By Gavin Boyle
Director Denis Villeneuve will lead the next James Bond movie, and those who have worked on the franchise for a long time sing his praises.
“He’s a fantastic filmmaker, I’m thrilled he’s going to be doing it,” Barbara Broccoli, who has worked on every James Bond movie since 1987’s THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS, said about Villeneuve.
Broccoli, however, will not get to work with the director as she and her half-brother Michael G. Wilson both stepped away from the franchise in February after ceding the rights to the character to Amazon.
“My life has been dedicated to maintaining and building upon the extraordinary legacy that was handed to Michael and me by our father, producer Cubby Broccoli,” Broccoli said when the move was announced. “I have had the honor of working closely with four of the tremendously talented actors who have played 007 and thousands of wonderful artists within the industry. With the conclusion of NO TIME TO DIE and Michael retiring from the films, I feel it is time to focus on my other projects.”
Despite having the next Bond director lined up, it will still be years before a new movie is released.
Creatives have yet to cast a new Bond, and Villeneuve is focused on wrapping up his third DUNE movie. His involvement in the Bond series, however, may have sped up the timeline of DUNE as the third movie is now in production, despite the director previously stating he would take a break from the series.
“I felt that it was a good idea to move forward right after PART ONE. We were already designing, writing, et cetera. But it also meant that for six years I was on Arrakis non-stop, and I think it will be healthy to step back a little bit,” he said in March of 2024.
However, by the beginning of 2025, Villeneuve’s tune had changed as he revealed the third movie would be entering production soon. It now has a release date of Dec. 18, 2026.
“I thought that I would want to go write a few films or do a couple of things before going back to DUNE: MESSIAH. But the images that kept coming back to my mind, the appetite is absolutely intact. That’s the biggest surprise,” he told The Wrap. “I still want to go back to Arrakis.”
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For Bond fans, this gives a timeline of when the series’ next movie may enter production as any filming is unlikely to start before DUNE: PART THREE is finished. Until then, they have a new James Bond adventure coming their way through the video game “007 First Light” which will give players a chance to explore the early years of the spy’s life. The game is set to release in 2026.
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