Look at how Marvel taps up and coming directors (Ryan Coogler, Taika Waititi, the Russo Bros., James Gunn, Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden) versus their track record with more established directors (Kenneth Branagh, Alan Taylor, Joe Johnston.) I always thought Shane Black would be good for Bond, esp. after Iron Man 3 and Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (hello!), but he’s tied up with the upcoming Predator. Think about it. Is TWINE a Michael Apted film, QoS Marc Forster, and Skyfall/SPECTRE Sam Mendes? Or are they Bond films? EON should move on with talent that fits their schedule instead of adjusting their schedule around a director’s reputation.
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Demange was a contender to direct the next James Bond movie and his boarding may further muddy that search. Demange, along with Denis Villeneuve and David MacKenzie were on the shortlist last year for the high-profile project, which is heading towards a release date of Nov. 8, 2019. The search got murkier in February when Danny Boyle became a contender.
Villeneuve is now focusing on Dune while Boyle is prepping a period music-themed drama. Now it seems that Demange’s time will be spent on Lovecraft Country.
The article makes it sound like this makes it hard for him to do Bond 25, but it also says he’s shooting only 1 episode…
Seems like the prospects are filling their respective dance cards. No word from Eon and methinks that something is bubbling and about to come to a boil. Just my gut, but, for some reason, the old Shakespeare quote about “the ides of March” is gnawing at the back of my mind. Well, as M advised Bond in DAF the novel - “Don’t worry about it 007, worry at it.” which is what I believe Eon is doing. To what end, I don’t know. Still seven months (guesstimate at best) until production if they keep to their release date. Although, as we’ve seen, once they announce details, they go into overdrive.
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But it´s episode one - and he’s also an executive producer of the show. So he will need and take his time to establish the look and the tone of the show and to keep it going. No time to focus on a huge enterprise like Bond in-between.
Well, this was to be expected. Directors have to pay their bills, too. And if one is not appreciated because one has not yet risen to the A-list one has to work and keep searching acclaim somewhere else.
To think that BOND 25 might fall apart because no director could be found is so hopelessly absurd.
Open the floodgates, there are so many capable directors who would jump at the chance.
Of course, this might not be EON´s fault at all - probably DC had it put in his contract that he has director approval, and this is a way to stall, too. Happened to other producers who wanted one particular star happy.
Or more likely the fact there is still no distributor. Closest was this http://deadline.com/2017/11/james-bond-domestic-release-deal-mgm-annapurna-daniel-craig-1202205255/ but no announcement ever came. We havn’t heard even rumours regarding international distribution. Fun as it is to point at EON or Daniel Craig or even potential directors as to why this film hasn’t seemingly moved following Craig’s return announcement, the fact that they don’t have a primary financial banker/ability to release the bloody thing is going to be the biggest hold back.
That is another hurdle, absolutely.
But why would it be so difficult for a distributor to go into the Bond business? It is a guaranteed success, even if a distributor only gets a bad deal. And last year it was confirmed that EON had met several studios which pitched hard for the distribution rights, even recreating a Bond film set.
Maybe MGM´s greed was too big and they overplayed their hand. But even that would lead to a decision since they want and need BOND 25 in 2019.
No, the reason for all this confusion must lie somewhere else. The reported wait for a big name director seems like the most probable. It would have been a coup for EON to present Villeneuve or Boyle. But that, of course, risks losing the safer bets.
In the end, EON is too much of a pro to let this one slide, of course. But maybe they have learned a lesson here and will change their strategy accordingly.
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Actually I think Craig’s announcement to return was meant as the major impetus to get things going at the studio front again. So far it fell flat.
Craig is no doubt a major asset. At the same time he doesn’t need Bond any more. Nor is there a wider public hunger to see him return. The public likes him as 007 but they would not expect anything they haven’t yet seen from him. Think Roger Moore post-FYEO.
Craig’s incentive to return may have been just as much to do with owing Eon a favour as with his paycheque. At least we can conclude it wasn’t due to some fantastically convincing script he supposedly has seen before. Because then they’d already be shooting.
