Bidding War Ends- Bond 25 Lands at Universal Pictures

Looks like at long last the hotly contested international distribution rights for the 25th film in the Bond, James Bond franchise have landed at Universal Pictures. Annapurna will be distributing stateside along with MGM.

We knew already that Danny Boyle was already in the hot seat to direct the picture, and that Daniel Craig will be returning to the MI6 agent role with a license to kill for the film.  This will be his 5th time Craig has played Bond, putting him into third place for the most times in the role. Sean Connery and Roger Moore are both tied with 7.

It seems like a fairly short lead-up into production, cameras are going to start rolling on December 3rd of 2018, with opening day in the UK set for October 25th, 2019. It won’t hit US theaters until November 9th. That short amount of time to film and edit is still mind boggling to me, even though I know that’s sort of part and parcel now.

The previous Bond distributor Sony ended their hold on the franchise back in 2015 with Spectre, which was Craig’s fourth time as the British secret agent. The film saw a return of one of the most notorious crime syndicates in film franchise history.

Boyle, who’s work on Transpotting 2 in 2016 lauded hefty critical acclaim was on the short list of possible directors for Bond 25 which also included names like Christopher Nolan, Yann Demange, Denis Villenueve, and David Mackenzie. There was also a rumor for a time that Susanne Bier (The Night Manager) might be the first female director in the 25-film history of the franchise.

John Hodge, Boyle’s screenwriting partner on Trainspotting, will be co-writing the script.