Silly me, I read this as „man, we have to wait 15 years for the next film now?“
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I did too on first scanning.
Is this WB trying to woo Nolan back? He has made it clear he wants that job at some point…
Again, I’m against it because the things I love in Bond and the things I love in Nolan’s work are very different (opposing) things, but I can see a studio doing that.
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15 might be the conservative estimate.
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She won’t be.
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You mean the journalist purposely asked her that just to use her response as a headline?!?!?
I’m shocked
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It has become so tiresome, hasn’t it?
Oh, the good old days when “Lewis Collins/Clive Owen/Hugh Jackman will be the next Bond” was everything one could roll one´s eyes at…
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I’ve been giving thought as to the the cinematic landscape as well as what else is going on in the world and I have some thoughts about where Bond fits in.
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The main ‘trend’ in cinema is all about brands and nostalgia.
No Time To Die was the fourth highest grossing film of 2021 (and the second highest English language film). Admittedly 2021 was an odd year for box office but it shows Bond is still a name that can draw the crowds. Therefore I feel that the producers need not concern themselves with what the other franchises are doing and just focus on Bond being Bond.
And I also don’t recall seeing the usual ‘is Bond still relevant’ think pieces that would normally pop up this time in the production cycle. People are talking about the next Bond but no one seems to be asking if there should be a next Bond. Hopefully this means that audiences just accept Bond’s brand of heroism without feeling the need to justify his place in the world. -
Bond needs to go after his traditional enemies; rich people.
Whether they’re public figures or international criminals one of the unifying traits of Bond villains is wealth. They a group known for their luxurious lairs, private islands, organisations with global reach and various eccentricities. Meanwhile in the real world, spaceships have become a status symbol for billionaires and corporations report record profits while the rest of us struggle through another financial crisis.
For that reason putting Bond against an eccentric billionaire, from whatever industry best serves the plot, seems like the way forward. Bonus points if M says something like ‘Tread carefully 007, he’s a friend of the Prime Minister.’
On that note… -
Audiences may need Bond to go rogue.
This has been discussed a lot on these forums and I know the consensus is that the trope is getting tiresome. The problem is that Bond works for the British government. Given they’ve spent the last few years being ineffectual, incompetent and untrustworthy it’s getting harder and harder to root for someone who acts on their behalf. Bond can no longer be the good company man and needs to be willing to defy his orders in order to act on the greater good.
Or perhaps M could be made more of a maverick who’s willing to fight against suits in government while sending his agent to do what must be done.
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It’s impossible to know whether the Craig films would have been this successful if they had not reacted to its contemporary competitors. I believe Bond has to react and adapt. That way they have sustained this brand through the years.
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Fully agreed: Bond has to fight the super rich because he always was a surrogate for the working class audience.
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No need for going rogue if the films continue to exist in an alternate fantasy reality of a British government having the superior secret agent who can save the world better than all the others.
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I completely agree; the change to the more grounded approach was completely the right decision for the series in 2005. I’m very much of the opinion that taking cues from what else has been popular has kept the franchise running all these years. What I’m proposing is that, for the first time since the 70’s, the producers don’t need to.
Looking just at this years box office; The Batman went with a serious and grounded tone and has had much acclaim and financial success. Meanwhile the MCU has leaned into the more fantastical side of things with magic and the multiverse in Doctor Strange and Gods and cosmic journey’s in Thor, both of which have enjoyed strong box office. But it’s the high octane thrills of Top Gun that looks like the real success story, a great film, but would it have been such a hit without the nostalgia?
The the unifying thread of all of the biggest hits of the year (at least ones made for the English speaking market) is that they belong to established franchises. Since Bond is already a well known cinematic brand then the series already has the most important thing they need to succeed. The rest is just about making the best Bond film they can.
