James Bond reinvention still a ways off, says 007 producer Barbara Broccoli
It'll be a while before you can get mad because your fan-casting didn't pan out.
Believe it or not, the powers that be haven't even begun thinking about what James Bond's future looks like. After several delays, No Time to Die, Daniel Craig's final outing as the famous British spy, released in September 2021 to critical and public acclaim. More than two years later, longtime fans of the movie franchise and half the Internet are still awaiting official updates regarding who the next James Bond will be (we also asked our readers).
Well, according to veteran producer Barbara Broccoli (via The Guardian), there is "a big road ahead" before the character begins its reinvention for the next chapter. She brought up an excellent point about the need for constant modernization as the world that surrounds us also changes: "I go back to GoldenEye when everyone was saying ‘the cold war is over, the wall is over, Bond is dead, no need for Bond, the whole world’s at peace and now there’s no villains’ – and boy was that wrong!"
She also agrees with critics, fans, and casual moviegoers that Daniel Craig's Bond allowed the filmmakers to explore an emotional depth previously unseen in the character. Does the next chapter need a younger Bond who better reflects a rapidly changing world and where the tech-driven future is going? She won't say for now. Meanwhile, she's been helping to develop the new Bond-themed Amazon series, 007: Road to a Million, alongside her half-brother, Michael G. Wilson. The show features nine pairs of "everyday people" that must overcome physical and psychological challenges in Bond-related locations in hopes of winning £1 million.
Of course, there's now the question of whether the Bond franchise could ever make the jump to TV amidst all the spinoffs of big IPs now populating streaming services. For now, Broccoli completely shoots the idea down: "We make the Bond movies for the big theatrical screen and everything about the Bond movies is for audiences to see around the world on that format, so we’ve not wanted to do television."
While we wait for the announcement of a new James Bond, there are plenty of exciting movies (including spy-centric ones like Matthew Vaughn's Argylle) coming soon to cinemas as well as streaming, and you can find them all in our up-to-date guide.
