Bond 26 questions

Nature abhors a vacuum. With that in mind, here are some modest questions concerning Bond 26.

Time to lighten up? Over the past five Bond films made by Eon Productions there has been a lot of angst.

Bond losing his lady love (Casino Royale, based on Ian Fleming’s first novel). Bond out for revenge (Quantum of Solace). Bond not able to save M (Skyfall). Bond discovers his foster brother was his greatest enemy (SPECTRE). Bond getting blown up with missiles (No Time to Die).

The Daniel Craig era of Bond films (which started over from the previous 20 movies) was often very serious. That era was a big difference from the mostly escapist Eon adventures that preceded it. Should the past be the future?

Could it be time to lighten things up?

Time to reduce the budget? The Bond film series has a history of hiking production budgets and bringing them back under control.

With SPECTRE and No Time to Die, the production budgets exploded. U.K. regulatory filings in 2020 suggested No Time to Die’s budget was nearing $300 million. That doesn’t include marketing costs. Is this sustainable? Sure, delays related COVID-19 were a factor. But the film industry has, more or less, adjusted to all that.

Time to let go of the homages to past Bond movies? Quantum of Solace, SPECTRE, and No Time to Die all had homages (critics would say crutches) to previous Bond films.

No Time to Die alone had multiples homages to On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. At one point, Bond is meeting with M in London with John Barry’s theme from Majesty’s plays in the background. There are multiple references to the John Barry-Hal David song We Have All the Time in the World. And, of course, we get the Aston DB5 (in the form of newly built replica cars).

Is it maybe time to move on from the homages?

As usual, we’ll see.