Daniel Craig

With the arrival of San Diego Comic-Con last week, the major announcements started flying fast and furious. After the avalanche of release date announcements, trailer releases, and other first-look headline-generators, the news broke that the gears of progress had begun turning for James Bond’s next cinematic outing. The official Twitter account posted that the still-untitled James Bond 25 would hit American theaters on November 8, 2019 after an earlier release in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, and also presumably after shiploads of online pirates have gotten their mitts on it. Americans do not tend to take delayed release dates lying down.

Sounds like our good friends across the pond have gotten tired of all the rumors swirling about the future of the James Bond franchise, because the series has just officially announced a new movie is definitely coming, and it already has a release date.

After four years in retirement, Steven Soderbergh is back behind the camera with ‘Logan Lucky,’ a heist comedy starring Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Daniel Craig, and Riley Keough.

If we’re lucky, every few years we’re treated to a will-they-or-won’t-they love story that sparks our imagination and warms our hearts. Ross and Rachel from Friends. Jim and Pam from The Office. Daniel and Barbara from Bond 25. Yes, these are classic, iconic love stories, where two people who are destined to be together must nevertheless fight through a series of unfortunate events before going public with their mutual love and affection. Which is all a complicated and jokey way of saying, c’mon, Daniel Craig and Barbara Broccoli, we know y’all are going to make Bond 25 happen, so just do it already!

It’s too early to be entirely certain, but judging by this clip, Daniel Craig might be the most wonderful part of Logan Lucky. The 007 star drops the posh accent and suave sophistication to play a bleach-blonde countrified convict in Steven Soderbergh’s latest film, which centers on a pair of brothers (Channing Tatum and Adam Driver) plotting to pull off a heist during a big racing event at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. That’s where Craig comes in.

Much like the Coen Brothers, Steven Soderbergh has two distinct sides. There’s the ‘serious artist’ side, the one responsible for movies Contagion, Solaris, and Traffic, and the side that makes delightfully light-hearted genre movies. As much as I may enjoy Serious Soderbergh, I always have the most fun with the Soderbergh who made Ocean’s 11 and Out of Sight. And thankfully for those of us tired of grimdark summer blockbusters, that’s the Soderbergh on full display in the first trailer for Logan Lucky.

The drama around who will play James Bond in the next (and 25th!) 007 adventure is already more intriguing than anything in the last 007 adventure. Incumbent Bond made it fairly clear during the press tour for Spectre that he wasn’t exactly dying to make another film as Britain’s greatest secret agent (unless I’m missing the subtext in his comment about preferring to slash his wrists rather than drink any more shaken martinis). Last summer, there came word that producers were very interested in Tom Hiddleston taking on the role for Bond 25. But a new report in Page Six says things have changed yet again.

Logan Lucky marks Steven Soderbergh’s return to directing after coming out of “retirement” after his 2013 movie Side Effects, and as such it’s one of the most anticipated movies of this year. Today is a great, great day, because not only do we get our first official look at Daniel Craig, Channing Tatum, and Adam Driver’s characters, but we also get a release date that’s two months earlier than expected!

Ah, my old friend, the James Bond rumor. No franchise has produced as many questions about the state of its current cast as the unnamed Bond sequel. Will Daniel Craig be returning to the role? Definitely not. Or, wait, probably. No, they’re actually casting a new James Bond as we speak. Scratch that, they’ve actually backed a dump truck full of money onto Craig’s front lawn to get him back. Or they’ll probably go in a different direction.

The fate of James Bond’s casting in the upcoming 25th official 007 adventure is the focus of more intrigue than many Bond movies. After the release of Spectre, Daniel Craig said things like “I’d rather break this glass and slash my wrists” when the subject of making a fifth Bond film came up. He wanted to move on he said. He was ready for something else