Throughout the decades, new films in the ‘Bond’ franchise seem to come out like clockwork, with only 2 or three years between entries. Even when the spy franchise switches up lead actors, the films were still coming out at a pretty quick pace. And since it’s already been three years since 2015’s “Spectre,” the franchise was already going to have a fairly extended hiatus before the announced November 8, 2019 release for ‘Bond 25.’
Well, with the departure of Danny Boyle, it looks like that hiatus is going to be a little bit longer.
THR is reporting that sources tell them that the upcoming ‘Bond 25’ is going to definitely miss the November 2019 release date and may not actually return until a full year later, in late 2020. If those sources are correct, we’re looking at a five-year gap between ‘Bond’ films. And if you look at the history of the franchise, the only time there was a longer gap was between 1989’s “License to Kill” and 1995’s “Goldeneye.”
Obviously, many were predicting that the departure of Boyle would lead to a delay. Considering production was set to begin very soon (early-December), there’s just no physical way that a director could come in at the 11th hour and get the production back on track.
Now they’ll have to find a new filmmaker, who will no doubt want to tweak any script that is already written (or worse yet, start from scratch). One interesting tidbit from the report says that even if Boyle stayed on to direct the film, it was likely that ‘Bond 25’ would have already been delayed past it’s November 2019 release.
The first step to getting ‘Bond 25’ back on schedule is to find a replacement. As we saw with the search that led to Danny Boyle, the producers behind the franchise, as well as star Daniel Craig, are very particular about who takes over. This means it could be a little bit before we hear of a replacement. And then production would begin months later.
Sorry ‘Bond’ fans, but it looks like you’ll have to wait until at least 2020 to see Daniel Craig suit up for the final time as the legendary spy.