Christopher Nolan is Not Directing the Next James Bond Movie

Movies

Today saw a bit of wishful thinking sweep social media before it was predictably debunked. Word of Reel ran a story – which they responsibly labeled as a rumor, not that it stopped anyone from taking it as gospel – that Christopher Nolan would be directing at least two or three James Bond movies and executive-producing subsequent ones, essentially establishing the new era of Bond films. This next reboot would be set in the 1960s and would be adaptations of Ian Fleming’s novels that were more faithful than their previous cinematic translations, essentially remakes of the classic Bond movies. According to the rumor, both EON and Amazon, the latter of which now has distribution rights to the series, want Nolan badly, and he’s only holding out for a sufficient amount of creative control. Word of Reel got this information from a source they say was accurate about James Bond news in the past. Then, JoBlo got word from a source of their own that this is bunk, and Nolan has never been in talks to direct a Bond film.

No one should be surprised about this. Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson have made it clear that as long as they’re in charge, Bond will continue to “evolve” and modernize, so going back to the 60s was never in the cards. And Nolan likes James Bond way too much to be considered by these people. We’re not going to get anything remotely cool or fun or Bondian from this regime, so any promising rumors can be ignored. If this were true, it would be kind of a cool idea. I don’t think the series needs to go back to the 60s, but I’d rather that than whatever more damage these two ungrateful whelps are going to do to the cultural icon (and cash cow) their father handed down to them. And if they were to go back in time, I don’t want the older movies remade. I’d be fine with them using plot elements from the novels that never made it to the screen (although a lot more have than people know or will admit when in the middle of a snooty rant), but those have been done, and the continuity has been nuked enough without flat-out remaking them. My pie-in-the-sky hope, which will never happen, is that they simply resume the original series after Die Another Day, treating the Craig era as an aberration. There’s no need to do some grand reboot every time a new actor comes in or you feel beholden to new social mores people watch Bond movies to escape in the first place. But these two don’t get James Bond – Barbara Broccoli flat-out hates the character, and I don’t think Michael G. Wilson even cares anymore – and we’ll never see a return to the fun, cool, sexy, fantastical movies of the past. It’s fun to dream, though.