The 26th official James Bond film is unlikely to be in cinemas before 2025, according to the series’ producer, Barbara Broccoli.
Speaking at a dinner to honour Broccoli and her half-brother Michael G Wilson after the presentation of their BFI Fellowships, the gatekeeper of all things 007 (and daughter of Cubby Broccoli) said they had not yet cast the actor who will replace Daniel Craig in the tux.
“Nobody’s in the running,” she said in a speech first reported by Deadline. “We’re working out where to go with him, we’re talking that through. 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.”
Craig departed the series after five films, bowing out with last year’s No Time to Die. That film concluded Craig’s run with a finality unusual for the film, something which fuelled speculation over the likely future of the franchise, with some suspecting the films would have to return to Bond’s childhood or early spy years for more stories.
The sale of studio MGM to Amazon has also meant the intellectual property rights over Ian Fleming’s character exert a looser grip than in previous years. Broccoli and Wilson are producing a new reality series, 007’s Road to a Million, which will be Amazon Prime Video’s debut TV show.
The siblings were presented with their fellowships by Bond regulars Ralph Fiennes and Naomie Harris, who play M and Moneypenny. Noting the fate of Bond in the most recent film, Fiennes joked: “Naomie and I are the people to fix it. You find him and we’ll train him.”
Broccoli has previously confirmed that the new Bond will be male, after calls for the character to undergo a Doctor Who-style reinvention. Key runners and riders remain Tom Hardy, Henry Cavill, Idris Elba, Bridgerton’s Regé-Jean Page and Richard Madden.
