James Bond 26 officially has a good news update. The confirmation comes alongside sobering news about development progress. Amazon MGM Studios has finally offered some clarity on where things stand with 007, and it’s a classic case of good news wrapped in a waiting game.
Amazon confirms James Bond 26’s theatrical return, but it’ll be a while
Mike Hopkins, the man running Amazon MGM Studios’ operation, sat down with Variety and tackled the elephant in the room head-on. Ever since Amazon took over MGM in that massive deal a few years back, James Bond fans have worried their beloved spy might get only a Prime Video exclusive. But Hopkins shut that rumor down.
“We’ve made a big investment in theatrical,” he told Variety. “I would be shocked if that were any different with James Bond in the future.” Steven Knight is writing the script. Denis Villeneuve will direct. Hopkins confirmed the priority from day one was finding top-tier talent. “The first step was, ‘Let’s hire the best people in the world to bring this new story to life’,” he explained.
But here is where patience becomes mandatory. Hopkins shared the timeline of when fans will see the next James Bond. “We’re sort of in the bottom half of the first inning of bringing this to life,” he admitted. This indicates that it still may take a few more years to come to theaters. Then there is the casting question. Four years since Daniel Craig bowed out in No Time to Die, the role remains vacant. Names have floated around endlessly, like Idris Elba, James Norton, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, but nothing concrete has come up.
Hopkins framed James Bond as the crown jewel of the MGM acquisition, the reason Amazon pursued the deal so aggressively. “It was a big part of our pursuit of MGM, was this franchise,” he said. The company now finds itself in unfamiliar territory, distributing roughly 15 theatrical films a year, and Bond is meant to anchor that ambition for years to come. He spoke about figuring out “how does James Bond get into the next chapter and then be relevant for customers for a long period of time.”
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