Tabloid says Broccoli in no rush to make Bond 25

Eon co-boss Barbara Broccoli and current 007 star Daniel Craig

The Sun, the U.K. tabloid, said in a gossip column that Eon Productions co-boss Barbara Broccoli isn’t hurrying to make Bond 25 and still hopes to convince Daniel Craig, 48, to return as James Bond.

The tabloid quotes a source it didn’t identify as saying the following: “Barbara is not going to be rushed into a Bond and wants to work on two other film projects next year. It will give her time to work out a script and try to convince Daniel to maybe return.”

The producer currently is overseeing a drama called Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool.

Before we proceed further, here’s a caveat: The Sun has a trashy reputation.

But on at least one aspect, this story has the ring of truth. Barbara Broccoli has repeatedly made clear she wants to do things other than 007 films and wants more time between Bond movies.

Reminder No. 1: In November 2012, Broccoli made the following comment to the Los Angeles Times:

“Sometimes there are external pressures from a studio who want you to make it in a certain time frame or for their own benefit, and sometimes we’ve given into that,” Broccoli said. “But following what we hope will be a tremendous success with ‘Skyfall,’ we have to try to keep the deadlines within our own time limits and not cave in to external pressures.”

Reminder No. 2: Earlier in 2012, Broccoli and Craig, in an interview with the Collider website, publicly slapped down a Sony executive who had said Bond 24 would be out in 2014, two years after Skyfall:

Last week Rory (Bruer), the president of distribution of Sony, announced Bond 24 for I guess late 2014…

Broccoli: He was getting a little overexcited (laughs). We’re just actually focusing on this movie. One hopes that in the future we’ll be announcing other films, but no one’s officially announced it.

Craig: No one’s announced anything. He got a little ahead of himself (laughs). It’s very nice that he has the confidence to be able to do that, but we haven’t finished this movie yet.

One of the most repeated myths on 007-related message boards is that Eon held up Bond 24, later titled SPECTRE, an extra year to get Sam Mendes back as director. Barbara Broccoli has repeatedly made clear she doesn’t want to do Bond movies on an every-other-year basis.

The Sun’s gossip column says Bond 25 won’t come out until late 2018 at the earliest. That should be of absolutely no surprise to anybody who’s followed events of the past five years.