The Dunkirk director has long been a fan favourite to helm a James Bond film, but could such a reality be coming sooner rather than later? Last week, Variety reported that Nolan’s mysterious next movie will release on July 17, 2020 in IMAX. Now considering in recent years that the director makes a movie every three (Interstellar in 2014, Dunkirk in 2017 and his new movie in 2020), his next project after that will presumably come out around 2023. As it stands Craig’s fifth and final Bond movie is set for release on February 14, 2020 and there’s no way there would be a Bond 26 until at least 2023 considering how infrequent 007 movies are.
Now Bond 26 is set to be a reboot for the franchise with a new actor, like Craig’s Casino Royale in 2006 which arrived four years after Pierce Brosnan’s last bout as Bond in Die Another Day.
And Nolan has previously said that he is keen to direct a reinvention of Bond.
He told Playboy last year: “Maybe one day that would work out. You’d have to be needed if you know what I mean. It has to need reinvention; it has to need you.”
While telling Desert Island Discs: “I’d love to make a Bond film at some point and I think those producers – Barbara and Michael – they do a tremendous job and Sam Mendes has done a terrific job the last couple of films, so they don’t particularly need me. But I’ve always been inspired by the films and would love to do one someday.”
Meanwhile, an anonymous Reddit user, who should be taken with a pinch of salt, claiming to have film industry links wrote: “I work in the film industry and know people tangentially connected to the world of Bond. [The Bond producers] met with numerous top-flight directors for their take.
“Chris Nolan was said to have met with Eon and there’s a good chance that whatever they spoke about could become Bond 26.”
Now considering Nolan said it would have to be a “reinvention” (i.e. a reboot) and the fact that he’ll no doubt want to make another film around 2023, it looks very possible that he’ll be given the Bond 26 directing job.
So what would a Nolan Bond look like? Well, what we’d like to see is a period set 007, in the 1950s of the Ian Fleming’s novels.
Set between May 1951 and February 1964, the books cover a period that has been largely untouched by the films.
Making Bond a period piece would revitalise the classic image of the character as originally portrayed, something no doubt a director as talented as Nolan could pull off.
James Bond 25 will be released in UK cinemas on February 14 2020.