For months, Danny Boyle flitted back and forth between directing the next James Bond film and not. When he finally agreed, it came when he already had a totally different project, a musical comedy, in development to shoot pretty close to the same time as Bond. But Boyle, who apparently had some tremendous story that he and screenwriter John Hodge had cooked up, decided to take on 007 anyway with the schedule adjusted to suit him. And now after all of that he’s just out. Gone over that old chestnut, “creative differences.” Here’s the statement from the James Bond braintrust…
“Michael G. Wilson, Barbara Broccoli and Daniel Craig today announced that due to creative differences Danny Boyle has decided to no longer direct ‘Bond 25,’”, the producers tweeted.
Okay, so what now? Well, there are a couple of options and neither is great. They could start over from scratch, hire a brand new writer and bring in a director it’s suitable for. There’s no guarantee of landing a director the quality of Boyle or previous helmer Sam Mendes, though, and going this route all but guarantees the film will miss its November 2019 release date.
The other option is to use a prior script written by franchise regulars, Neal Purvis and Robert Wade. The upside to this is that they could begin shooting much sooner if a director can be found quickly.
Both of these options run the risk of pissing off star Daniel Craig, who always seems to be on the fence about coming back. He certainly won’t sit around and wait forever, but at the same time likely won’t accept some journeyman director brought in simply to do a job.
This just got interesting. Hopefully more updates soon.
Michael G. Wilson, Barbara Broccoli and Daniel Craig today announced that due to creative differences Danny Boyle has decided to no longer direct Bond 25. pic.twitter.com/0Thl116eAd— James Bond (@007) August 21, 2018
