Under normal circumstances, there’s every chance we’d have found out by now who would be replacing Daniel Craig as James Bond given that No Time to Die was originally announced to be coming to theaters in November 2019, before the departure of original director Danny Boyle and then the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic saw the release date pushed back to October of this year.
The long-running espionage franchise has come to a huge crossroads just shy of its 60th anniversary, with the new incumbent of the tux also set to be the first actor inheriting the mantle under the ownership of Amazon. While it’s very unlikely that 007 will see his next batch of adventures debut exclusively on streaming, it can hardly be ruled out that the platform will be keen to monetize the property via series of spinoffs, even if producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson have resisted all previous offers to branch out Bond.
The odds-on favorite to step into Craig’s shoes has largely tended to flit between the same handful of candidates, with Tom Hardy and Henry Cavill constantly in consideration, in addition to a field that typically tends to include James Norton, Idris Elba, Luke Evans and Cillian Murphy. However, the massive success of Netflix’s Bridgerton instantly shot Regé-Jean Page into the conversation, and he’s now been installed as the front runner.
The actor has hardly distanced himself from the speculation, and his career is set to head to another level even if he isn’t returning for Season 2 of Bridgerton with big budget blockbusters Dungeons & Dragons and The Gray Man on the way, but as always, we won’t know for sure until the standard James Bond announcement ceremony happens, which probably won’t be until next year at the earliest.