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My dear friend, @ColonelSun, your knowledgeable contributions are always a balm. Many thanks for putting to rest the many logistic speculations that have been thrown into the proverbial hat for the past weeks or months. That being said, when do you think Villeneuve will be free of Dune 3, filming wise? Probably by the end of the year as well, right? So everything seems to be in perfect alignment. I'm so glad (in Connery's voice) ;)
My feelings exactly. Integrity was properly defenestrated four years ago, for the sake of whims and under the guise of creative liberties (no need to further argue this in this particular thread, but from having Boyle's so called vision, to the narrative choices of NTTD, we can all agree that they wouldn't be keeping with the canonical line that, for better or worse, had aligned their product for 60 years. They just couldn't keep it up after CR. SF was a welcome variation that worked, a fluke made by talent and timing). So I'm quite glad to see new people around, even if I do entertain the hypothesis of EON lurking in the shadows, and I'm quite fine with that.
All and all, brave new world, whatever brave means.
There's a zero percent chance that Amazon releases Bond 26 in August or September, (unless right at the end, like B25) so that means it's either July or October or later. I think given the current timelines July is too optimistic. Most likely it will be another 3 years, at the start of October 2028.
I think you're likely right, although as I said in the actor thread, I think it's possible to have an actor announcement before that if they have their eye on someone. Although there's no script, there's a concept they're exploring, and a lot of actors would be very willing to work with Villeneuve and would probably sign onto something even if he just pitched his concept to them on zoom- and Bond is obviously a known quantity. I think having DV there makes this a different proposition to when Craig needed to see a script to sign onto CR, people want to be in his films.
DV tends to work with quality movie actors nowadays, so if they had an idea for the film and an actor in their sights, they might be wanting to sign him early before he does something else.
Like I say, I think you're likely right as they'd be keen to explore all possibilities before signing someone, but I think there is a world where we could get a name sooner, even before Dune is done.
Sometimes they test too much, overlook the best option.
Yeah but i mean in a starting point.
Important observation.
Will Knight be available for rewrites after Villeneuve devotes his full attention and time to Bond 26? Will Villeneuve perform his own rewrites? It's interesting to think that with two, strong authorial voices attached to Bond 26, there may only be one or two writers attached at all stages of production.
We may get a Bond film that's clearer in its narrative and themes. There's any number of reasons why a film stumbles but the Craig Era, in my opinion, suffered most from amorphous screenplays with compelling pitches, interesting possibilities, questionable choices, and incomplete or compromised executions. The notable exception is Casino Royale. But there was the undergirding of Fleming’s’ novel on which to build the movie.
Maybe a consistent vision from a singular creative or a duo of creatives will keep better focus. Of course, we've had Neal Purvis and Robert Wade for twenty or so years but they were, sometimes understandably, consistently overridden and rewritten. And, while I do think they were knowledgeable, reflective and enthusiastic about Bond, it seems from a comparison of output, they’ don’t have the level of authorial voice and innovation of Knight, Villeneuve or a partnership of the two.
But we would lose that committee style of filmmaking which didn’t always produce the best Bond films yet forged a genre of its own. There was a “big top” quality to the Broccoli/Saltzman/Wilson films. I think Cubby and Barbara are two of the greatest film producers that ever worked in Hollywood, but they’re human and fallible. They kept the longest running film series in Hollywood history alive and kicking but they were also responsible for some of its ailments.
I’m emboldened by Knight’s talk of boldness in his screenplay. Bond 26 has every opportunity to be a runaway hit, but even its failure will be judged in relative terms. Knight and Villeneuve may give us Bond 1 instead of Bond 26. I think this behind-the-camera combination, so far, could unlock the secrets of pulling it off either way.
I agree this is the closest we have come to a true auteur level vision for Bond. Look at the highest rated films of 2025, Sinners and One Battle After Another, audiences are hungry for a real authorial voice.
But honestly, unless you’re literally making a movie by yourself, there’s always a high level of collaboration with filmmaking. And every director has their own individual traits and ways of working. It’s not just Villeneuve and Knight making this film, but Heyman and Pascal too, and of course the many other collaborators who’ll at some point become involved. I think romanticising ‘auteur directors’ and those ‘consistent voices’ is a flawed thing to do in practice, tempting as it is (many of us may not enjoy Bond 26 or have criticisms about its storytelling and creative choices, despite supposedly being made by these two ‘innovative’ minds. Where does that leave this argument about ‘consistent’ creative voices, if that’s even the case with this movie?) It’s worth saying Villeneuve’s fame will simply amplify for those interested that idea of his ‘authorial voice’ anyway - regardless of whatever creative decisions he himself makes with this film - so it’s at best a bit misleading. At any rate I think it’ll be a collaborative film with many creative voices (and for better or worse a good bit of studio oversight), and I’d say it’s way too early to speculate if it’ll be a great Bond instalment, let alone some masterpiece of a film. Insofar as it’s subjective anyway. We’ll just have to see whatever way.
