Latest twist in Bond 23 saga

Just a few days ago, the Internet was abuzz about production delays in Bond 23. Now, we’re being told there’s momentum the other way even with all the financial uncertainty about the future of Bond studio home MGM.

According to the Hollywood reporter,Sam Mendes is negotiating to direct the next James Bond film. It’d even be a reunion of sorts because Daniel Craig, the current 007, appeared in the director’s 2002 film Road to Perdition.

The Los Angeles Times’s Hero Complex blog followed up, thusly:

Sam Mendes is engaged in discussions to become the next Bond maestro, potentially making him the first Oscar winner ever to direct England’s suavest spy.

But about an hour later, a SEPARATE Los Angeles Times blog, The Big Picture, written by Patrick Goldstein, opined this was a bad idea:

While I’m also happy to see filmmakers practicing their craft, this is a bad decision in oh, so many ways, not to mention a depressing example of how hard it is for filmmakers to find any good studio material to work with. Not that I’m letting Mendes off the hook here. His career has been in steep decline, both in terms of critical as well as commercial success. In fact, if you look at the grosses on his five feature films, they form a graph that goes in only one direction — straight down.
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It seems obvious that Mendes — or more likely, his CAA agents — decided it was time to grab hold of a commercial piece of material that could not only offer a payday but an opportunity to put up some respectable box-office numbers. But a Bond movie is a Bond movie. There’s really no way to put a personal stamp on a series whose fans demand all sorts of familiar fare, from buxom vixens to high-powered action scenes.

It will take a while before the truth sorts itself out. But for a film series where producers at least talked to Adam West about playing Bond, where some creative personnel wanted Burt Reynolds, where James Brolin was screentested and John Gavin was actually signed at one point, almost anything is possible.