Purvis & Wade deliver Bond 24 draft, Daily Mail Says

Robert Wade, left, and Neal Purvis.

Neal Purvis and Robert Wade have delivered their rewrite of Bond 24, which is “substantially different” than earlier drafts, THE DAILY MAIL’S BAZ BAMIGBOYE REPORTED.

According to the newspaper, the start of production for Bond 24 has been approved for “late November/early December.”

Bond 24’s original writer was John Logan, who rewrote Purvis and Wade’s earlier drafts of Skyfall. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer announced in late 2012 that Logan had been hired to write both Bond 24 and Bond 25. Originally, the plan was for a two-movie story arc but director Sam Mendes said in April that plan had been scrapped.

Here’s an excerpt of Bamigboye’s latest story:

‘Everyone’s excited, and all systems are pumping away at full speed,’ my 007 informant told me, adding that Purvis and Wade’s script is ‘substantially different’ from Logan’s.

‘There was an awful lot of work to do. It was a big job. The impression given was that Purvis and Wade were hired to add jokes — but it was a bigger deal than that,’ an executive at one of the studios associated with the Bond films explained.

The last comment is a reference to Bamigboye’s June story that Purvis and Wade being hired to rewrite Bond 24’s script. That article had a line that Purvis and Wade had been “asked to ‘punch up’ the script and sprinkle in more gags, emphasising the witty repartee between Daniel Craig’s 007 and Naomie Harris’s Miss Moneypenny, and focusing on the interplay between Bond and Ralph Fiennes’s M.”

The new Bamigboye story also says “Mendes almost went down on his knees to persuade Purvis and Wade to return to the Bond fold. The director had a lot of making up to do, I was told.” Mendes had brought in Logan to do rewrites for the Skyfall story begun by Purvis and Wade. The reporter says all involved did their Bond 24 work professionally.

Bamigboye had a number of scoops about Skyfall and Bond 24 proven correct, including that Naomie Harris was playing Moneypenny in Skyfall and that Logan had been hired initially to write Bond 24.

If the Daily Mail scribe’s latest story is correct that the Purvis-Wade draft is substantially different, that suggests they’ll get a Bond 24 writing credit. That would be their sixth of the 007 film series.