What on earth is going on with James Bond? Daniel Craig had an amazing start to his tenure as the British superspy with Casino Royale and had one of the best Bond movies of all time with Skyfall, but ever since 2015’s Spectre the franchise has been in development hell.
The still untitled Bond 25 at one point boasted the Oscar-winning director of Trainspotting and Slumdog Millionaire Danny Boyle at the helm, but ever since he left over script disputes, the movie’s been on wobbly ground. That’s been compounded by Craig saying he’s all but done with the character, famously stating that he’d rather “slash his wrists” than play Bond again.
True Detective director Cary Fukunaga has since taken the reins in an attempt to get the franchise back on course, but the latest set reports indicate that things aren’t going well. The Daily Mail’s Bond insider has posted an article saying that the script is being constantly rewritten during production, with multiple writers tasked with formulating new dialogue every day – resulting in the movie being described as a “well-polished shit show.”
It seems that it’s all hands on deck to right this sinking ship, with Fukunaga, Fleabag and Solo: A Star Wars Story star Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Craig himself continually rewriting the script during production.
“Daniel’s writing. Cary’s writing. The crew reckon they’re working on a well-polished shit show,” says the insider. “They have an outline of plot, but dialogue is all last-minute. It’s not the way to make a movie. I would imagine they’ll sort it out in the cutting room. That’s where most movies get made anyway. But you’d think the Bond lot would be more together.”
Eek. None of this bodes particularly well for any movie, let alone a Bond film. Given that this is generally considered to be Daniel Craig’s swansong as the character, expectations are high, but right now it seems that the twenty-fifth James Bond movie is more likely to be a Quantum of Solace than a Skyfall.