A New Report Says Daniel Craig Back Could Be Back as James Bond After All
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 Daniel Craig 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 claims things have changed yet again.
Here’s what they have to say: Producers, they claim, have soured on Hiddleston. (He’s “too smug and not tough enough,” according to their sources. The okay-but-not-amazing grosses of Kong: Skull Island may not have helped either.) And they still haven’t completely given up on Daniel Craig coming back for a fifth film:
Multiple sources tell Page Six that Bond franchise producer Barbara Broccoli has “just about persuaded Daniel Craig to do one more Bond movie.” This comes after Broccoli produced his hit off-Broadway production of “Othello” with David Oyelowo, which won Craig the serious acting plaudits he craved.
Page Six’s sources also claim that the script by longtime 007 screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade is coming along and that Bond 25 will “go into production as soon as Daniel is ready to commit.”
Craig has a contract for a final Bond, but the end of Spectre definitely worked as a sendoff for his version of the character. From a story perspective, I think the time is right for a change. But to make that change you’ve got to have the right Bond, and if producers don’t think Hiddleston or any of the other viable contenders are a good fit, that would explain why they want to keep Craig around. He’s been a really great Bond, one of the best in fact, and assuming he can be kept from trying to kill himself during production, he could be a really great Bond again.