Before Daniel Craig had wrapped up his 15-year, 5-movie run as James Bond with No Time to Die, the conversation had long started about who should replace him. Should it be a woman? Maybe a person of color? The cultural conversation around the character has been intense, and longtime Bond producer Barbara Broccoli has dismissed much of it. But now that Craig is indeed finished, it’s time to start coming up with some real answer about the future. We just might be waiting a while for them.
Deadline reports that Broccoli actually spoke about the future of James Bond at a private dinner recently. What she revealed is that casting on who will play 007 next has yet to begin because it will be a “reinvention” of the character for a film that is still at least two years away from shooting…
“Nobody’s in the running,” Broccoli reportedly said. “We’re working out where to go with him, we’re talking that through. There isn’t a script and we can’t come up with one until we decide how we’re going to approach the next film because, really, it’s a reinvention of Bond. We’re reinventing who he is and that takes time. I’d say that filming is at least two years away.”
Broccoli has promised the next Bond won’t be female or non-British, so you can scratch that out. Craig’s version of Bond was the grittiest we’ve seen, but I don’t see them going back to the slick, suave style of Pierce Brosnan or Timothy Dalton. There’s a lot of time to think about it, though. What do you want to see for James Bond next?