The Future of 007

The latest James Bond 007 film, No Time to Die, has been out for almost a month in the United States and just over a month in most other territories of the world. A lot of critics loved it compared to Spectre. As of November 1st, it has made over 600 million altogether with 133 million domestically and 473 million in international markets. Some places have yet to or just put it in theaters in a few markets, so the number can still rise. It marks the end of Daniel Craig playing Bond, a role he has done for 15 years.

I've never watched any movies of Ian Fleming's secret agent outside of most of Goldeneye. But that doesn't mean I'm ignorant to what may be done in the future. Craig's take of Bond along with the writers of those films helped revive the franchise critically. Outside of Goldeneye, critics were not keen on the Pierce Brosnan ones. They did well enough, but were also getting outclassed by Austin Powers, a parody of Bond that got huge once the second one came out. I'm going to assume the people involved in the last 15 years wanted to stand out, which they did. I think with Skyfall, they outdid themselves critically and commercially and I'm not sure it can be topped ever again.

So where does James Bond go? I don't know. But I'd imagine they would want to go a route similar to what has been done since 2006. Maybe find a way to have some things that were good about the older films while seeing the quality of the Craig films. You have to find a good balance to please many fans of the last 60 years. No Time to Die's performance might determine what kind of scale they go on being an action film. I'm not sure they can keep making budgets of 250 million. Maybe going back to basics could go a long way. But I still think Bond will be around for a long time if the quality is still up there. Time for a new arc in the world of 007.