Bond 25 questions: Killing time until November edition

New (well, tweaked) No Time to Die character poster

Fans of the James Bond films have some time to kill before November. The blog has some questions.

What’s up with Bond’s new gun in a revised character poster for No Time to Time?

Previously, a series of character posters for the 25th James Bond film were released. One, naturally, featured star Daniel Craig.

A revised version went out this week. It now says “November” at the bottom instead of “April 2020,” reflecting the delay in release date.

But something else changed. The gun Craig is holding looks different, perhaps now equipped with a silencer or maybe simply a different firearm.

I’m not sure what caused the change. The MI6 James Bond website noticed the alteration, with a side-by-side comparison in THIS TWEET.

What happens to all the publicity we were going to get?

Well, Bond fans are getting some of it now. Publications such as GQ and Total Film came out with No Time to Die articles. The schedule was based on an April release of the movie. But last week’s decision to shift the movie to November came too late for the publications to change their plans.

The GQ piece was similar to Craig profiles of yesteryear (including 26 references to the f-word), how he initially hesitated to play Bond, etc.. We’re also told how “Craig introduced time to the Bond movies… Bond ages.”

This isn’t a new angle. Sam Mendes, the director of Skyfall boasted in 2014 that in that film “for the first time characters were allowed to age.”

It wasn’t true then. Previous Bond films had reference to aging. Sean Connery told True magazine in 1971 that he was playing Bond older in Diamonds Are Forever than his earlier 007 films. Also, aging was part of Roger Moore’s 1980s Bond films.

Still, you could argue that the aging theme was much more pronounced in Skyfall (with its often-repeated “the old ways are the best” line). Well, whatever works for an article.

Is there a bright side to this delay?

For that, I’ll defer to the Haphazard Stuff channel on YouTube. He found 13 bright spots. One involves the infectious laugh of former No Time to Die director Danny Boyle. You can view Haphazard Stuff’s take below.