From Bond and Batman to Speed and Spielberg - Hollywood’s unforgettable 1994

2024 marks 30 years since the summer blockbuster season of 1994. It was a summer dominated by the breakaway success of homegrown hit Four Weddings and a Funeral, Jim Carrey, and James Cameron's True Lies.

The live action Flintstones movie was also a stone-age hit with audiences, as John Goodman and Rick Moranis brought Fred and Barney to the big screen. The year would end with Disney's The Lion King topping the global box office, while Quentin Tarantino proved he was no one-hit wonder with Pulp Fiction taking the world by storm.

But 1994 wasn't just an eventful year for Hollywood on screen, as the year heralded a new 007, a fresh Dark Knight, the birth and death of major stars – and a new studio.

Read more: 1984 was a fascinating year for Hollywood blockbusters

We look back 30 years on a busy few months for cinema.

The 005th Bond is born

If Cubby Broccoli had had his way, Pierce Brosnan would have been anointed James Bond back in 1983, for A View to a Kill. As it turns out, while rumours had bubbled about the Irishman’s involvement ever since Timothy Dalton’s third 007 outing was abandoned, it wouldn’t be until 8 June, 1994 that the actor was officially unveiled as the legendary spy.

Brosnan showed up to the press conference looking anything like the debonair, tuxedo-wearing hero, as he was in the middle of filming an adaptation of Robinson Crusoe, complete with long hair and beard.

Read more: How each James Bond actor shaped the role

"We want to peel back some layers of his character and see what demons may lie there," he told reporters at London’s Regent Hotel. "We are in the 90s now and that needs to be addressed but he has to have a certain bite and edge — there are a few ladies there."

Val Kilmer takes over from Michael Keaton as Batman

Bond wasn’t the only iconic franchise handing over the reins to a new star. Following abortive development on a third Batman which was to continue Michael Keaton’s reign as the Dark Knight, with Marlon Wayans as Robin and Tim Burton staying on as director, helmer Joel Schumacher took over and looked to shake things up.

First up was signing Val Kilmer (Keaton was apparently asking for too much money), despite Kilmer’s slightly sticky reputation as ‘difficult’.

Read more: George Clooney slams Batman efforts

“His previous performances have been infused with a very individual strength and charisma,” Schumacher explained to the Hollywood Reporter on 1 July. “We look forward to bringing many new and exciting dimensions of Batman and his legend to the screen.”

Fast forward post-release and the director was eating his words. Batman Forever was a commercial hit if not a creative one, but Kilmer’s egotistical conduct had proved too much.

"He was badly-behaved, he was rude and inappropriate," revealed Schumacher to Entertainment Weekly, explaining that the pair had got into a physical argument. "I was forced to tell him that this would not be tolerated for one more second. Then we had two weeks where he did not speak to me, but it was bliss."

Unsurprisingly, Kilmer didn’t return for the fourth movie.

The year of Sandra and Jim

Sandra Bullock’s star had been cooking ever since she was drafted in to take over from Lori Petty on Demolition Man in 1993, but it was the release of Speed (which came out in June in the States and 30 September in the UK) that made her go global.

Google “Sandra Bullock 1994” and you’ll immediately see why she became such an icon. Witty, giggly, honest, she’s everything you want in a movie star. Seriously, check out when she interrupts Keanu Reeves with a hug in the middle of an on-set interview — you can tell he’s smitten too.

If Bullock was the breakout woman of the year, then Jim Carrey takes the male category. In the UK, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective was released on 29 April, The Mask followed on 19 August (British audiences would have to wait until 7 April, 1995 for his third smash, Dumb & Dumber).

"I went up [to special effects company Industrial Light & Magic] in San Francisco," the star explained to CBS about The Mask. "They were sitting in front of a Tex Avery cartoon saying, ‘This is what we want to do, Jim.’ And I just went, ‘Oh man, this is perfect.’"

It was a tumultuous few months for the actor, dealing with his own burgeoning stardom and the death of his father Percy, who passed away from cancer that September.

"He lost his job when he was 51 a couldn’t get another job," Carrey told the Canadian Press. "That made me realise there’s no such thing as security, so you may as well do what you’re into, what you love."

