Rumour – We Could Hear Name(s) In The Running To Be The Next James Bond Post-Oscars

After my piece about Idris Elba earlier in the week, I honestly thought I wouldn’t be writing about the James Bond movies for months with only the occasional news regarding the video game or something worthwhile.

However, last night (Wednesday 26th January), Deadline’s senior film reporter, Justin Kroll tweeted something exciting, as you can see below.

While it's been crickets on the #BondWatch scene, making it seem like this will be a long process, one source with a couple clients in the mix told me something interesting recently of when a decision may come down the pipeline, "I think we here who it is after the Oscars."

— Justin Kroll (@krolljvar) January 26, 2022

Again this a 'could hear a name' by spring not a guarantee to

— Justin Kroll (@krolljvar) January 26, 2022

As he states, this should be taken with a pinch of salt as it’s from one source and an agent with clients trying to get in the running, which is why he didn’t feel the need to write something.

Granted, I could’ve let this slide as well, but since James Bond is in my top two favourite characters ever (alongside Batman), I felt a need to write something.

Everything Kroll says makes sense and continues producer Barbara Broccoli’s theme of letting No Time To Die run its course. The Academy Awards would be that moment with the film likely to be nominated for Oscars in technical categories and will probably win Best Song.

Even so, the idea of hearing possible names as early as Spring is surprising and even though I hoped that a new Bond and the 26th instalment would happen by Autumn that included names shortlisted in the Summertime, not six months after the release of Daniel Craig’s final film.

On the other hand, it makes sense that the producers want to get the ball rolling and not want to wait to get another 007 movie off the ground as it took them six years post Spectre for No Time To Die to be released.

In those years, we had Craig not wanting to return before committing for a final film, having Danny Boyle signed on and then parting ways before Cary Joji Fukunaga was announced as the replacement, then Craig broke his ankle, and finally, we entered 18 months of the world on fire during a pandemic.

Also, with Amazon buying MGM, the best way to begin recouping money would be to a get new Bond project in production ASAP. The studio’s money makes MGM/Eon’s life easier to get the finances for production.

Again, there is no guarantee we will hear a name, but the fact we could by March/April is sort of shocking.