As Amazon MGM officially introduces Denis Villeneuve as the director of Bond 26, a look at how the filmmaker’s style might change 007:
History is filled with the names of famous directors who almost got to make a James Bond movie but didn’t: Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, Steven Soderbergh, Danny Boyle all immediately spring to mind. The announcement that Denis Villeneuve will direct James Bond 26, then, is a significant moment for a franchise that has traditionally been made by solid, safe-pair-of-hands filmmakers rather than noted auteurs.
In the past, the Bond films were carefully – even jealously – shepherded by producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson. They oversaw everything from the choice of Bond actors to scripts to directors to locations, and it was a level of control that clearly didn’t sit right with some filmmakers; Danny Boyle’s Bond project came to an end when the producers “lost confidence” in his concept, for example.
Die Another Day director Lee Tamahori memorably described Bond as “an impregnable fortress of filmmaking” – a reference to the franchise’s vast scale, with a typical film often requiring multiple units shooting sequences on any given day. This is another aspect that has put off other major filmmakers. Gravity director Alfonso Cuarón, who was offered the Bond gig at least once, said he turned it down because the notion of him shooting the dialogue while unit directors shot all the action “felt very weird.”
In February 2025, however, Broccoli and Wilson stepped back from a franchise, with creative control over the future of Bond ceded to Amazon MGM in a deal worth a reported $1bn.
The appointment of Denis Villeneuve as Bond 26’s director is a sign that things could be changing behind the scenes on the 53 year-old spy series. Bond’s new producers Amy Pascal and David Hayman will have hired Villeneuve knowing the sorts of films he makes, not to mention his style and tone. The Canadian filmmaker has headed up huge productions with nine-figure budgets, but he’s never lost the cool, measured sensibility of his indie films from over 20 years ago.
So what might a Denis Villeneuve Bond film look like? One thing to note about his work is just how good he is at creating suspense. It’s there in the extraordinary highway sequence in his 2015 war on drugs thriller, Sicario: he bides his time, immersing us in the heat and claustrophobia of cars packed nose to tail on the Mexican border. We can anticipate that something violent is about to happen, and when it does, it’s with brutal abruptness.
Of that sequence, Villeneuve once said that his approach was informed not by other action thrillers, but by Akira Kurosawa’s samurai film, Seven Samurai.
“I remember when I saw Seven Samurai, there are some scenes in that movie where you’re waiting for violence,” the director told me in 2015. “Nothing is happening; everything is still. One of my favourite scenes is where you have two samurai waiting for thieves to pass by. They’re waiting. They know the thieves are coming. But they’re just waiting. The violence will arrive soon. The feeling of that, waiting for that moment to happen, was so strong. For me, it was my reference as I was doing Sicario. The pressure of time, to stretch time just long enough so you create the necessary tension.”
Villenueve is also extraordinarily good at conjuring a sense of unease almost out of nowhere. A master of dramatic understatement, he can hint at withering torture with the slamming of a door (Sicario again) or the sense of impending evil with a show push-in shot of a tree (2013’s Prisoners). His 2009 drama Polytechnique, a fictionalised account of a mass shooting in 1989, is so tense and disturbing that few who’ve seen it are likely to forget it.
“It’s the power of suggestion,” Villeneuve once said. “I think those are cinematic images, because it’s evocation. Suggestion. It’s more powerful than seeing…that’s poetry for me, in some ways. Even if it’s talking about something ugly. It’s ugly poetry.”
As his more recent movies have proven, Villeneuve can also emphasise scale and speed. His battle sequences in Dune: Part Two have an old-Hollywood sweep, while the same film’s sandworm taming sequence – something that could have looked ridiculous in less skilled hands – felt elemental and majestic. You could also feel the grains of sand stinging your cheeks as Paul Atredes took his first ride across the desert.
One thing that Villeneuve hasn’t attempted before is a big, daredevil action set-piece of the type usually favoured by Bond. Whether they’re moments of hand-to-hand combat or gun battles, Villeneuve seldom revels in violence or action for its own sake. If anything, his films tend to emphasise killing as a sense of failure or tragedy rather than something to cheer at. Look again at the (technically flawless) fights in Blade Runner 2049, and Ryan Gosling’s replicant is often fighting his own kind.
This isn’t to say that Bond 26 will be some maudlin, arthouse plod with no action set-pieces in it, however. In a statement, Villeneuve has said that he grew up watching Bond films and that he’s a die-hard fan of the series. It’s quite possible, then, that he’ll bring some of that boyish enthusiasm to his 007 movie, and create something upbeat, brash and crowd-pleasing.
At the same time, it’s hard to imagine such a unique filmmaker stepping too far outside his own sensibility and interests. Other recent Bond films have openly questioned the British super spy’s roots in the Cold War, his misogyny, and how, for all his style and pithy humour, James is essentially a heartless assassin doing the dirty work of a global superpower. Villeneuve’s earlier films might suggest he’d explore the darker, solitary side of the character as the Timothy Dalton and Daniel Craig eras often did. Certainly, Villeneuve could bring a fascinating outsider’s perspective on Britain’s dusty and arcane institutions.
Villeneuve’s Bond could also see the franchise go back to its roots somewhat. No Time To Die drew a firm line under Craig’s time in the lead, and a new actor’s likely to be announced in the coming months. Villeneuve has said that he “intends to honour the tradition and open the path for many new missions to come,” which further suggests that his Bond will be a reboot rather than a straight continuation of the Craig films’ style.
It may not be particularly significant, but Villeneuve mentions Dr. No in his statement; the first film in the series, it’s a relatively contained thriller shot in a handful of locations, and with a plot that favours spycraft over pyrotechnics. Perhaps Villeneuve is thinking about going down a similarly pared-back route. Looking again at Villeneuve’s earlier work, and his stories have remained intimate even as the canvases have grown to take in entire alien planets. Blade Runner 2049 is essentially a journey of self-discovery; the epic Dune saga is at heart a romance, and how its lovers are torn apart when one of them turns into a swivel-eyed despot.
Villeneuve’s appointment also suggests that Amazon MGM isn’t necessarily in a rush to get something, anything with Bond’s name on into cinemas. The director’s currently making Dune: Messiah, which is going to keep him busy into 2026; as a result, we aren’t likely to see the next 007 film until 2028 or even later.
When it eventually emerges, Bond 26 will have new producers, a new lead, and now a distinctive filmmaker as director. James Bond will return – and it’ll be fascinating to see what form he takes.
