Reminder: Eon said Bond films wouldn’t come out as often

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Consider this an epilogue to the recent buzz about Bond 26 and the lack of news. Go back into events of the past decade (and longer) and you’ll see that Eon Productions signaled James Bond films wouldn’t be out as often.

Eon boss Barbara Broccoli said the following in a November 2012 interview with the Los Angeles Times:

“Sometimes there are external pressures from a studio who want you to make it in a certain time frame or for their own benefit, and sometimes we’ve given into that,” Broccoli said. “But following what we hope will be a tremendous success with ‘Skyfall,’ we have to try to keep the deadlines within our own time limits and not cave in to external pressures.”

Context: While 2006’s Casino Royale was wrapping up, Sony Pictures (which released Bond films at the time) announced that Bond 22 (the eventual Quantum of Solace) would be released on May 2, 2008. That would be less than two years after the release of Casino Royale. (Sony used to have the release online but it has been yanked from the company’s website.)

Eventually, Quantum of Solace would be pushed back to the fall of 2008. Even so, there was a lot of tension to meet the fall 2008 date, including a Writer’s Guild strike.

To be sure, in the 2012 LA Times interview, Broccoli didn’t provide details about giving into studio pressure. But given what happened between 2006 and 2012, it’s not a big leap to conclude the Quantum of Solace experience was an influence.

Undoubtedly, in the 2020s, there are more considerations in play with Bond 26. But it’s always useful to review the record of past events.