Bond 26 questions: The lot of noise edition

Image that the official James Bond feed on Twitter has used in the past

As far as Bond 26 is concerned, there is more noise than light.

Some websites claim to know what’s going on. But the main tidbit from the powers that be is a Barbara Broccoli comment that filming on Bond 26 won’t occur until at least two years from now.

Still, nature abhors a vacuum. So there are questions out there, even if there aren’t real answers.

Who will be the next Bond actor?

Who knows? Supposedly, Eon wants a tall actor (after 15 years of Daniel Craig, who is shorter than six feet tall). Supposedly, Eon wants a young (say early 30s) actor who can hold the role for a while.

Craig was 38 when he started his tenure. The youngest Bond actor was George Lazenby (29 when On Her Majesty’s Secret Service started filming). Sean Connery was 31 when cameras rolled on Dr. No. Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan were in their 40s.

Last week, a website called Giant Freakin Robot claimed it had sources that the next film Bond will be a person of color and a search was underway.

Whatever. As stated before, there’s more noise than light at this point.

Why is it taking so long?

In the “old days,” Eon Productions could recast the role and implement a major change in direction quickly.

Between A View to a Kill (1985) and The Living Daylights (1987), Eon went to a more serious creative direction. Eon also cast not one, but two, actors. Pierce Brosnan was initially cast but NBC renewed the TV series Remington Steele. Timothy Dalton then got the role.

Now, Barbara Broccoli says a serious rethink is taking place and a script can’t even be started. She has said Bond is being “reinvented.”

What should we expect?

In the near term, more noise. Bookies and tabloids in the U.K. have an interesting relationship when it comes to Bond.

The bookies change odds to generate more bets. That churn provides the tabloids the opportunity to publish clickbait articles.

And it’s not just the tabloids in the mix. Remember back in January when a reporter for Deadline: Hollywood tweeted that he had talked to someone that, “I think we here (sic) who it is after the Oscars.”

The Oscars have come and gone with no word.

To be fair, the Deadline writer then published a follow-up tweet: “Obviously taking this with a grain a salt as putting an ETA on these types of decisions never works out but interesting that some believe this won’t be an all year wait.”

From the standpoint of Bond fans, it will be a long, hard slog.