Bond himself is a fantasy figure however the world he inhabits is supposed to be pretty close to our own. Specifically it’s always understood that when someone references the Prime Minister they are talking about the current one and not a fictional one. Granted this has never been made explicit with anyone other than Thatcher but I’ve always understood it to be the case. Then again, with things changing as fast as they are who knows what the government will look like in 2025.
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Hasn’t all of Bond been reactionary? Seriously watch North by Northwest then watch Dr. No and From Russia With Love. The latter has almost a beat for beat copy of a set piece (it changed a plane for a helicopter)
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Is it? I disagree. And the Thatcher, Dennis, parrot ending in FYEO was only one last joke, making fun of her in a delightful way. At no point in FYEO or other Moore era films one got the idea that Bond is working for Thatcherism.
I’m not sure, maybe it’s opposite, I mean I do find Bond to be just a human like us, he bleeds, got hurt, he have no superpowers, he falls in love, he enjoys pleasure, feel fear, and suffer, he also argues with his boss and gets bored at job, it’s pretty close to our own.
It’s his world that’s a fantasy, in real world there’s no oddly looking Megalomaniacs in lairs with great architecture having some world dominations (Stromberg, Safin, Hugo Drax, Blofeld), they don’t exist in real life, there are no islands like Crab Key (DN) or the Olympatec Meditation Institute (LTK), the world we’re living is definitely more grounded than those in the Bond films.
James Bond’s world is different to our world.
While some of the locations were real life based, the world that Bond inhabits is purely fantasy.
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Any film is going to have influences. What I’m trying to say is that right now Bond doesn’t need to worry about proving it’s relevant.
I suppose it’s easier for me to divorce an older film for the political climate when I didn’t live through the era. However I do maintain that there is a stigma attached to the British government right now and while the films may strive to be apolitical the lead character is still a government agent. Or Maybe the stigma’s always been there and I’m just more acutely aware of it at the moment.
But it’s driven by the same conflicts and politics. The Cold War served as a consistent backdrop for more than 20 years, then Goldeneye was a reaction to the end of the Cold War, DAD was about the Korea conflict and Casino Royale brought up the fallout of 9/11. Meanwhile the events of a Bond film that should have broader ramifications (YOLT, TSWLM or Moonraker for example) don’t end up having any real influence as the political climate always resets to match the real world.
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Yet that is the very question that EON has been intent on asking with each film.
If even the filmmakers are going out of their way to ask the question within their own films, then it is fair to expect that franchise will have to continue to prove its own relevance.
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I believe the reason for this constant „relic“-status was the financial failure of LTK, with the Cold War ending and the hiatus of production. GE had to react to all this.
Afterwards, the Brosnan era ditched that need for justification. But then Bourne and The Dark Knight forced the Craig films again to respond. And despite being mega successes the Craig Bond films were even embracing the relevance question, maybe attacking doubters in advance rather than facing these old questions too late.
But I agree: with the end of that era and hopefully an actor who accepts the role willingly and gladly, there will be no need to explain why Bond is still around.
No going rogue. No doubts. No substitute.
How’s that for a tagline?
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The novels were mournful/reactionary. Some of the films were reactionary with their mixture of nostalgia/sexual/cultural politics, while once in a while, they were middle-of-the-road.
True. But will such an approach be feasible one-quarter of the way through the 21st century?
The key is how the real locations are presented. Mendes in SPECTRE used a sepia tint to abstract the real, and (for me) it worked. The higher the realism of the depiction, the less the world Bond inhabits comes across as a fantasy.
Wouldn’t the new Bond need to establish himself before he goes rogue, for it to make sense? Unless MI6 is shown to be behaving unethically/stupidly and endangering King and country, so Bond establishes himself by going rogue against this reality (an untried approach for introducing a new Bond).
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It should be, unless audiences only accept fake docudramas in their action entertainment.
Who watches the Russo/Cameron movies and thinks it’s anyway real?
The audience in the last decade has prioritised dumb for the most part.
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Should be–yes.
Will be–??? Those fake docudramas are tremendously popular in culture today.
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