In 2014, talking to Yahoo about his incredible 1994, Carrey claimed that a psychic had predicted his breakthrough year. "I was driving down Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles [in 1993] and I saw one of those crazy ‘psychic reading’ signs and I thought: ‘That sounds like fun.’" Carrey told us.

Watch the clip below

"So, I went in and had a reading done, and this psychic reader said: ‘You’re about to do three projects that will change your life forever and will make it very difficult for anyone to ever bring you down from the place you’re going to be, which is a really good place.’"

Steven Spielberg adds studio mogul to his CV

Steven Spielberg was already the most successful film director in the world, but the idea of DreamWorks SKG harked back to the golden age of Hollywood where artists ran the place rather than the money men.

Founded on 12 October, 1994, the studio’s legacy is somewhat more complicated. Set up by the director alongside impresario David Geffen and former Disney exec Jeffrey Katzenberg, it took three years for any completed films to come out of the organisation (underwhelming thriller The Peacemaker). It ended up releasing seminal blockbusters American Beauty, Gladiator and Saving Private Ryan, but before that there was damp squib Forces of Nature and Paulie, about a talking parrot.

Journalist Nicole Laporte wrote the definitive book on the studio, The Men Who Would be King, revealing chaotic behind-the-scenes battles, involving last-minute script rewrites and trying to do too much all at once.

"DreamWorks had formed with these massive ambitions to be a sprawling empire with 10 different divisions: videogames, movies, music," she told the Wall Street Journal. "It set out to be so grandiose. By the time of the Paramount sale in 2005 so many divisions had closed."

As Geffen himself said, "When we first started DreamWorks, I said to Jeffrey, ‘We ought to call this new company The Spielberg Brothers. Anything Steven thinks is important, we want to invest in.’"

Spielberg’s own movies were always DreamWorks’ best, but it still had some excellent output. Almost Famous, Galaxy Quest, Deep Impact and The Contender were various of its live-action offerings, while its animation production line included Antz, Shrek and Chicken Run.

Tragic deaths and posthumous releases

Brandon Lee, son of martial arts legend Bruce Lee, actually died on 31 March, 1993 aged 28, but May 1994 saw the release of his final film, The Crow, on whose set the actor had been killed when he was accidentally shot with a dummy round. It’s a situation that is different from but echoes the recent tragic incident that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during the production of Alec Baldwin-starrer Rust.

Intended to be his breakout role as a leading man, Lee’s real-life fiancée had given her blessing for the Alex Proyas-directed film to be completed in the actor’s memory. Fortunately for the filmmakers, most of Lee’s performance had been completed by the time of his death.

Read more: What you need to know about The Crow remake

"The irony is that it was one of the last shots of the movie," producer Edward Pressman told the New York Times of the fateful moment. "I don’t think there was any doubt we could finish the movie at any time. Brandon had essentially finished his role."

After a period away to rewrite the script, production resumed with stuntmen Jeff Cadiente and Chad Stahelski (later the co-director of John Wick) taking over as body doubles (originally they were going to wear foam masks of Lee but it was nixed).

The Crow was released and became a classic, a reboot is in the works. In the 12 May issue of Entertainment Weekly, the magazine published the actor’s poignant last interview, having been on-set just 10 days before his death.

"You tend to take a great deal for granted, because you feel like you’re going to live forever," said Lee. "This is [where] this character is coming from. [He realises] how precious each moment of his life is."

Another actor who lived life to the full was John Candy. A comedic genius, known for movies like Splash, Uncle Buck and Planes, Trains & Automobiles, Candy died of a heart attack aged 43 in March 1994 while shooting Wagons East in Mexico.

As with Lee, production was coming to an end when it happened, meaning producers were able to finish the film. There was briefly talk of using CGI to fill in the gaps, but instead they utilised body doubles and the fact they’d got lucky on Candy’s final night of shooting.

“John was cooking that night,” producer Barry Rosen told the New York Times. “So [director] Peter [Markle] decided to keep shooting and capture John’s close-up then. It saved us. It was the scene we needed to finish the movie. We never could have made that scene up.”

Unfortunately, unlike The Crow, Wagons East was released in America in August to poor reviews, but Candy’s magnificent screen legacy remains.

Earlier this year, on the anniversary of his death, now-adult daughter Jennifer wrote on Twitter, “30 years ago today … feels like both a lifetime with and without you. Miss you and love you always.”