Yeah I always think it's a bit iffy when folks call Campbell a 'journeyman' director or anything like that, as if he's never done anything 'auteur'-ish: he has a won an actual BAFTA. He's done some bland filler-y crap over the years, sure, but he's also done some artistic stuff, and been very well-regarded for it.
Being an auteur or having a consistent creative voice isn’t in itself a sign of quality I suppose. Ed Wood, Tommy Wiseau, and Uwe Boll are auteurs with consistent creative voices. They probably have/had fuller creative control over their films than Villeneuve in practice! With Campbell even in his bland fill-ery crap there are creative similarities to his Bond films I’d say.
Skill and talent and vision and voice exist on a spectrum in which placement has multiple determinants. I don’t think saying that Villeneuve is a better filmmaker than Lewis Gilbert doesn’t mean that Gilbert is not an artist in his own right.
The first six Bond films are amongst the most popular films around the world, and in history, because of Young, Hamilton, Gilbert and Hunt. Each one of the first six films are stylish, bold, ambitious, fun, trend setting, of their time and timeless in their own unique ways.
So is Villeneuve a better filmmaker than the four 1960s Bond-film directors? Yes. But Villeneuve will be cribbing from a language that those men helped to innovate. Alfred Hitchcock was a better filmmaker than Terence Young. Yet Terence Young made Sean Connery one of the biggest movie stars of all time by working with others, equally talented, to turn Fleming’s prose into movie magic. All while shaking a bit of himself into Connery’s performance. Hitchcock did a lot, he didn’t do that.
Judging relative craftsmanship and success, in whatever particular context exists, can’t be and shouldn’t be so easily reduced to “this good, that bad.” But where there is a better there is a best.
Kind of reminds me of that scene in Dead Poet’s Society where the class are made to read some bizarre scale that tries to scientifically gauge the ‘quality’ of a poem. No, there’s no tangible spectrum I can use to judge, say, how talented Spielberg is compared to Kubrick. You might loath one’s movies and love the other, or think one of them has more shortcomings. We only have things like the cultural legacy of the films themselves (and even the directors themselves in a few cases), the opinions of audiences/critics, how we judge what’s onscreen, and how we engage emotionally with their films.
Villeneuve has a lot of critical acclaim and a fair few modern films which have been successful. Is he a better director than Gilbert? I would say he probably is, but that’s only my opinion and because I’ve seen/liked more of his films (none of us have seen either men work ultimately, and we only have the results of their movies which are collaborations with several others). And I agree with you ultimately, both are still distinct creative voices. Does that mean Villeneuve is going to give us a film that’ll be better than we got from Gilbert? Insofar as it’s subjective, there’s no guarantee of that, and Bond 26 may well not have as much of an enduring legacy as TSWLM or YOLT.
Yes, because their creative voices were distinct you could say and contributed to the films we got.
I agree, every Bond director - and any director who makes a movie in general owes - something to those who came before. And yes, despite Young’s flaws as a director (the man’s directing habits are fascinating but seem very annoying, especially for his editors) I’m not sure Hitchcock would have worked with Connery in the same way Young did. The series wouldn’t have been the same.
It’s more nuanced than that. I can look at any ‘great’ director’s films, for instance, and claim they have certain shortcomings. Maybe they’re beautiful looking but the performances feel a bit stilted and they’re boring to me. I can claim it’s a trait I’ve noticed in this auteur’s work and I’ve concluded despite the ‘greatness’ of the director - perhaps they’ve won many Oscars and have all these well told anecdotes about their extraordinary personality and methods of working - they couldn’t work with actors to save their life, and they had noticeable issues with their direction. I’ve concluded this director is not all that great, and for whatever reason their work has been overhyped.
There’s much discussion to be had with that scenario. Ie. How much are the actors to blame? About as much as the cinematographers who made the film look beautiful arguably… Do Oscars matter or always honour the best films? I’d say no, but that’s my opinion. Are these films iconic and well loved by audiences, or is it just a case where audiences are told these films are important so are sort of predisposed to liking them? If they even truly like them at all - I’m sure we’ve all claimed to like certain movies or books to appear cultured or knowledgable but have realised at some point we dislike them. Are these tales about creative minds and their genius always accurate? No, and I know there are some well told stories about directors like, say, Kubrick which aren’t fully accurate. They feel like myth making in order to further put on a pedestal critically regarded - or in literature terms ‘canonical’ - filmmakers. Whether others agree or not with all this is another matter, but there’s no way to truly say who’s correct.
This is all a bit of a detour from Bond though! I think Villeneuve’s creative voice will come through just as much as any other director who’s helmed a Bond movie. We might see less credited writers than EON’s later films, but in practice it’s all a very big collaboration, not a one or two man show. I hope it’s successful or at least interesting, but there’s no certainty of either. There’s of course the horrible scenario where we all imply Villeneuve was picked not because of his understanding and approach to Bond, but because of his reputation as a director (I doubt it, and we wouldn’t truly know that one way or the other, but it’s possible many will react like this).
I think Bond 26 needs BOTH to succeed. Without an real, earnest heroism it will fail, and without an honestly and rawness it will also fail.