director Martin Campbell) that clarify some odd moments in the final film. Clips from a workprint leaked online in 2020 also had additional footage that didn't appear in the final cut:
The opening infiltration into Arkangelsk had several deleted shots that would further clarified what was going on. The film would have originally begun with a short scene where Bond severs the communications equipment in a bunker near the dam (which made it into the game as a mission objective) before activating the gate, while the workprint featured an alternate shot of Bond firing the piton gun right after the jump. During the infiltration into the bunker, the death of the scientist in the laboratory and Alec's death (or so Bond thinks) at the hands of Ourumov were uncut.
Q's "That's my lunch!" gag was slightly extended as it was filmed, with Q taking a bite out of the sandwich before the scene cuts away. We know about this moment thanks to the fact that a promotional trading card◊ featured a still of it.
More of Bond and Wade driving through St. Petersberg with Wade discussing his horticultural aspirations, explaining the odd "gardening" question in the film.
An extended introduction to Valentin Zukovsky that saw him negotiating with a shady Pakistani arms dealer, with Zukovsky being able to easily tell that he's being sold sub-par counterfeit handguns. This scene was cut for pacing, and partially because the gist of it (Zukovsky is a powerful criminal figure with a vast knowledge of weapons) is covered by his intro with Bond.
There was an interaction between Boris and Ouromov onboard Trevelyan's train as it's headed to St. Petersburg to pick up Trevelyan and Xenia that would've served as a transitional scene while giving Boris and Ouromov a scene together. This notably would've been the introduction of Trevelyan's train.
In the tank chase, after Bond smashes through the Perrier truck, a small moment was filmed in which several policemen would try to stop bystanders from taking the cans while also stealing some for themselves. This was likely cut due to it interrupting the pacing of the overall chase scene.
Fake Brit: The very British James Bond is played by Irishman Pierce Brosnan, though it should be noted that Brosnan moved to Britain at the age of 11 and trained as a film and theatre actor in London (ultimately moving to the United States for Remington Steele, where he has primarily lived since), so its not as extreme of an example as it seems on paper.
Fake Russian: There's quite a lot of them (plus one Fake Georgian):
The Georgian Xenia is played by the Dutch Famke Janssen.
Defense Minister Mischkin is played by the Turkish-Greek-raised-in-France Tchéky Karyo.
Zukovsky played by the Scottish Robbie Coltrane.
Natalya is played by the Polish-born-raised-in-Sweden Izabella Scorupco.
Hostility on the Set: Famke Janssen has talked in recent years about her experiences with sexism on the set; though she appreciates the film and what it's done for her career, she quite openly detailed her issues with the male crew, namely that the Director of Photography would not address her or talk to her directly, and that despite it being a closed set she was very much aware of a crowd of men watching her during the filming of her "love" scenes.
The film was dedicated to effects supervisor Derek Meddings, who died before the film came out.
Alec Trevelyan almost shares a surname with John Trevalyan, the Secretary of the British Board of Film Censors when the first Bond films came out and the one who thus green-lit them despite critics at the time thinking it was too violent and raunchy, and who had died shortly before Licence to Kill was made (a decade earlier, but Licence was the last Bond film before this one).
Method Acting: Before filming the sequence in the sauna where Bond hurls her into the walls, Famke Janssen encouraged Pierce Brosnan to run her into the wall as hard as he could, and actually insisted he do it, citing that the walls were padded. Cue irony as Famke promptly managed to break two ribs after Brosnan did as she demanded, the very damage her murderous thighs are meant to do in-movie.
Pierce Brosnan injured his hand while doing the ladder stunt.
Famke Janssen had Brosnan slam her into a wall as hard as possible during the filming of the spa encounter for what she perceived as 'authenticity'; she promptly struggled to breathe, and upon her return to America found she had broken two ribs.
Orphaned Reference: The whole deal with the BMW Z3. It gets a grand introduction during the Q Branch scene and was all over the film's marketing, yet it basically goes unused, only getting a small moment late in the film where Bond drives it to meet up with Jack Wade in Cuba. The car was supposed to get a proper action scene in Cuba, where Bond would drive it to escape a Drill Tank (the practical effect for which would be reused in Tomorrow Never Dies), but it was cut from the script.
Samantha Bond replaced Caroline Bliss as Moneypenny and Judi Dench replaced Robert Brown as M, becoming the first woman in the rolenote That said, M is quite clearly a different individual with the same title In-Universe rather than a straight recast like Bond and Moneypenny, the film itself even has Bond make reference to her predecessor, likely Robert Brown's character. Dench wound up the only cast member from the Brosnan films to go on to Daniel Craig's.
Production Nickname: Alec Trevelyan's dark coloured locomotive in the movie was nicknamed on the set as "Darth Train". The front of the train even somewhat resembles Darth Vader's helmet.
Composer Éric Serra was a huge fan of James Bond as a child.
