I was rather mesmerised by Knight’s 2013 film Locke. But then I’ve always been a fan of single setting films, and Bond couldn’t require anything more different.
He brought out the best* in Tom Hardy, mind 
*which is saying a lot, given the way Hardy butchered the Welsh accent!
Isn’t Tom Cruise already preparing to do that?
@dalton’s proposal to launch M, Q, and Moneypenny into space sometime next year is under active consideration.
No doubt about it, that would be a milestone for Bond. The only problem is, real footage from a space flight might not cut it as spectacular enough. Plus, you’d have to have some kind of bigger vehicle to interact with other characters, necessarily in extremely confined spaces. The calculation for such a trendy gimmick would show astronomical costs to get actors and crew up there. While the footage would likely be underwhelming, with zero action and no special effects. Why going that route when any studio today can knock off far more spectacular material with the help of CGI for a fraction of the cost?
In my view it’s inevitable Bond will sooner or later end up returning to space. But it wouldn’t necessarily follow it has to be done in documentary fashion.
Operation Gravity Zero. This Christmas, let James Bond take you around the world one more time.
That reminds that a great while back I made a this or that question of putting James Bond in space in a pre-titles sequence where he was sent to the International Space Station to identify a suspected saboteur and then stop them from creating havoc. During his investigation, Bond would discover the culprit and have to go out on a space walk to stop them from destroying the station in a final suicidal act.
(FYI if you’re curious, the other option was another PTS that found Bond having to stop an eco-terrorist from sabotaging/destroying some oil rigs or some sort of deep-sea mining operation right near the edge of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean. Bond and the bad guy would fight with 007 winning by hooking the villain onto an underwater vehicle that would take him over the trench and deeper into the ocean.)
I could see something along those lines.
An interesting idea. However, the one problem I see is that space walks are quite slow and cumbersome, so the scene might lack the necessary adrenaline-fueled action for a PTS. A zero-gravity fight scene inside the station might work better? With some creative choreography, it would be unlike anything seen in a Bond film before.
True that, and a zero-gravity fight scene would be interesting and probably entertaining. But I would also counter that the heightened danger and suspense of the space walk MIGHT offset the slower action–particularly if the villain shoots a laser gun at him or throws things such as equipment or tools at him. And if they happen to get in a struggle and roll around on the station, a potential tear in the suit would be deadly.
Maybe it could be a two-man team, and Bond has to fight one in zero-gravity inside the station and the other outside in a space walk–the best of both worlds. 
How about this as a way to get both:
The film opens outside the space station. We see one figure in a space-suit stalking another. Tension slowly builds until they have their physical confrontation. As the fight progresses it moves inside the station. In the airlock we see one astronaut remove his helmet reveling him to be James Bond. This then leads into the zero-gravity fight.
Or… just watch Moonraker again! 
Absolutely.
And really, smuggle an untrained man as an astronaut on board a „rocket“ just to have him fight someone there in a zero gravity situation? And people complained about the slowness of the underwater fights in TB…
And afterwards, how does Bond get back down to earth? In a time in which astronauts are marooned on the ISS because the second rocket can’t be launched in time, with bad weather further delaying a rescue mission for months…
Let’s just find something Bond can realistically do.
Like jumping out of a plane without a parachute.
Damn.
Let‘s really watch MR again instead.
There are plenty of places on earth that Bond either hasn’t been to or hasn’t been to in decades. The last place he needs to be going is into outer space again.
On the surface this appears to be a watch nerd video - but actually it’s a nutshell 101 introduction to business administration, erudite and spot on, why the Swatch Group may soon have to change course in light of diminishing margins - which may in turn influence the Omega investment into product placement/promotional partnerships*.
*Much of it is true for Eon’s automobile sideshow Aston Martin, too; no easy way to upscale and make models more profitable or stand out with unique innovations and technology. Will be interesting to see how much Amazon is willing to spend on these partnerships in the future…
With a long gap between NTTD and Bond 26, the next movie will be an event film by default. The sheer volume of ‘who will be the next Bond?’ articles in the media show the franchise still has cultural power. I’m okay with the inspiration being early Fleming stories like CR and MR, but I don’t think they should lose sight of Bond being a blockbuster.
I think the wait deserves something big and bold even if the portrayal of Bond is more cerebral. GE handled things pretty well here in my opinion. The “that’s what keeps you alone” sequence on the beach and the shared past mind game with Trevelyan. It didn’t overwhelm the experience and we were provided with more than enough entertainment.
There’s been such a long gap between every film post-Quantum of Solace that any Bond film has become an event film just because of the infrequency of the films.
It really is amazing that Bond even still has as much popularity as it does considering how infrequently the powers-that-be have put a product out for people to consume.
In all fairness though, the Bonds have been ‘event films’ for as long as I can remember. Once they switched to a roughly two year interval that was the basic decision to not cheapen the product by too much of it (and given how imitators fared, this decision was right). I’d be really surprised if Amazon significantly altered that scheme. They may produce more regularly, and possibly fill the gaps with streaming fodder. But the films will probably not pop up much faster than once every two years at most.
But I think the reason for event status has shifted.
As I was growing up, a Bond film was an event because it was Bold! Brash! Sexy! Bond!
Event status seems more grounded now in gigantism and rarity (as @dalton notes).
Bond has ceased to be any of those adjectives.
At least for ‘bold’ and ‘brash’ this must be disputed: whatever one may think of the finished product, it’s hard to think of a bolder move than killing off your main character*. And it’s hard to think of something brasher than to announce Bond’s future comeback just minutes later.
Thinking longer about it, perhaps even ‘sexy’ is still in the Bond frame, our society just defines it differently now, as something to do with platinum credit cards and unspeakably vulgar bling?
*A move CBners discussed even 20 years before as the most out-there, unlikely, downright impossible development the series would certainly never make. A move most people, me included, wouldn’t have thought possible even as Craig’s return was announced.
Absolutely agreed.
While nobody can please every part of fandom, the Craig era definitely tried and succeeded in many ways.
I guess the sexiness was channeled more towards Bond than the women, in contrast to former times.
Then again, sexiness is nothing but subjective.