Principal photography for GoldenEye took place from January to June of 1995 in the UK, Russia, Monte Carlo, and Puerto Rico; it was the inaugural film production to be shot at Leavesden Studios.

After Trevelyan is caught and seemingly killed by the facility's commanding officer, Colonel Arkady Grigorovich Ourumov, Bond destroys the site and escapes in a stolen aircraft.

Nine years later, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Bond attempts to prevent Xenia Onatopp, a member of the Janus crime syndicate, from stealing a Eurocopter Tiger attack helicopter during a military demonstration in Monte Carlo, but is unsuccessful.

The newly appointed M assigns Bond to investigate, after it is determined that the blast came from a Soviet-era satellite armed with a nuclear electromagnetic pulse space-based weapon, codenamed "GoldenEye".

He learns that Trevelyan seeks vengeance for his parents, Lienz Cossacks who were betrayed by the British by being repatriated to the Soviet Union after collaborating with the Axis powers during World War II.

Bond is captured while trying to rig the base to explode and learns from Trevelyan that he intends to steal money from the Bank of England and use GoldenEye to erase its financial records and conceal the theft, thus damaging London’s economy.

After landing in a meadow, Bond and Natalya prepare to enjoy some solitude together, but are interrupted by the arrival of Wade and a team of U.S. Marines, who escort them to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base.

Following the release of Licence to Kill in July 1989, pre-production work for the seventeenth film in the James Bond series, the third to star Timothy Dalton (fulfilling his three-film contract),[10] began in May 1990.

In August, The Sunday Times reported that producer Albert R. Broccoli had parted company with screenwriter Richard Maibaum, who had worked on the scripts of all but three Bond films so far, and director John Glen, responsible for the previous five installments in the series.

[18] Dalton declared in a 2010 interview that the script had been ready and "we were talking directors" before the project entered development hell caused by legal problems between Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, parent company of the series' distributor United Artists, and Broccoli's Danjaq, owners of the Bond film rights.

[27][28] Wilson wanted to frame the film in the post-Cold War era and the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union, when there were concerns about proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

It was the first James Bond film to be produced after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the end of the Cold War, and there was doubt over the character's relevance in the modern world.

[7] One of GoldenEye's innovations includes the casting of a female M. In the film, the new M quickly establishes her authority, remarking that Bond is a "sexist, misogynist dinosaur" and a "relic of the Cold War".

[44] The English actress Judi Dench was cast as M, replacing Robert Brown, making this the first film of the series to feature a female M. The decision is widely believed to have been inspired by Stella Rimington, who had become head of MI5 in 1992.

[60] Instead, with little time to find a space which could hold the number of large scale sets needed for production, Eon found an old Rolls-Royce factory at Leavesden Aerodrome in Hertfordshire, which had wide, tall, and open aircraft hangars that were uniquely suited to be converted into stages for a new studio.

[64] Some of the scenes in St. Petersburg were actually shot in London – the Epsom Downs Racecourse doubled as the airport – to reduce expenses and security concerns, as the second unit sent to Russia required bodyguards.

As part of the car's marketing strategy, several Z3's were used to drive journalists from a complimentary meal at the Rainbow Room restaurant to its premiere at the Radio City Music Hall.

This moment was not present in early drafts of the film, but it is understood that director Martin Campbell had 007 fiddling with the keyboard of this computer as a way to show Bond was visibly ignoring the Quartermaster, but also as a way increase IBM's product placement arrangement.

[86] A modified Omega Seamaster Professional Diver 300M wristwatch features as a spy gadget device several times in the film, concealing a cutting laser and detonator remote.

[89] As James Bond entered in the 1990s, hand-painted poster designs were eschewed in favor of cutting-edge photomontage tools, promoting the return of 007 portrayed by Pierce Brosnan.

For the international market, a different advance poster was issued on which Pierce Brosnan appeared in black dinner jacket holding his silenced PPK gun, next to a 007 logo and under a different tagline: "You know the name.

The theatrical artwork had two variations: both retained the same black background and action scenes collage surrounding the three principals (Pierce Brosnan, Izabella Scorupco and Famke Janssen), but the International poster had James Bond in tuxedo while in the US version only had the secret agent's face emerging from the shadows.

[90] On a 2015 interview regarding his take on the GoldenEye poster campaign, photographer John Stoddart (who previously worked with Brosnan for a Brioni photoshoot) said his only directive was "Bond, girls and guns"[91] In July 1995, a teaser trailer for GoldenEye was attached to prints of Roger Donaldson's film Species after its debut on the syndicated US television program Extra,[86] followed by a more generic theatrical trailer which revealed Bond's confrontation with agent 006.

[94] Swedish group Ace of Base had also written a proposed theme song, but label Arista Records pulled the band out of the project, fearing the negative impact in case the film flopped.

[101] Serra composed and performed a number of synthesiser tracks, including the version of the "James Bond Theme" that plays during the gun barrel sequence,[102] while Altman and David Arch provided the more traditional symphonic music.

The website's critics consensus states: "The first and best Pierce Brosnan Bond film, GoldenEye brings the series into a more modern context, and the result is a 007 entry that's high-tech, action-packed, and urbane.

[117] James Berardinelli described Brosnan as "a decided improvement over his immediate predecessor" with a "flair for wit to go along with his natural charm", but added that "fully one-quarter of GoldenEye is momentum-killing padding.

"[118] Several reviewers lauded M's appraisal of Bond as a "sexist, misogynist dinosaur",[7][119][120] with Todd McCarthy in Variety saying the film "breathes fresh creative and commercial life" into the series.

Richard Schickel of Time wrote that after "a third of a century's hard use", Bond's conventions survived on "wobbly knees",[123] while in Entertainment Weekly, Owen Gleiberman thought the series had "entered a near-terminal state of exhaustion.

The book closely follows its storyline, but Gardner added a violent sequence prior to the opening bungee jump in which Bond kills a group of Russian guards, a change that would be retained and expanded upon in the video game GoldenEye 007.