Eon’s new normal: Update

Image for the official James Bond feed on Twitter

This isn’t your father’s James Bond film franchise.

Hire a new director? Great! Except, Cary Fukunaga has to deal with a new television project at more or less the same time.

Got your leading man back on board? Great! Except he began filming a movie just a month (or so) before the latest Bond movie originally was to start filming. Thankfully (from the actor’s standpoint, anyway) the Bond film got delayed until March.

Your latest James Bond film project moving ahead? Great! Except we have to get our latest non-007 project (The Rhythm Section) out of the way first.

When Eon Productions started operations, the idea was to make 007 films every year with other project in between. That lasted as far as 1963 (Dr. No, Call Me, Bwana, From Russia With Love).

Eon co-founder Harry Saltzman went off and did non-007 films (the Harry Palmer series, Battle of Britain) on his own. Albert R. Broccoli, the other co-founder, did one more non-007 project (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) while devoting the rest of his life to the Bond film series.

Saltzman, of course, is long gone, having sold his interest in the mid 1970s. Broccoli, before he died in 1996, yielded control to his daughter (Barbara Broccoli) and stepson (Michael G. Wilson).

Now, the main figures of the Bond series juggle 007 among their various projects. Fukunaga, hired in September to direct Bond 25, is only the latest. Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson have been doing it for years. Writer John Logan juggled various enterprises in 2013 and 2014 before delivering a first draft for SPECTRE.

One reader of the blog pointed out on Twitter that Marvel Studios directors Joe and Anthony Russo are cutting deals for future projects even while the untitled Avengers 4 is in post-production.

That’s true enough. Still, by 2019, the Russos will have directed four movies (Captain America: Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers 4) in five years for Marvel. During that same period, there will have been just one James Bond film (SPECTRE).

In the 21st century, the 007 film series is like Paul Masson wine. No wine (or film) before its time.

Bond 25 director will juggle another project

Cary Fukunaga, director for Bond 25

Cary Fukunaga, Bond 25’s director, will also be juggling another project, Deadline: Hollywood reported.

Fukunaga and David Lowery will write a pilot script for the Paramount Channel cable outlet based on the 1985 Joe Dante-directed film Explorers, the entertainment news website said.

Either will “direct the pilot should it get to that,” according to Deadline.

Deadline referenced how Fukunaga is directing Bond 25, but didn’t specify when the new scripting effort would occur. Bond 25 is scheduled to begin production on March 4 for a February 2020 release.

Daniel Craig, scheduled to return to play 007 in Bond 25, is in a new mystery movie Knives out, directed by Rian Johnson. That will film before Bond 25 starts production. (According to IMDB.COM, filming is underway.)

Eon Productions, meanwhile, has a non-007 spy movie, The Rhythm Section that’s due for a February 2019 release by Paramount.