Next James Bond Film: 10 Predictions For Post-Daniel Craig Era
Taking a stab at where the bold new era of 007 will go.
No Time to Die has finally hit screens around the world, and though some aspects of its story didn't work for everyone, it's generally been warmly embraced by the fanbase as a fitting finale for Daniel Craig's visceral, emotionally charged run as 007.
But even before the film was released, fans had already spent much time enthusiastically speculating on what the future holds for the character.
The various eras of James Bond have typically been reactive, responding to the changing tides of the world and shifting tastes of audiences, so it's fair to say that whatever comes next won't simply be a facsimile of what worked best about the Craig era.
There are certainly lessons that will hopefully be learned, but also presumably a desire to continue the progressive storytelling and characters introduced in No Time to Die in particular.
The hunt for 007 himself is basically a crap shoot at this point, but we can absolutely make some educated guesses on how the next decade-or-so of Bond movies will pan out.
The Craig films certainly taught us to expect the unexpected, though, so we'll just have to wait and see for sure. Naturally, SPOILERS will follow if you haven't yet seen No Time to Die...
10. There's Less Of A Focus On Continuity
Perhaps the most radical aspect of the Daniel Craig era has been the decision to have his films unfold within an intimate, distinct continuity, with most of the five movies serving as direct sequels to one another.
This culminated of course in Spectre revealing that Blofeld (Christoph Waltz) had been the "author" of Bond's pain all along, a twist that heavily divided the fanbase with many feeling it simply strained too hard to make the Craig films a cohesive, interconnected "universe" of stories.
Though this approach ultimately helped No Time to Die have such an emotionally gratifying payoff, it's entirely possible the next Bond era will return to the more standalone, self-contained Bond movies the series is better known for.
Bond as a franchise has always reacted to the audience, and considering the mixed response to giving 007 a pronounced arc across five films, Barbara Broccoli may feel it's time for a return to the original formula.
Then again, the new Bond may land somewhere in the middle as a compromise, scaling back the intimately linked tapestry of stories but still acknowledging major narrative aspects of prior films.
As much as this continuity-heavy approach helped deliver the most cerebral and thoughtful Bond epoch to date, many fans feel that it's time for a return to singular stories which aren't endlessly tethered to what came before.