With Skyfall, Sam Mendes refreshed one of the most enduring film franchises and brought it into the 21st Century. The movie updated James Bond in a way that balanced reverence for 60 years of history with a cool new look and feel that stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the most cutting-edge action movies. After following it up with Spectre, Mendes moved on to his equally illustrious theater career before shifting back to cinema with 1917.
Now, he’s executive producing The Franchise, an HBO comedy series poking fun at the Hollywood action movie machine. And while The Franchise is primarily a satire of Marvel and DC’s dueling cinematic universes, Mendes experience on 007 clearly helped him get into the right headspace. So perhaps it’s not a surprise that when I asked if he’d ever consider making another James Bond movie, he seems reluctant at best.
