Absolutely. When I look at the biggest films for 2025 they tend to be in the broadest sense fantasy films and/or aim at the family segment; the likes of MINECRAFT and AVATAR. The closest to Bond was MI: THE FINAL RECKONING and with about $ 600.000 well away from the billion box office.
We have to accept that the category ‘event film’ has shifted ever so slightly away from the spy game - and that audiences as a whole can and do wait to catch a film at leisure at their homes. The family outing where an audience spreads over several generations does still happen but is now crowding closer to ‘ritual’ dates around Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Where the popcorn staple market is now cornered by animation/CGI fodder.
Even a very successful BOND 26 will likely not surpass JURASSIC WORLD: REBIRTH if we’re looking at it from a purely realistic perspective. That’s not to say Bond cannot be big again in a different climate. I just wouldn’t expect that to be in the cards in the next decade. And really, who’d be able to predict how the industry looks in five years, let alone by 2036?
“If I were to break the news to anyone it would be to you first, Mr. Bond, you know that. But it’s late, I’m tired and there’s so much left to do. Good night, Mr. Bond.”
I kind of wish we were getting a novelization of the game. I don’t know who could write it. It could scratch that itch of having a Bond novel set in the modern day. There are several of us that want one, like that. As I’ve said before, Everything or Nothing and Bloodstone (preferably by Bruce Feinstein) and even Goldeneye: Rogue Agent (possibly by Raymond Benson, as that would the type of story that would written in his style), not having one was a missed opportunity, for a lot of people.
