Production was slated to begin on the next James Bond film, which for now, only exists under the working title "Bond 24," this October. But that was before the film was hit with a series of delays, and now filming has been pushed back to December 2014.
The Daily Mail published a report recently, citing script problems as the reason for "Bond 24's" two-month pushback. "Skyfall," the most recent Bond film, was written by John Logan, and not regular James Bond writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade.
Only, now the executives at Sony want the franchise to be funnier, and less gritty and straightforward (like "Skyfall" was), and so they have removed Logan from the project, and reinstated Purvis and Wade as the official "Bond 24" screenwriters.
The pair have written five Bond films so far, with "Bond 24" to be their sixth.
Purvis and Wade will be cutting back on "Skyfall's" grim seriousness, and will be adding more of the gags that were prominent in older films, when Pierce Brosnan or Sean Connery played the iconic secret agent. Reportedly, many of these gags will be between Daniel Craig's James Bond and Naomie Harris' Miss Moneypenny, who have typically held a fun, flirtatious relationship in past films.
That James Bond has been too serious is a common complaint. In an interview with The Radio Times, John Cleese, who played Q in Pierce Brosnan's last Bond film, "Die Another Day," called out the series for the same issue. According to Cleese, the recent Bond films are "gritty and humorless," and "the action sequences go on for too long."
Daniel Craig himself also mentioned to Vulture that "hopefully we'll reclaim some of the old irony" in later films.
In other Bond news, Daniel Radcliffe recently spoke about the franchise. The "Harry Potter" actor mentioned that while his relatively short height might keep him from ever playing Bond himself, he'd be extremely interested in taking on the role of a Bond villain.
What do you think? Can you see Radcliffe taking on Daniel Craig's Bond? Or would Radcliffe be better suited to a different franchise?
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