Con: There Are Other Great Directors Too
Obviously, Mendes is not alone in the pantheon of terrific filmmakers working today. EON and Sony's short list of potential directing candidates included other Oscar winners such as Tom Hooper (
Les Misérables) and Ang Lee (
Life of Pi). With
Casino Royale working hard to give the franchise some strong artistic qualities to go with the style, it makes sense they would target such auteurs to helm upcoming films. One name that was constantly mentioned during the rumor stage was Christopher Nolan, who did
meet with the Bond producers. A huge fan of the James Bond movies, Nolan has proven he's more than capable of handling big-scale productions with his directorial work on the
Dark Knight trilogy and
Inception as well as producing this month's
Man of Steel. Due to his commitments to next year's
Interstellar, it seemed unlikely Nolan would take on
Bond 24, but several fans (including this writer) were foaming at the mouth to see him work with Daniel Craig on a future 007 production. Since
Skyfall was heavily influenced by
The Dark Knight, Nolan would seem like an ideal fit. If Mendes does return for the last two Craig outings, a new director won't be able to step in until the hypothetical
Bond 26 several years down the road. This isn't bad in the slightest, but one element of the Bond franchise fans seem to enjoy is watching new takes on the character with each installment. Our dreams of seeing someone like Nolan call the shots would be unfulfilled for a while. I'm excited to see what Mendes can do for the next movie, but I would have been interested to see where the series would go under a new director.