I can see why they want a director with a certain hitting power, somebody who fits the bill of doing an outstanding Bond film and an outstanding film in its own right. But overall it doesn’t help to switch horses, guns, scripts and writers as if they had all the time in the world. The industry doesn’t sleep and will soon move in on the 2019 release date. If they want to hold this - if they want to hold BOND 25 with Craig - then they will have to make their move soon.
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Announcing a release date did seem…brazen, but I got the impression the Craig announcement was purely to remove the question from Logan Lucky’s press tour so the focus could be on the film he was there to promote.
Would that be such trouble? The interviews are usually pretty good planned ahead with plenty of no-go areas. It’s not as if Logan Lucky’s PR tour would have been blown by Bond. The main news was that Craig would return, everything else wasn’t even set yet. And from here it looks as if everything else continues to be very ‘flexible’…
Exactly. It even seems that the announcement was made to give LOGAN LUCKY more press exposure.
And quite frankly, whenever a Bond actor is cast in another film the producers WANT him to talk about Bond, just to get the interest going. The fact that nothing much was made of it proves that there simply was nothing else to say about BOND 25 - and that the media not even were that interested.
Dustin described it perfectly: DC now is Roger Moore post-FYEO.
I would agree that Bond would be good for the films PR, but people in marketing can get weirdly sensitive about anything other than the “project” being discussed whilst most journalists will be encouraged to get more interesting information that their viewers will want - see how often Blade Runner 2049 chat turned to Star Wars and Indiana Jones when it was a chat conducted for early morning chat shows. Whilst I doubt Craig or Soderbergh cared about it, someone in PR will have gotten very edgy about them not talking about Logan Lucky.
Well, all the PR people I’ve come across (and - full disclose - I have worked in that field, too) are desperate to get any attention for a project. And Bond just is the biggest ticket - just like Star Wars or Indiana Jones are for Harrison Ford.
The problem with all the attention one mega-franchise gives to an actor, of course, is that it overshadows his work in every other film. Robert Downey jr. will definitely love to cash in the paychecks for his Tony Stark-role - but he will hate the fact that no other film he does will get that attention. Sean Connery hated Bond, too, because nobody took him seriously - until he grew into his older character actor-phase and got the Oscar for “The Untouchables”.
Daniel Craig, let’s face it, has the same problem. While he has gotten other roles since Bond none have payed off for him. And his left-turn appearance in LOGAN LUCKY was so un-Bondian that people would not even have cared to see the movie because of him. Since no other big stars were involved and Soderbergh has gone back to be a fringe auteur with no box office power, I’m absolutely sure that the Bond association was on his mind when he cast Craig. So… yep, they wanted that. And I’m pretty sure, too, that DC wanted that too. But it did not help the movie either.
Agreed. Logan Lucky was pretty dire. Daniel Craig was the best thing about it.
If Bond is used to boost the PR for his non-Bond films, then maybe we will learn more mid April…
We should hear something either way soon enough. November 2019 may seem like a far-away date from here. But a production like BOND 25 will move plenty wheels and gears in advance. Locations have to be lined up, soundstages must be booked, specialist equipment, production schedules, travel and lodging and whatnot. A production in this class is a huge beast and you can feel it move long before you see it.
By April or May there should be some kind of visible progress, at least something allowing to announce the director. We can probably assume that a P&W script is a step ahead of the Boyle story. But whatever they will use shooting as BOND 25 needs pieces that must fall into place these next few months.
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Agreed on all. Also, one element which is of interest was the announcement of a production designer. As I mentioned before somewhere in this thread, a designer has to know what to design, hence some key set piece has been decided upon. Seven + months is short time indeed for booking stages. Granted, Eon does have a bit of pull with the 007 stage I imagine, but still the clock is ticking. Then again, Bond does have a habit of playing it down to the last few seconds and still saving the world. So, director is anybody’s guess but I’m still making my ‘table stakes’ bet on WB landing the distribution deal… You know, “If you play the odds.” 
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Indeed - nothing harder than an Ep1. Needs to not only work on it’s own merits, but also set the format for everything that follows.
I made it 20 minutes through and turned off (a rarity for me). Craig was ok, but the thought seemed to be ‘Wow, we’ve got James Bond in our movie!’, letting his takes run on far too long in the cut, turning a fun performance into an annoying one pretty quickly.
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Is the consensus then that it’s not Annapurna as has been reported, or are you just talking about international?