Whereas Bond 26 has many challenges forward of it, the following James Bond film’s greatest drawback has nothing to do with who performs 007 within the franchise outing. Bond 26 has a tough act to observe. No Time To Die was not solely the primary official entry within the long-running James Bond franchise to kill off a model of Bond, however the film was additionally a pointy, fast-paced, and surprisingly poignant swan music for Daniel Craig’s tackle 007. Not solely that, however the altering panorama of blockbuster filmmaking hasn’t made issues any simpler for the creators of the James Bond franchise and their Bond 26 plans.
Now that Craig is completed with the position, Bond 26 must make 007 enjoyable once more to maintain up with the lighter tone of contemporary motion blockbusters. Whereas Craig’s early films completely captured the brooding, angst-ridden tone of mid-00s motion cinema, the style has pivoted in a a lot sillier, extra self-referential course for the reason that early 2010s. No Time To Die and Spectre made some concessions to this shift, however the comedic parts of each films felt considerably jarring after the tragedy of On line casino Royale and Skyfall. This current drawback, nevertheless, will grow to be way more noticeable as Bond 26 makes an attempt to reinvent the franchise.
Bond 26 Wants To Maintain The Craig Period Canon
The largest challenge that Bond 26 faces is whether or not the outing ought to maintain on to the canon established by Craig’s James Bond films. If Bond 26 retains the Craig-era canon, then the sequel can even have to carry onto a few of these films’ dour, humorless tones in consequence (since they’re set in the identical world). Nonetheless, if Bond 26 drops the canon that Craig’s films within the position constructed, then the sequel will lose a stellar supporting solid and a few well-established world-building that will have made it a lot simpler for the James Bond franchise to develop its fictional universe with spinoffs.
To carry on to stars like Ana de Armas, Naomie Harris, and Ralph Fiennes of their well-liked supporting roles, Bond 26 should maintain the Craig period canon. This is able to enable Bond 26 to take care of a cohesive James Bond canon within the age of innumerable cinematic universes, which might, in flip, facilitate the kind of Easter eggs and callbacks that blockbuster followers have grown to anticipate. For instance, Paloma’s No Time To Die spinoff could be unmoored if Bond 26 takes place in a universe the place Craig’s 007 (and, by extension, Paloma) doesn’t exist, that means the franchise has no alternative however to maintain the Craig-era continuity alive.
Bond 26 Can’t Maintain The Craig Period Canon
Nonetheless, this method received’t work. In any case, a brand new model of James Bond can’t have a enjoyable, breezy, over-the-top journey that will make Roger Moore proud in the identical canon the place Vesper Lynd died and left 007 crying within the bathe earlier than a murderous rampage. The later Craig films already struggled with this tonal disparity, because the campy, foolish parts of Spectre and No Time To Die felt discordant when watched alongside On line casino Royale or Quantum of Solace. Cary Fukunaga, the director of No Time To Die, even thought of retconning Spectre’s whole third act as a result of he felt just like the watch gag was too foolish and didn’t match the franchise’s tone.
Fukunaga was proper to level out that Spectre’s foolish twists felt like they clashed with the grounded milieu of Craig’s earlier James Bond films, and this could solely grow to be extra of a difficulty as Bond 26 tried to make the collection much more cartoonish and larger-than-life. One of the simplest ways to reinvigorate Bond now that Craig’s model of 007 is lifeless is to meet up with the tone of contemporary blockbusters, which (besides Zack Snyder’s output) are largely goofy, self-referential, and playfully campy. Even Craig has gotten in on the act, together with his Knives Out performances standing out as among the actor’s most broadly comedic work so far.
How Bond 26 Can Repair This Franchise Downside
So, Bond 26 both loses Paloma and well-liked variations of M, Q, and Miss Moneypenny, or the franchise is caught in the identical universe the place On line casino Royale happened, that means the sequel can’t function any exploding henchmen, campy villains, or foolish self-referential humor. Nonetheless, there’s an admittedly difficult third choice that the James Bond franchise might take. If Bond 26 had been to maintain among the franchise’s established supporting stars however not all of them, the sequel would set up a brand new spin on the present canon that isn’t a direct continuation of No Time To Die’s story. This was how earlier Bond films dealt with the switchover, periodically recasting characters like Moneypenny, M, and Q.
Whereas the James Bond films have featured many variations of M over the many years, it’s more durable to recast supporting stars within the 2020s. Viewers now anticipate blockbuster franchises to have cohesive tales that make sense as one plot relatively than a collection treating every outing as a self-contained journey like earlier Bond films did. This makes the query of Craig’s Bond continuity probably the most difficult points for the creators of Bond 26, who should determine which parts of the sooner films keep and which may be left behind.
Why This Is Bond 26’s Hardest Job
Whereas Bond 26 would possibly nonetheless function Ben Whishaw’s Q or Naomie Harris’s M, it will likely be tough for the franchise’s creators to know which characters to recast and which to maintain. Not solely that, however it will likely be even more durable to clarify whether or not these characters recall the demise of Craig’s James Bond. Skyfall proved Craig’s James Bond demise could possibly be handled as a handover. Nonetheless, this could require the franchise’s creators to explicitly affirm the James Bond codename fan principle.
It appears unlikely that the creators of the collection would take this step. In any case, confirming that Bond is a code title means the spy would die at any time, puncturing his mystique irreparably. Nonetheless, with out confirming this principle, the creators of Bond 26 can be left midway between the James Bond canon established in Craig’s films and one other new model of the universe, an unenviable place to begin a blockbuster collection.
