There has been a lot of speculation regarding the future of the James Bond franchise since Daniel Craig’s last Bond film, No Time to Die, was released two years ago.
Much of this has focused on the casting of the new 007, with rumored names including Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Reg Jean-Page, Henry Cavill, James Norton and Callum Turner.
There is also a lot of discussion about the potential director (Chris Nolan is often rumored), as well as the time period and tone of the film, which will influence how they play it.
In a new interview with The Guardian while promoting Amazon’s new Bond-themed series 007 Million Road, producer Barbara Broccoli spoke candidly about where the franchise will go next.
It turns out that little progress has been made. She says there’s “a long, long way to go in terms of reimagining this for the next chapter,” and she and half-brother producer Michael J. Wilson “haven’t even started on this.”
She says the film will have to be modernized to reflect how the world has changed in the nearly two decades since Craig was originally cast:
“I go back to GoldenEye, when everyone was saying, ‘The Cold War is over, the wall is over, Bond is dead, there’s no need for Bond, the world is at peace, and there are no villains now’ – and damn, it was wrong!’
Together with Craig, they focused on “what a 21st century hero would look like” and were able to “explore the emotional life of the character” at a time when “the world was ready for it.”
As the comments suggest, the plan appears to be to stick with the modern setting rather than return to the Cold War setting of Fleming’s novels.
Finally, she reiterated in the interview that there are no other additional Bond TV projects planned beyond this competition series, and their main focus is on “making feature films.”