UPDATE: I know it’s not the most trust worthy of sources, but The Sun claims that Steve McQueen is being eyed to direct Bond 26. McQueen did recently reveal that his next film would be with Amazon/MGM, who own the Bond rights, and further refused to disclose what the secret project might be.
EARLIER: Judging by the way things have been going, I don’t believe we’ll be getting a new James Bond flick until, at least, 2027. There have been too many red flags popping up, and I have been told, a few times, that there’s an uncertainty as to what direction this six-decade franchise should head into next.
A new report, via The Mirror, paints a creative process plagued by delays to the production, casting and most intriguingly, by the lack of a script. It doesn’t help that Bond executive producer Barbara Broccoli now has commitments to a “Sing Street” musical, set to hit the stage in the Summer of 2025, and Daniel Craig’s film adaptation of “Othello,” which might go into production in 2026.
There’s no official title for Bond 26, no director, no leading man in place and no shooting locations. They have taken a crack at the script, although one insider tells The Mirror that there have been problems with it, and not much progress has been made.
In June 2022, Broccoli told Deadline that there “isn’t a script and we can't come up with one until we decide how we're going to approach the next film because, really, it's a reinvention of Bond. We're reinventing who he is, and that takes time. I’d say that filming is at least two years away."
It’s been two years, and still no progress. It’ll now likely be a much longer wait before we get some answers in regards to this one. The last Bond was 2021’s “No Time to Die,” and if we adhere to the potential 2027-2028 release date, this means the wait would be the longest time gap in between instalments, at least since 1989’s “License to Kill,” which was followed, more than six years later, by “GoldenEye.”
As for a potential director being involved, and despite conversations, it’s anybody’s guess at this point. Sam Mendes recently stated that Broccoli was looking for “more controllable” filmmakers to helm this next one.
So, who jumps in as the next Bond filmmaker? Given the whole “controllable” aspect of the gig, Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve are probably out of the equation. Recent reports namechecked young-ish filmmakers such as Kelly Marcel, David Michod, Damien Chazelle, Bart Layton, and Yann Demange.
The main question that should be asked is, how do you reboot James Bond for modern-day sensibilities? Who should play Bond? What direction should the story take? It seems like nobody has any answers to these pertinent questions.
Cory Finley, a talented filmmaker, has directed three films so far: "Thoroughbreds" (2017), "Bad Education” (2020), and "Landscape with Invisible Hand.”