Similarly, Brosnan was shown to have deep reverence for the series, detailing how one of his first experiences in London was going to see Goldfinger; he also had a deep respect for prior Bonds, being particularly friendly with Moore.
Famke Janssen also talked of watching the series when younger and was familiar with the tropes and routines of the franchise; she displayed clear understanding of the potential pitfalls from her appearance - the oft-discussed Bond Girl Curse - but was keen to bring her best to the table.
Prop Recycling: Cinematographer Phil Meheux used the ventilation window from Trevelyan's train and built it into the cradle set where the final showdown takes place to allow light to shine through in order to give it more atmosphere.
Romance on the Set: It's been reported that Pierce Brosnan and Famke Janssen were extremely attracted to each other during production (and both director Martin Campbell and producer Michael G. Wilson allude to it on the DVD and Bluray commentary track, suggesting that there were a lot of 'secret desires' between the pair). Nothing ever "happened" as far as anyone knows, but it sure explains their strong on-screen chemistry. Naturally, however, the British tabloids took this and ran with it, despite Brosnan being in a long-term relationship with Keely Shaye Smith and Janssen actively being married at the time.
Sequel Gap: As stated above, six years between 1989's Licence to Kill and this film in 1995; it would be the only gap of this length in the series until that between 2015's Spectre and 2021's No Time to Die.
Star-Making Role: This is where Famke Janssen's filmography started to snowball, with her next major appearance being in Bryan Singer's X-Men Film Series. She had however stated a desire to avoid being typecast following GoldenEye, and reportedly received dozens of "sexy villainess" roles following her turn as Xenia; to avoid this, she used her turn in GoldenEye to gain numerous indie roles, including a spot on a Woody Allen film.
Bond pulls a few stunts in his old companion the Aston Martin DB5 while street-racing Femme Fatale Xenia in a Ferrari F355. While impressive by 1965 standards, the chassis and suspension of the DB5 would have never held up to a modern GTI, leave alone a F355 (the stunt coordinator described the race as "a perfectly shaped, old and vulnerable vehicle and a racecar"). To film the chase, the F355 had to be modified, otherwise it wouldn't drift. Maybe this is the reason Q retires the Aston and gives Bond a BMW instead.
The movie came out in 1995. Natalya goes to an IBM office so she can contact Boris via the internet, and gives the sales rep a purchase order as a rather clever lie to use their connection. Computers using 500 megabyte hard drives, with 14.4 kbps modems, seem woefully underpowered today, but probably were of decent specs at the time in post-Soviet Russia.
Bond's digital camera, and the on-board computer in his car, which he used to send a picture of Xenia that MI6 analyzed on the spot, are within current smartphone or tablet capabilities.
Pre-production on the seventeenth Bond film had started in 1990 with the alleged title Property of a Lady, but ceased when MGM and Eon Productions became entangled in lawsuits caused by new MGM owner (and notorious fraudster) Giancarlo Paretti's intent to sell the broadcasting rights to the Bond franchise at cut-rate prices. The legal wrangling took over two years to sort out, with Paretti getting ousted from MGM and eventually sentenced for fraud.
With the legal issues resolved, pre-production on the film finally restarted in 1993, but the end of the Cold War and the new geopolitical situation left the franchise in an uncertain role in the world, with several commentators openly questioning if the Bond franchise could still be relevant at all. It was decided that the new film would tackle the new political situation directly, with a new screenplay written by Michael France. Meanwhile, Albert R. Broccoli stepped down from his long-time position as producer due to declining health, leaving Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson taking over lead production duties.
Pre-production hit further snags; Bond actor Timothy Dalton, whose contract had expired in 1993, opted to retire from the role. While Dalton was very interested in coming back for one film, he was unwilling to commit to the multi-film deal Albert Broccoli insisted on. Production was pushed back to recast the Bond role, eventually settling on Pierce Brosnan. Michael France's screenplay went through multiple hands, being rewritten by Jeffrey Caine with further work by Bruce Feirstein and an uncredited Kevin Wade, which resulted in France getting a mere "Story By" credit in the final film. France would later grumble about the process, feeling that he was not properly credited and that the rewrites did not improve on his draft.
Underage Casting: Trevelyan is the son of Lienz Cossacks (Ethnic Russians and Ukrainians who sided against the Soviet Union during World War II) and wants revenge against the British government for their betrayal in repatriating the Cossacks to the USSR following the war. Sean Bean was born in 1959, making him way too young to have remembered any of this. The movie implies that Alec's parents survived the events but his father's shame years later led to the murder-suicide of himself and Alec's mother, and MI6 figured Alec wouldn't remember. Still, the revenge plot makes more sense when you realize that the character was meant for an older actor. It's worth noting that the 2010 video game remake where he is played by Elliot Cowan (born 1976) simply threw out the plot in favor one where he seeks revenge over the Great Financial Crisis.
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