They may not know yet when they’ll be rolling cameras, but we know who will be yelling “Action!” on the next James Bond adventure.
American Beauty and Revolutionary Road director Sam Mendes is currently in negotiations to direct the next installment in the long running James Bond franchise. It looks as if Eon Productions, the franchise’s producers, is hedging their bets in their waiting game over the sale of the films’ distributor MGM.
Mendes is known more for his films that place an emphasis on drama, though his 2005 film Jarhead, which was set in the US war in Kuwait, did contain some well done action sequences. As the rebooted Bond franchise has taken steps to include a previously little seen emphasis on strong characterization, Mendes’s participation suggests that the next film, as yet untitled, will continue with that.
While Eon Productions has stated that they are making no concrete production plans until MGM’s financial problems are resolved, the Hollywood Reporter is stating that the company is gearing up for a June shooting schedule in order to meet its projected late 2011 release. Writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade have turned in a script which Frost/Nixon scripter Peter Morgan is revising.
