So as we all know, The Dark Knight Rises is going to be the last in the modern Batman series with Christian Bale starring, and Christopher Nolan directing.
Bale’s already got acting gigs lined up, after all, The Dark Knight Rises is ready to go for its July 20 opening. What’s Christopher Nolan going to do for an encore? Where do you go after the heights of Batman?
Well, maybe James Bond. This year marks the fiftieth anniversary the famous secret agent made his big screen debut in Dr. No. As Tom Mankeiwicz, who wrote most of the ‘70s Bond films and did major work on Superman I and II, recalls his in memoirs, My Life As a Mankiewicz, “Bond was the only real movie event… There was no Raiders yet, no Superman, no Lethal Weapons, no Star Wars, no anything. The world waited for one Bond movie to come out every eighteen months or so.”
And with the Bond series reinventing itself with Casino Royale, and the next installment, Skyfall, headed to theaters this November, 007 is hotter than ever.
Now initially I was gonna just blow off Nolan wanting to make a Bond as an Internet rumor based on something said out of context, or something said third hand, but then reports surfaced that Nolan is indeed “serious” about potentially helming a 007 film.
As Collider tells us, Nolan was going to do a movie about Howard Hughes at one point, and he may go back to it one day, but as he told Empire, he “managed to find another wealthy, quirky character who’s orphaned at a young age.”
But Nolan added, if it’s going to happen, “It would have the be the right situation and the right time in their cycle of things.” And with Batman coming to an end, and certainly another James Bond to come after Skyfall, the timing could be right pretty soon if it all comes together.
Just like many of us dream of being a spy, I believe a lot of filmmakers dream of making a Bond film as well.
Steven Spielberg wanted to direct one early in his career, and Quentin Tarantino also make his own version of Casino Royale a long time ago as well. It certainly would have been interesting to see what both the Big Spiel and Tarantino would have done with Bond, and it will be interesting to see what Nolan could do with it as well.
