Anthony Horowitz has written enough about James Bond to know a little about the 60-year-old spy franchise, and he has some thoughts about how Daniel Craig’s time as the iconic MI6 agent came to a tragic end in No Time to Die. While we all know that Bond will be returning with a new face, a new team thanks to Amazon MGM Studios’ outright purchase of the franchise, and plenty of new stories to tell, Horowitz believes that the previous incarnation’s death was ultimately a mistake.
No Time to Die was always going to be Daniel Craig’s swansong as the legendary spy, but few could have predicted that it would also have a unique place in cinema history as the first movie to actually kill off James Bond. Even as his demise approached, fans believed that there would be one last trick he could pull to make a daring, 11th hour escape from the inevitable, but it was not to be and director Cary Fukunaga stuck to his guns and killed off the seemingly unstoppable James Bond. As Horowitz told Radio Times, this was not something he believes should have happened. He said:
“The last time we saw Bond (in 2021’s No Time to Die) he was poisoned and blown to smithereens – how will they get past the fact he is dead with a capital D? I think that was a mistake, because Bond is a legend. He belongs to everybody, he is eternal – except in that film. If I was asked tomorrow to write the script, I wouldn’t be able to do it. Where would you start? You can’t have him waking up in the shower and saying it was all a dream.”
Does James Bond’s Death Cause a Problem for His Future?
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
The death of a fictional character is usually the end of the road for them, with no way back unless writers resort to some kind of retcon or “it was a dream” trickery. However, when it comes to the James Bond franchise, the death of 007 is far from final, as the character is essentially rebooted every time a new actor takes over the role.
This was certainly true of Daniel Craig’s era of movies. Casino Royale was a rebirth of Bond as a tough, no-nonsense action hero after the pun-laden years of Pierce Brosnan. Not only did the movie end with Craig’s Bond finally declaring the classic “Bond, James Bond” line, but also set up a brand new world – even if it did still have Dame Judi Dench in the role of M, retaining that strange continuous thread of the franchise around the other MI6 staff members (remember how many years and how many Bond actors the original Moneypenny and M actors appeared alongside).
Craig’s movies also reintroduced a new version of Blofeld (Christoph Waltz) after the character previously appeared as the arch-enemy of Sean Connery’s Bond, meaning that there are really no rules when it comes to the next iteration of the character. James Bond will return in his new form in the coming years, and this will be a completely new take on the character once again. His death in No Time to Die simply stands as the closing of the chapter of Daniel Craig’s iteration of the character, and, as it turns out, the first 60 years for the James Bond franchise.
Release Date
October 8, 2021
Runtime
163 Minutes
Director
Cary Joji Fukunaga