Whoever plays James Bond next is making at least a 10-year-commitment

Daniel Craig first played James Bond in 2006’s Casino Royale, and only hung up the tuxedo in 2021’s No Time To Die. Speculation has long been rampant over who might replace him, but producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson — the two people most in charge of the 007 franchise — are in no hurry.

“The thing is, it’s going to be a couple of years off,” Broccoli told Variety. “And when we cast Bond, it’s a 10-, 12-year commitment…A lot of people think, ‘Oh yeah, it’d be fun to do one.’ [laughs] Well. That ain’t gonna work.”

Broccoli and Wilson are half-siblings, and their family has been in the Bond business for years. They’re taking the search very seriously, looking for someone who can push the character forward like other actors have. “Bond is evolving just as men are evolving,” Broccoli said. “I don’t know who’s evolving at a faster pace. [Craig] cracked Bond open emotionally…The films over his tenure were the first time we really connected the emotional arc.”

"[W]hen people go, ‘Oh, who are you going to get?’ it’s not just about casting an actor for a film. It’s about a reinvention, and ‘Where are we taking it? What do we want to do with the character?’ And then, once we figure that out, who’s the right person for that particular reinvention?With [Craig], when we had the conversation at this very table about, you know, [whether he was] going to do it, he said, ‘Well, I’m going to do it. I really want to be a part of it, the whole thing.’ And he lived to regret that. [laughs] But it’s a big commitment. It’s not just showing up for a couple of months of filming."

Don’t expect a James Bond TV show

With so many big screen titans making their way to TV in recent years — Marvel, Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings — you might think that James Bond would follow suit. Wilson avers that they’re “trying to keep it theatrical,” but Broccoli is far more forceful: “Well, we’re gonna keep it theatrical. We’re not going to try; we’ve got to do it. It’s just a theatrical franchise.”

That said, there is a kind of James Bond reality show on the way to Amazon called 007’s Road to a Million, which is kind of like The Amazing Race but they’re racing to look at iconic James Bond filming sites. Amazon bought MGM Studios — the people behind James Bond — for $8.5 billion earlier this year, so who’s to say what the future holds?

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