The hottest role in Hollywood remains unfilled as the world is still waiting to find out who will play James Bond in the next movie. Daniel Craig has made it clear he doesn’t care who takes over the role, but that doesn’t mean he’s not going to have a little fun with the question.
Over the weekend was the 15th Governor’s Ball in Los Angeles and during the event, the producers of the James Bond franchise, Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, were honored with the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award. Craig introduced them, and (via People) said…
Let’s just get something out of the way. If you came here this evening to find out who the next James Bond is, don’t look at me, but he might be in the room. I’m just joking. Maybe I’m not.
It’s not reported if any of the numerous people rumored to be the next Bond were in the room, but you have to figure that anybody interested in the role was hoping that Daniel Craig wasn’t kidding. Even if a decision was made right now, it seems unlikely Craig would know, but who knows?
While it’s possible that a decision has been made and simply not yet announced, that sort of information would have almost certainly leaked by now, so the more likely scenario is that no choice has yet been made.
It’s been more than three years since Daniel Craig said goodbye to the role with No Time To Die. From the time the movie was first announced we knew it would be Craig’s last time in the role, so if Broccoli and Wilson had wanted to start their search for a new Bond, they could have done it as far back as then.
The producing duo made it clear they were in no rush to find a new Bond and that certainly appears to have been the case. There have been reports of people meeting with Broccoli and Evans but no indication that anything is moving forward. Recent comments from the head of MGM make it clear the studio would like to get moving on the next James Bond sooner rather than later, but nobody is feeling desperate quite yet.
It was five years between the release of License to Kill, the final Bond movie starring Timothy Dalton, and the announcement that Pierce Brosnan would be taking over the role, so we still have some time before this current gap becomes record-setting.
Since the next James Bond movie will not be a direct continuation of the previous era, the way the Bond movies were handled for so many years, the people making the next James Bond movie need to decide where they want to start. That may be the reason they are taking their time. Still, wherever the next James Bond is right now, he’s out there somewhere.