The Daniel Craig era of James Bond movies conclusively did away with the fan theory that “James Bond” is a codename and that all of the movies exist in one very complicated timeline, mostly by confirming that “James Bond” is his birth name, but then it also established a very clear delineation between that run and whatever comes next by having Craig’s Bond blow up at the end of No Time To Die. That means the people behind the Bond franchise—including longtime producer Barbara Broccoli—have to start from scratch for whatever they do next, and according to Broccoli herself, they… still haven’t even started on figuring out what that means.
This came up in an interview with The Guardian, in which Broccoli said that there’s a “big road ahead” before Bond is “reinvented for the next chapter” and that the franchise’s producers “haven’t even begun” working on it. Broccoli says the next film will have to change Bond in a way to reflect the way the world has changed in the many years since Casino Royale, but—taken with the reveal that they’ve haven’t started working on what’s next—that’s about as meaningful as saying that you’re going to develop a new jigsaw puzzle strategy before you’ve even considered going to the puzzle store to look at their puzzle selection.
Still, Broccoli’s confidence in the Bond team’s ability to come up with something comes from experience: She noted in the Guardian interview that the franchise was in a similar place before GoldenEye came out because the Cold War had ended and there was “no need for Bond” since the world was at “peace” and there were “no villains” anymore (which, she noted, wasn’t really true).
This also means that, other than the fact that it won’t be Idris Elba, any other rumors about who might be the new Bond are (probably) totally false—unless it does end up being the winner of Amazon’s 007: Road To A Million reality competition show. Speaking of Amazon, despite the owner of Prime Video now controlling the franchise, Broccoli did note that the franchise’s producers insist on making “feature films” for “the big theatrical screen.” So that’s good.
