Bond 25 questions: Awaiting principal photography Part II

Daniel Craig in SPECTRE’s gunbarrel

Earlier this month, the blog had a few questions while awaiting the start of Bond 25 principal photography. If Variety is correct, the wait won’t be much longer. But, in the interim, here are additional questions.

Who will be Bond 25’s composer?

David Arnold has a five-film run as 007 composer. But that ended when Sam Mendes directed this decade’s Skyfall and SPECTRE, bringing along his choice of composer, Thomas Newman.

We’ve had disclosures about production designer (Mark Tildesley) and director of photography (Linus Sandgren). But there’s been radio silence concerning Bond 25’s composer. Having Cary Fukunaga as director perhaps will bring a new 007 musical voice. We’ll see.

Will there be some crew turnover in other departments?

The Eon-produced 007 film series is known for having crew members who work multiple films. But nothing lasts forever.

Peter Lamont began work on the series as a draftsman on Goldfinger and worked his way up to production designer. He worked on the series into his 70s, departing after 2006’s Casino Royale.

Terry Bamber worked on a number of Bond films, with jobs such as second unit production manager. But he hasn’t been on a 007 film since Skyfall.

We already know of turnover in the production designer slot. Dennis Gassner had a three-film run in the job but was replaced by Tildesley when Danny Boyle was named director. Despite Boyle’s departure, it appears Tildesley remains in place.

Which writers will get a Bond 25 credit?

The blog asked this in a previous Bond 25 questions post. Since then, the writer count has gone up again.

At least six writers have been associated with the project: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, John Hodge, Paul Haggis, Scott Z. Burns and Phoebe Waller-Bridge.

Writing credits can be subject to arbitration by the Writers Guild of America.

“In certain cases, the proposed credits are subject to automatic arbitration, and in other cases, writers are given an opportunity to protest the proposed credits to trigger an arbitration,” according to the union’s website.

There are limits to the number of credits. A writing team such as Purvis and Wade is counted as a single writing entity, as it were. Regardless, it doesn’t appear likely all six will be in the movie’s writing credit. Hodge, for example, was Danny Boyle’s guy and left the project when Boyle did.

What happens with the gunbarrel in Bond 25?

The first three Daniel Craig 007 films moved the gunbarrel logo around. It appeared just before the main titles in Casino Royale. And it was at the end of both Quantum of Solace and Skyfall. It finally placed at its traditional start-of-the-movie position in SPECTRE, though there were a few quirks.

When last we saw Craig’s 007 at the end of SPECTRE, he appeared to have departed Her Majesty’s Secret Service. If that’s part of the plot of Bond 25, does it make sense to have the gunbarrel at the start? Or does it get moved again?