After much speculation, director Sam Mendes has been officially confirmed for Bond 24.
Following on from the success of Skyfall, the highest-grossing film in the franchise, Mendes is returning to helm his second Bond flick, which is scheduled for release on 23 October 2015. Daniel Craig will return to star.
It’s yet another ENORMOUS film in the 2015 line-up, with The Avengers 2, Star Wars: Episode VII, Terminator 5, Ant-Man, The Hunger Games: MockingjayPart 2 and Finding Dory among the titles hitting multiplexes.
Mendes said in a statement, "I am very pleased that by giving me the time I need to honour all my theatre commitments, the producers have made it possible for me to direct Bond 24. I very much look forward to taking up the reins again, and to working with Daniel Craig, Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli for a second time.”
Producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli added, “"Following the extraordinary success of Skyfall, we're really excited to be working once again with Daniel Craig, Sam Mendes and John Logan.”
We’re chuffed to see Mendes return, as in Skyfall he managed to celebrate Bond’s defining traits while bringing the franchise bang up to date.
Bond 24 is set to open in the UK on 23 October 2015, before opening in the US on 6 November 2015.
2015 is still a ways off, but it's great to have a director confirmation and planned release date. I know time is no guarantee of quality, but hopefully the extra year makes it so in this case.
Having Sam Mendes back again basically confirms Thomas Newman for Bond 24. For Skyfall, I disagreed with Newman's treatment of the James Bond theme in a couple places...like the (unintentionally?) cheesy statement during the arrival of the helicopters at the island, and overall I've greatly preferred Arnold's work on the Bond films. But Skyfall's score has grown on me a bit as I'd hoped it might. I think Newman's strongest material came from the Shanghai/Macau segment of the film: Brave New World, Shanghai Drive, Jellyfish, Modigliani, Komodo Dragon, Severine, The Chimera. This was also, in my opinion, the strongest and most traditionally Bond-like portion of the film itself.
I'm curious as to how Newman might evolve his Bond style for a second film with new locations and a new story. I could recognize quite a bit of Newman's own unique style in Skyfall (particularly in tracks like Enjoying Death and Day Wasted) and don't think his musical voice is all that well suited to the world of Bond. But I would welcome more score from him of the quality of those Shanghai/Macau tracks I listed above. I'm also interested to see if the filmmakers bring Quantum back (which I think is likely) and whether Newman might incorporate Arnold's Vesper or Quantum themes if that's the case.
Whatever happens, it's great to know James Bond will return, and so will more James Bond music!
Wonder if Mendes will manage to make an even more boring and nonsensical movie than Skyfall?
At least Judi Dench wont be in it.
Despite the huge amounts of praise heaped upon Skyfall by the critics, the general audiences, and the online fan community, I'm afraid I share your sentiments. I could go into it in length, but I guess "boring and nonsensical" more or less sums up my thoughts on the film just as well. I felt like pulling an Alan Partridge in the theater and yelling, "Stop getting Bond wrong!" I'm not sure why Quantum of Solace, which was a much tighter, slicker, and more effectively character-driven film, got slammed so hard in retrospect.
But I'm trying to remain openminded and optimistic about Bond 24. Hopefully Mendes got some things out of his system with Skyfall (overblown homages, overuse of M, parental issues, whatever else) and will be prepared to deliver a grander, more traditional Bond picture this time around. I'm also hoping that with John Logan starting out solo on the script from the get-go, the story will be more solid. And at the very least we should be getting Deakins back, too.
And yes, I am so stoked about the idea of Ralph Fiennes as M. That's the best thing to happen to the franchise since Daniel Craig was cast. Not that I didn't like Judi Dench in the part, Brosnan-era anyway, but Fiennes really harkens back to Bernard Lee's old admiral of the 60s and 70s. There should be some great interplay between Fiennes and Craig ahead.
It would be nice if the composer for Bond 24 would make more use of the title song than in Skyfall. Sure, it's an old technique, but having gone through all the Barry scores, I found it went a long way to keeping each of his scores sounding fresh while still remaining within the Bond sound. There were bits of the Skyfall song in that film, but I wonder if it could have been successfully made a more prominent part of the score. Even if the next song doesn't blow anyone away, Barry showed us how just about any title song could be used in a versatile way to accompany all kinds of situations in the film.
I loved Newman's score to Skyfall. Can't wait to hear his next iteration.
"Iteration" is the right expression. Again endless iterations of chunks of the Bond-theme which constituted his whole Skyfall-score?
boring and nonsensical
That´s right - only this time I have been warned. "Bond 24" will certainly be a film I WILL NOT see in 2015. I expect that there will be quite a number of people who saw Skyfall who will be absent from the next Bond, which will therefore most likely NOT be the next " highest-grossing film in the franchise"...
I'm not sure why Quantum of Solace, which was a much tighter, slicker, and more effectively character-driven film, got slammed so hard in retrospect.
