Bond 25: Dave Bautista joins the parade of shiny objects

Actor Dave Bautista caused a stir on Instagram this week. He posted a photo of himself, apparently with a SPECTRE logo tattoo on his middle finger.

Naturally, fans asked whether this was “confirmation” that he’ll be back for Bond 25 after playing henchman Hinx in SPECTRE.

Welcome to the Bond 25 parade of bright, shiny objects.

Bond 25, at the moment, is a movie without a way to actually get to theaters (i.e. no distributor). There are options, of course, but none has actually been taken.

Bond 25’s home studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, may be trying to sell itself. If that’s the case, unless a sale is executed soon, it might have an impact on Bond 25.

Bond 25’s financing may not be settled until there’s a distributor. Sony Pictures, under its most recent deal to distribute Skyfall and SPECTRE, kicked in half of the production budget. You can only afford to shoot what you have to spend.

Image of Dave Bautista ‘s Instagram post.

But, of course, those kind of issues are no fun. Hence, there are bright, shiny objects to distract everyone from the mundane. The Bautista post may be the latest example.

A cynical view? Not really. Consider:

–Actor Jeffrey Wright, on April 9, 2017, posted a still of himself as Felix Leiter in Quantum of Solace. “Eh, who’s that brother?” read the caption.

Based on that meager evidence, The Independent did an entire story with the headline “Bond 25: Westworld’s Jeffrey Wright teases his return as Felix Leiter.”

The Screen Rant website also bit, with a post titled, “Bond 25: Jeffrey Wright Teases His Return to the Franchise.

This was an entire month after the Daily Mail’s Baz Bamigboye reported that veteran 007 scribes Neal Purvis and Robert Wade had been hired to write the Bond 25 script. But, when the fact becomes legend, print the legend as the old saying goes.

–And let us not forget how Eon Productions and MGM each announced on July 24, 2017, that Bond 25 would have a U.S. release date of Nov. 8, 2019. At the time, there was no distributor but that appeared to be a mere formality. Fan countdown clocks went online.

Of course, there’s still no distributor all this time later.

At some point, Bond 25 will come out. But this blog would prefer solid news, not bright, shiny objects.