Next James Bond Film: 10 Predictions For Post-Daniel Craig Era
5. M, Moneypenny & Tanner Are Gone, But Q & Nomi Remain
One of the most agonising questions left hanging after No Time to Die is whether any of the supporting cast members will end up returning for the next chapter of Bond films.
Considering how No Time to Die ends, the producers may feel compelled to clean the slate and start entirely anew, but given how firmly rooted the supporting MI6 cast members are, it'd also feel like a bit of a waste.
The gut feeling is that the more senior MI6 members such as M (Ralph Fiennes), Moneypenny (Naomie Harris), and Tanner (Rory Kinnear) won't return, but the younger likes of Q (Ben Whishaw) and Nomi (Lashana Lynch) will end up sticking around.
Given that Desmond Llewelyn ended up playing Q for 17 films across almost 40 years, there's already precedent for Bond's quartermaster enduring through numerous Bond eras.
As for Nomi, she felt like such a breath of fresh air and a profound statement of intent for the series that ditching her after just a single film would feel like a huge mistake.
While she won't necessarily have as big a role in future Bond films as she did in No Time to Die, keeping her around as a resourceful support character, with a 00 designation of course, feels like the right way to go.
In many ways the beauty of the Bond series has always been its ability to pick and choose which elements it wants to bring forward without having to address why, and there's no reason that this tradition can't continue despite Bond's fate at the end of No Time to Die.