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I can't see them doing a period piece when there's already films in the series set in the early sixties. I do think there's a chance they might resurrect classic villains though, simply because movies based on comic books do that, and I think they have an eye on all that stuff.
Personally, I wish they'd re-cast Bond after Skyfall, and kept the Craig era as an 'Origin Trilogy' that finished with Bond in the Dr No office, ready to get back to work. From there, we could have had a new Bond off on proper missions again.
They'd have had to do one of those if he'd died at the end of the last film or not. Craig's Bond had a character arc so the next one was never going to be a continuation of his character (he was being told he was old 10 years ago!).
Look at Nolan's Batman movies: he effectively killed off the character at the end of his trilogy (in the eyes of the world, Batman was dead) and yet they kept making Batman films after that. I don't think there's any sign of the Batman producers being painted into a corner.
Personally I hope that's right, because we've done all that.
Glad you liked the post. OHiMSS is definitely a strange book, and I think while it gets bits and pieces right in terms of depicting a millennial aged Bond, it does feel a bit like it’s been written by a sixty something year old man with its use of politics and cultural references etc.
In terms of the films, however, I do think they have a surprisingly wide audience. It’s always going to attract male audiences slightly more than female ones (although just looking at this forum alone there are obviously female fans of the series) but it encompasses a wide range of ages and types of people within that demographic. There’ll always be some vocal dislike of the character, but that’s always been the case. It’s a series with that kind of mass appeal with a number of films behind it. Honestly, from my personal experience, the viewership for Mission Impossible is generally older than the Craig era Bonds was.
All EON need to do is keep things fresh. Just by virtue of the next film having a new actor/being a ‘reboot’ they’re half way there. Stick to what’s true for the character, keep one foot firmly in the Fleming door, but keep things contemporary. The producers have always seemed interested in issues that are relevant at the time which helps. I don’t think this will be a problem in the long term really.
Although most of the time with Nolan's films the female characters are boring quite honestly, he's had wonderful actresses but he never seems to get the best out of them, and that's down to his direction and writing.
One key ingredient to a great Bond film is a great Bond girl. I watched Goldeneye last night and I forgot how much I love Natalya. She's sexy, strong, smart and a bad ass, yet she's never claiming to be Bond's equal. Easily in my top 5 and that's credit to Izabella herself and Martin Campbell's direction. Nolan has to nail this aspect, if he's to make a great Bond film
- rumour in the autumn of 2022 about ATJ's screen test
- Nolan's reaction to the ATJ rumours this June
- the way ATJ reacted to the mention of the ATJ rumours in a recent Esquire article
- the recent Nolan rumours
So my constructed theoretical timeline:
Sometime before autumn 2022: EON is ready to start working on Bond 26. They call Nolan. He tells them that he does want to do Bond 26, but prefers to work on one movie at a time and says that he is busy working on Oppenheimer until late June 2023. He asks EON if they can wait nearly an entire year for him. They say yes, but want to make sure before they commit to waiting for Nolan for an entire year that they and Nolan are on the same page when it comes to at least one of the most important aspects of the reboot: the new Bond actor. Nolan tells them that he would love to cast ATJ. EON tells Nolan that they are open to the idea but want to screentest him.
Autumn 2022: ATJ screentest. He is great, Barbara loves him. They call Nolan and tell him that they are okay with casting him as the next Bond. They all agree to continue discussions after Nolan is done with Oppenheimer.
July 2023: waiting for Nolan ends. EON and Nolan meet again, this time to discuss the direction of the franchise in more detail. EON wants modern day reboot, Nolan wants period piece Bond. The agreement is that Nolan writes a treatment first and then they will decide to hire him or not.
Late September 2023: WGA strike ends. Nolan starts writing his Bond 26 treatment.
What do you guys think? Does this timeline sound plausible? If not, which part do you think is probably not realistic?
Well I think it’s relatively certain there were no screen tests. I also don’t think this is quite how EON or most production companies do things, especially when choosing which directors to work with.
I don’t doubt they’ve met with ATJ, but I reckon they’ve done so with maybe a handful of other actors too. Nothing official, just meet and greets. Testing the waters of who would be interested etc. I imagine it didn’t have anything to do with a recommendation by Nolan or anyone (the producers have presumably met ATJ through his wife, and he’s a pretty established character actor in his 30s with the right look so would likely be on their radar anyway).
I really don’t know if they’ve talked with Nolan. Perhaps they’ve done so but talked with other potential directors too. I imagine going from previous Bond films the producers are still coming up with big concepts/the main beats of the story. They might be in the process of getting writers in to do early treatments before trying to nail a director down, or they might get treatments done at this point if a director/writer (or writers the director prefers) is brought on. The script itself will be written after this and can develop/change over this time. Of course the director will have a say in how the story develops during pre-production. Once a script is in a relatively good shape then they can screen test actors.
