Things must be going well with the currently in production next James Bond adventure Skyfall. In a recent interview, producer Michael G. Wilson mentioned that he would be very much in favor of having franchise star Daniel Craig stick around for another five movies to be the longest-running actor to head up the franchise.
As he told The People –
Filming has gone very well so far and I’d love Daniel to surpass [former series lead] Roger [Moore]’s record and do eight pictures. Daniel’s been an absolute pleasure to be around because he takes the role so seriously. There’s really no one more passionate about making these films work than him – he’s a film maker’s dream.
Given Craig’s popularity in the role with both the public and critics, it is understandable that Wilson would like to see the actor stay with the franchise for as long as possible. And to his credit, Craig has indicated that he would like to stay on the franchise as long as he was physically able to play the role and that there continued to be interesting things for him to do as an actor with the character.
Personally, as long as things remain roughly on the level of Casino Royale, I don’t think we’ll have any problems with scripts that don’t service the Bond character rather than just have him moving through another generic adventure.
But Craig is currently 43 years old and even with a schedule of a new film every other year that would put him in his mid-50s by the time he got to do his 8th Bond adventure. I suppose an interesting film could be made with an aging Bond trying to deal with the fact that he is an older man in what should be a young man’s game, but does anyone want to see the superspy wrestle with a mid-life crisis?
