John Logan to write Bond 24 AND Bond 25, Deadline says

Skyfall co-scripter John Logan

First, the Daily Mail says John Logan, co-writer of Skyfall, has signed to write Bond 24. Now, the Deadline entertainment news Web site says Logan has a deal TO WRITE THE NEXT TWO 007 MOVIES.

An excerpt:

EXCLUSIVE: As buzz builds for the 23rd James Bond film Skyfall, the franchise’s producers have quietly made a deal with John Logan to write not one but two 007 films. I’m told that Logan pitched an original two-movie arc to Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson while they were shooting Skyfall, and that he has already begun writing the scripts. If plans work out, this would be the first Bond film with a storyline to be played out over multiple films, and it certainly makes it feasible that the pictures could be shot back-to-back.

The “I’m” refers to Deadline’s Mike Fleming, who has trumped Baz Bagimpoye of the U.K. Daily Mail, who was the first to report that Logan would script the next Bond movie.

If the Deadline report is true, it would mark a departure for Eon Productions.

In the early 1990s, Eon co-founder Albert R. Broccoli put the company up for sale. No deal resulted. Then, there was talk that Eon was stockpiling scripts so it could get off to a running start once a legal dispute between Eon and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was resolved. But even after the legal fight ended, no multi-movie scheme occurred. Instead, everything went back to square one, which resulted in 1995’s GoldenEye.

The background of all this: MGM wants to get Bond movies back on an every-other-year schedule (MGM said this as part of it s2010 bankruptcy). Sony wants the next Bond movie out in 2014 (making an announcement to theater executives earlier this year that would happen). The one piece of the puzzle: Eon itself, where co-boss Barbara Broccoli hasn’t publicly committed to such a schedule.

As Lt. Colubmo once said, “Just one more thing.” Eon has long said it doesn’t like any of the continuation novels commissioned by Glidrose/Ian Fleming Publications after the death of Ian Fleming. Eon co-boss Michael G. Wilson, at a 1995 fan convention in New York, indicated he didn’t like any of the John Gardner continuation novels. So, if John Logan really has a two-picture writing deal, it will probably be a new story and not based on any continuation novel.

Also, to date, Eon hasn’t demonstrated the kind of long range planning that the Marvel Studios unit of Walt Disney Co. has.

UPDATE (Oct. 27): The Hollywood Reporter has a STORY ON THIS which adds Logan’s two screenplays will tell an original story and aren’t based on anything by Ian Fleming.