Maybe the rumour of Nolan wanting to do a period piece is true (or at least had some truth to it), maybe it isn’t. I really don’t know.
They know that that's not how Nolan operates. So if they want to get Nolan, then they very likely contacted Nolan first.
I amended my post slightly to accommodate for that. If Nolan were brought in it’d likely be similar to how Boyle/Hodge worked with EON. The very broad story beats of Bond 25 were already established when they came on (a retired Bond being brought back by Leiter for one last mission, him dying at the end etc.) and their job was to shape the story under those provisions and write treatments/scripts with producers reviewing and giving feedback. From there a lot of pre production stuff gets done too, but that’s what gets things going ultimately.
We’re still likely in the conceptual stage of development before the actual treatment/script work begins. Perhaps the producers have met with Nolan to see if their ideas are compatible. Again, I don’t know. I don’t believe he’s made the producers wait due to editing Oppenheimer (I believe he began work on TDK once The Prestige had finished filming, even before he’d begun editing, so he’s capable of working on more than one thing at once as most writers/directors have to). I don’t believe Nolan, or indeed any other filmmaker aside from the producers have contributed anything to Bond 26 as of yet. And I don’t think any screenwriter will be give total carte blanche on a script, certainly not without those ‘big ideas’ being nailed down by producers. No producer would do that for such a project incidentally.
It’s actually kind of scary how many people want them gone. I know it’s a Twitter (forget X, Elon Musk, you real life Bond villain), poll, but it seems that people are fed up with them. They can’t be blamed for all the problems of their movies, but their trademarks are getting noticeable. How can Bond leave MI6 again, being their biggest offender.
Yeah they’re a safe-ish pair of hands and I‘ve loved some of the films they’ve written, including NTTD, but it’s really starting to seem like they don’t have much more to say.
Giving them the benefit of the doubt, maybe they felt Craig’s age in the last one was too old to ignore, and that was why we ended up hitting a lot of those same notes again (Bond’s out of the game, the world’s moved on, etc). A younger actor could revitalise them a bit. But then we’re back to, are two sixty somethings really the best people to write a 30 something Bond and attract more younger fans.
I wouldn’t be against them being bought in for another last minute rescue job if they’re needed. But if the first thing we hear about Bond 26 is them starting the script, I’d be pretty disappointed.
Btw, hasn't Barbara already talked about Purvis and Wade probably starting work on Bond 26 soon? I remember her saying something like that this year or last year but can't find it.
Yeah, she said it on the Empire podcast that was released around the 60th anniversary, October time.
If so, EON would have another good reason to hire Nolan. If they don't hire him now, he might start a rival Bond movie series in about a decade.
Could be true, I remember something about it coming up in previous discussions. I would all but guarantee a lot of legal challenges from Eon and their distributor, though. And you won't have the 007 or gunbarrel logos, the music, etc.
Oh yeah, all those are copyrighted. But in theory as long as something was just an adaptation of the books and didn't include elements of EON's Bond series then it could happen. I guess....
Not sure it'd be worth any production company going against EON for what it's worth. I'd imagine it'd be thankless going from CR '67 and NSNA. And to be fair when it comes to Bond there are other non-EON oddities that don't infringe on the movies. I believe there was an all female Japanese theatre adaptation of CR recently for instance.
Well I, for one, am very much looking forward to the low budget slasher Casino Royale: Blood and Martinis. Based on the novel of course....
I mean I watched that Japanese CR musical, including a whole number about dolphin love, the floodgates have opened. Things are about to get a whole lot weirder than just a blond Bond folks.
Not trying to get anyone's hopes up. But click on Michael and Barbara's picture. Possible announcement from EON for James Bond Day on Thursday.
I'm also wondering where that screenshot is. I'll believe it when I hear an announcement, which I can't imagine will come on Thursday. As always, I'd love to be wrong.
If they announce Nolan on Thursday, I will have a heart attack. To be honest, I don't think there will be anything as we VERY rarely get any big offical news, without the news first being revealed by a major trustworthy site such as Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline... or Baz Bamigboye.
When it comes to directors, Mendes and Boyle both were confirmed by trusthworthy sites before the official announcement. Fukunaga was a surprise but it was a special situation as they needed to find and announce someone very quickly.
“ It’s the week of Global James Bond Day, earlier this week there was a post on X(formerly Twitter) that hinted at a big announcement regarding Bond 26. It was immediately pulled down, but a friend was able to catch a screen shot and it looked very official.
Do Barbara Broccoli and Micheal G Wilson have a few tricks up their sleeves? Only time will tell but me and @thatonebondguy are doing an Instagram Live Thursday night October 5th to Report and Discuss everything that is announced. See you then 8pm est.”