It’s been over 100 days since No Time To Die hit cinemas and we’ve now entered the 60th anniversary year of the James Bond film franchise. As awards season gears up, 007 producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson have been doing the interview rounds promoting the film for consideration at ceremonies like the Oscars. In one recent chat, they were asked about the next James Bond after Daniel Craig, where they shared their creative process and admitted to having thought about a certain Marvel star in the role before.
Speaking with Deadline’s Crew Call podcast, Broccoli said: “We’ll just have to see what happens. We’ll start the process, y’know, sometime this year I guess. And we’ll see where it takes us. What we tend to do is we tend to come up with an idea for a storyline, we start to flesh that out and once we have something reasonably concrete, that’s when we go out to directors. And that’s when we decide who would be the best director for that particular storyline, rather than just having a generic idea.”
But what about casting the next Bond? It’s been 17 years since they last held auditions and Craig beat a pre-Superman Henry Cavill to 007 origin story Casino Royale.
For the last few years, the bookies’ favourites for the new reboot have been the likes of Tom Hardy and Idris Elba. Asked point-blank about the latter as the next Bond, Broccoli admitted they had talked about the idea of the Marvel Heimdall star taking on the Licence to Kill.
Broccoli shared: “Well, we know Idris, we’re friends with him, and he’s a magnificent actor. And, y’know, it’s been part of the conversation, but it’s always difficult to have the conversation when you have someone in the seat. So, y’know I think we have decided that until No Time to Die has had its run and Daniel has been able to… well, we’ve all been able to savour… reap the benefits of Daniel’s wonderful tenure, we’re not gonna think about, or talk about anybody else, actors, to play the role or storylines or anything really. We just want to live in moment, in the present.”
Changing the subject, Wilson pointed out: “We have the 60th anniversary this year. This is it, so.” And indeed it turns out there are some special plans that will be announced throughout 2022.
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Wilson continued: “There is a documentary on the history of the Bond music, which we’ve announced and that’s underway. And, of course, we have other things planned that we haven’t been able to announce yet because they’re not firm enough. But certainly, we’re going to make the effort to do several things this year that will celebrate 60 years. I mean, what other franchise has been able to that? And as a tribute, as Barbara said, to the original people, [producers] Cubby [Broccoli] and Harry [Saltzman] and all the team that made those films in the 60s and the 70s. We need to celebrate their efforts and their work and their lives, so we will be looking at doing all that this year and devoting ourselves to that as well.”
