An early Bond 25 accuracy scorecard

Image for the official James Bond feed on Twitter

Bond 25 has a star (Daniel Craig), a release date (November 2019 in the U.S.) and confirmed writers (Neal Purvis and Robert Wade).

While there’s more than two years before the next Bond film adventure, here’s a look at the accuracy of some major stories written about the movie.

News before it was announced: By that, the stories were accurate before there was a formal announcement.

Baz Bamigboye of the Daily Mail wrote in March that Purvis and Wade, who’ve worked on the 007 film series since the late 1990s, were hired to write Bond 25’s story. That was confirmed in a July 24 announcement on the official 007 website.

Emily Smith of Page Six/New York Post wrote in April and Brook Barnes of The York Times wrote in July that Daniel Craig would be back for a fifth outing as 007.

The Page Six item, being a gossip column, ragged on Tom Hiddleston being determined by Eon Productions to be too smug. That’s certainly not proven.

But the key phrase was “Multiple sources tell Page Six that Bond franchise producer Barbara Broccoli has ‘just about persuaded Daniel Craig to do one more Bond movie.'”

The Times’ story, published the same day as the Eon announcement about the 2019 release date said, “Daniel Craig will play James Bond in at least one more film,” In any event, Craig confirmed he’s coming back on the Aug. 15 telecast of The Late Show on CBS.

Looking shaky: Radar Online in September 2016 said Sony Pictures offered Craig $150 million to do two more Bond movies. At the time, there was no distribution deal for Bond 25 and one still hasn’t been announced.

Then, as now, nobody knows if Sony will even be involved with Bond 25. Given a release date has been announced, you’d think a distributor is in place but nobody outside of Eon actually knows.

The Mirror, a U.K. tabloid, said last month that Bond 25 will be titled Shatterhand and be based on a 007 continuation novel by Raymond Benson. Benson, however, went public and said nobody at the Mirror even contacted him and said he “can only assume the article is fabrication.”

The Sun, Rupert Murdoch’s U.K. tabloid, said earlier this month Craig was “on the verge of signing for not one but two more installments” in the 007 film series.

Craig told CBS, “I think this is it,” referring to Bond 25. But people have been known to change their minds. We’ll see.

M:I 6 to meet release date despite Cruise injury, director says

Tom Cruise

Mission: Impossible 6 star-producer Tom Cruise “is on the mend” and the movie is “on track” for its July 2018 release date, director Christopher McQuarrie said on Twitter today.

Cruise, 55, broke his right ankle during filming in the U.K. of a stunt for the movie, McQuarrie confirmed in a separate interview with Empire.

Video of Cruise’s injury surfaced a few days ago. The Sun UK tabloid responded with a story that M:I 6 filming would be delayed for four months. U.S. entertainment news websites such as TheWrap posted stories today saying the shutdown would be six to eight weeks.

McQuarrie, in the Empire interview, said the production hiatus “is unknown. We’re still figuring that out.”

The film had “seven or eight weeks” to complete production, the director said.

“We’ll assess what there is to be shot,” McQuarrie told Empire. “And what we can shoot.”

Once those scenes are filmed “we’ll go on a hiatus and then I’ll shift my attention to editorial,” he told the magazine. “We’ve already shot a huge chunk of the movie so you’re just taking a big chunk of post-production and moving it up sooner.”

After the hiatus, filming will resume, he said. “Nothing we’re looking at right now is going to affect the release date.”

Here’s McQuarrie’s post on Twitter:

Thank you all for your support and concern. Tom is on the mend and MI6 is on track for 07.27.2018 https://t.co/c4XqsEuRh4

— ChristopherMcQuarrie (@chrismcquarrie) August 16, 2017

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