It looks like, at long last,Daniel Craighas been persuaded to return asJames Bondfor one final movie. Maybe. An announcement hasn’t yet been made by the studio, but a new report claims that series producerBarbara Broccolihas managed to persuade the actor to return forJames Bond 25, despite saying that he would rather “slash his wrists” than do another one afterSpectrefinished filming. But for now, this should be regarded as a rumor, though if it is true, things are looking good.
The report comes courtesy ofPage Six, who claim that an unnamed “Hollywood source” had told them thatBarbara Broccoli, who is pretty much the gatekeeper of theJames Bondfranchise, has just about talkedDaniel Craiginto it. A lot of the persuasion came as a result of a recent production ofOthellothatCraigdid, which was produced byBroccoli. Here is what the unnamed source reportedly had to say about it.
“Daniel was very pleased with how ‘Othello’ went and the great reviews. Now Daniel’s talks with Barbara are going in the right direction. They have a script, screenwriting duo Neal Purvis and Robert Wade [who’ve penned several Bond movies] are writing and they’ll go into production as soon as Daniel is ready to commit. Plus, Barbara Broccoli doesn’t like Tom Hiddleston, he’s a bit too smug and not tough enough to play James Bond.”
Page Six is spotty with scoops of this nature, so this is about as solid as freshly poured concrete at the moment, but it isn’t the most unbelievable thing we have ever heard. Outside of theDaniel Craigbit, it is interesting thatBarbara Broccolireportedly threw some shade atTom Hiddleston, who was the rumored frontrunner to take over the role. So, even ifDaniel Craigdoesn’t come back, if there is any truth to this at all, it seems likeTom Hiddlestonis out. Other names that have been thrown around includeMichael Fassbender,Tom Hardy,Idris ElbaandAiden Turner. But ifCraighas in fact been convinced to come back for his007swan song, those names probably won’t mean all that much.
This “will he, won’t he” saga aboutDaniel Craig’s return to theJames Bond franchisehas been going on for quite some time now, and it has been a real back and forth. Though, as more time has passed followingSpectre, it seemed more and more likely that he would come back for a fifth turn as 007. Recently, writersNeal PurvisandRobert Wade, who have written quite a fewBondmovies in the past, were officially brought back to pen the script forJames Bond 25. Since they are working on the script, it stands to reason that they have a pretty good idea of who will be suiting up for MI6, because that will surely have an affect on the story. WithDaniel Craigallegedly coming back, they will be continuing the threads that were left to be pulled at the end ofSpectre, with Bond seemingly walking away from the spy game and Blofeld (Christoph Waltz) left alive. If a new actor were brought in, they would probably be moving in an entirely different direction, so it would be tough to write the script without knowing what directionJames Bond 25was headed.
We recently reported that the producers of theJames Bondfranchise were close to closing a deal to shoot the next movie inCroatia, possibly later this year. Again, if there is truth to this report, that would make sense. We will have to hold out until the folks atEon Productionsmake some sort of official announcement, but for now, fans ofDaniel CraigasJames Bondcan be cautiously optimistic about seeing him come back one last time.
