We’ve still not got a new James Bond film – but today’s rumours suggest Steve McQueen is on the director shortlist, and the script is a long way off.
And the clock keeps ticking. We’re soon to hit the longest gap between James Bond since they started all the way back in Dr No. No Time To Die arrived in 2021, six years after the release of SPECTRE. Previously, it was six years between Licence To Kill and GoldenEye. In both of those cases there were mitigating factors: the legal battles behind the scenes in the 1980s and early 90s, and the small matter of Covid-19 at the start of this decade.
This time, things are different. Appreciating there’s been the adjustment to Amazon now owning MGM, and thus having a stake in the franchise, it’s now five years since a James Bond film was before the cameras. We currently don’t know when the next movie will be, who’ll be James Bond, and who’s directing.
Here’s a video I recorded a few weeks ago summarising the situation, and not a lot has changed since.
Still, in come the British tabloids to give us some rumours. The Sun blog, famous for its vile coverage of the Hillsborough disaster in 1989, reckons that Steve McQueen is the current leading candidate to direct the new film. McQueen’s new movie, Blitz, is currently on release, and the Oscar-winner has set up a further project at MGM.
But is it Bond? The outlet reckons that McQueen is interested, but there’s no real substance beyond that. It’s not a paper with the best track record either. The same report reckons that casting has “re-started”.
Over at The Mirror meanwhile, it’s reporting that there isn’t a shooting schedule or a script as of yet for the new movie, citing problems with the screenplay and an assortment of delays.
As always, run these through the pinch-of-salt-ometer, but the one absolute here is that Bond isn’t filming, and even if it all came together magically tomorrow, it’s hard to see James Bond 26 in cinemas until 2026 at the earliest, more likely 2027. That’s another six-year gap – but this one feels a bit more self-inflicted.
More tittle tattle as we hear it.
