Danny Boyle Plans to Direct Bond 25 This Year, but ‘It All Depends’ on John Hodge’s Script Being Approved
Zack Sharf
Danny Boyle emerged as the top pick to direct Bond 25 late last month, and the director confirms in a new interview with Metro that he has every intention of directing Daniel Craig in the next 007 movie. However, the final decision is not Boyle’s to make. The director and his “Trainspotting” screenwriter John Hodge cracked a story idea for Bond 25 that franchise producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli enjoyed, but Boyle won’t be made director until Hodge delivers a final script that gets approved.
“We are working on a [“Bond 25”] script right now,” Boyle confirmed to Metro. “And it all depends on that really. I am working on a Richard Curtis script at the moment. We hope to start shooting that in six or seven weeks. Then ‘Bond’ would be right at the end of the year. But we are working on them both right now.”
The Richard Curtis script Boyle mentions is a Universal Pictures and Working Title comedy project, but the director is clearly scheduling in Bond 25 even though he’s not yet officially confirmed. The next Bond film already has a November 2019 release date, which means production wouldn’t be able to start any later than this fall.
As Deadline reported earlier this year, Broccoli and Wilson originally commissioned a Bond 25 script from franchise veterans Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, who have scripted all of Craig’s 007 movies and the Pierce Brosnan entries “The World Is Not Enough” and “Die Another Day.” Purvis and Wade’s screenplay is being put on hiatus for the moment. Should Boyle and Hodge deliver a screenplay that the producers like, then Boyle will direct. If not, the producers will revert back to Purvis and Wade’s script and hire another director.
“We’ve got an idea, John Hodge, the screenwriter, and I have got this idea, and John is writing it at the moment,” Boyle said. “And it all depends on how it turns out. It would be foolish of me to give any of it away.”
Bond 25 is set for release on November 8, 2019. Boyle’s latest directorial project is the FX series “Trust,” which premieres on the network March 25.
