With Daniel Craig bowing out of the franchise, James Bond is primed for a reboot, and the search for a new Bond and a new director is on.
According to Variety, Amazon MGM Studios has revealed that Denis Villeneuve (Blade Runner 2049, Dune) is officially going to direct the next entry, and it looks like Villeneuve himself is also pretty hyped for the job. He says:
“Some of my earliest movie-going memories are connected to 007. I grew up watching James Bond films with my father, ever since ‘Dr. No’ with Sean Connery. I’m a die-hard Bond fan. To me, he’s sacred territory… I intend to honor the tradition and open the path for many new missions to come. This is a massive responsibility, but also, incredibly exciting for me and a huge honor. Amy, David, and I are absolutely thrilled to bring him back to the screen. Thank you to Amazon MGM Studios for their trust.”
While I have no doubt that Villeneuve will deliver a spectacle of a movie, I was hoping that the franchise would return back to its goofier roots—that’s why I was rooting for Edgar Wright to land the job.
For context, Bond movies were considered a bit like silly action films for decades with Bond going on missions against cartoonish villains with ridiculous technology—this point was brought home with the popularity of the Austin Powers franchise.
With the rise of the Daniel Craig era though, the Bond films had embraced a more serious aesthetic—not unlike the Bourne franchise that was running alongside it. So far a while the Craig version of Bond took itself very seriously. They were still spectacle action movies, but the goofiness of the gadgets and villains was kind of toned down.
Now going back to Villeneuve, I’m sure that he has something very stylistic in mind, but his movies have been very serious—something I think that Bond has had more than enough of over the past decade. Even the Kingsman franchise tried to bring goofiness back to the action spy genre, but that eventually tapered off.
Who knows, maybe Villeneuve has something in store that will surprise all of us, but I’m sure that his fans who are going to be lining up for the film are going to be looking for something that is specifically his brand of cinema. I’d imagine they’d be annoyed if Villeneuve was suddenly all fun and colorful.
For now, no release date has been set for the next Bond, but I wish Villeneuve the best; and hopefully he has the same idea to make Bond a bit more fun again.
