7. David Yates
With just one low-profile feature-length movie and a string of television credits to his name, David Yates was hired to direct Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and did such a great job that he was handed the reins to bring the franchise to its conclusion. When your last four movies have earned almost $4.5bn at the box office and received positive critical notices, your name will generally shoot to the top of the wishlist for nearly every big-name franchise in Hollywood, and given his comfort with blockbuster budgets it wouldn't be surprising to see Yates step behind the camera on a Bond movie one day. Even though the Harry Potter franchise was largely driven by the effects, Yates has had a reputation as an actor's director ever since his days working in television, and the improvement in the performances by the movie's young stars isn't just a coincidence. The director acquitted himself with the action scenes as well as the dramatic moments, providing a stylistic and thematic continuity to the final four Potter movies that drew the saga to a satisfying end. The only real doubt would surround his ability to put his own stamp on the material, as the mythology of the Potter franchise was already well-established by the time he took over and less visually-driven directors have tended to make the weakest entries in the Bond saga.