Los Angeles, Oct 22 (IANS): The iconic action spy thriller franchise ‘James Bond’ is on a hiatus as there has been no work done post the Daniel Craig era. It is not even decided who will take up the mantle of the MI6 agent 007 after Craig left the franchise with ‘No Time To Die’, as revealed by producer Barbara Broccoli.
Broccoli, who helms the film series with her half-brother Michael G. Wilson, explained that it’s important for the next installment to depict the way the world has changed since Craig took on the role of James Bond in 2006, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The character of James Bond has been reinvented and modernised over the decades with many new iterations covering different eras, episodes, and socio-political scenarios. This has also led to various different versions of the character ranging from the womanising, and charming portrayal by Sean Connery and Roger Moore, to the darker and more realistic one by Timothy Dalton.
Reflecting back on how 007 has evolved over the years, Barbara Broccoli said: “I go back to ‘Golden Eye’ when everyone was saying ‘The cold war is over, the wall is over, Bond is dead, no need for Bond, the whole world’s at peace and now there’s no villains’ — and boy was that wrong! When it came to Craig in the title role, the makers “wanted to focus on what a 21st-century hero would look like.”
“Daniel gave us the ability to mine the emotional life of the character … and also the world was ready for it,” she added. “I think these movies reflect the time they are in, and there’s a big, big road ahead reinventing it for the next chapter," she added.
Back in 2022, while reflecting on the new Bond, Barbara Broccoli had said that the executives were more interested in finding a new villain for the franchise instead of a new villain, as Bond's enemies have come to define and shape him over the years.
“We always sit down with our writers, and we start by thinking about ‘What is the world afraid of?’ We start by thinking about, ‘Who’s the Bond villain?’ We try to focus on that as a sort of uber story,” she explained.
“And then we want to also look at Bond’s emotional life, and what he’ll be facing personally that he hasn’t had to deal with before. So he has two big issues in the films — one is the geopolitical one and the other is the personal one.”