Bond is back! Well, he will be...

Picture: Twitter/007

We have known for some time that the next Bond film in the official canon will be the 25th, mostly because the last, Spectre, was the 24th, and also because Eon Productions had been cleverly trailing the hashtag #Bond25 ahead of today’s somewhat slick streamed “reveal” from Goldeneye, the Jamaican house where James Bond came to literary life at the typewriter of Ian Fleming.

In truth, today's event didn’t actually reveal all that much that wasn’t already known or strongly rumoured: Daniel Craig will return for the fifth and final time as 007, Ralph Fiennes will be back as M, Ben Whishaw will again play Q and Naomie Harris will return as Moneypenny. All solid bets there and little different to the days when Bernard Lee, Desmond Llewellyn and Lois Maxwell played, M, Q and Moneypenny against successive Bonds. Perhaps a little surprising, though understandably with no plot-revealing context to explain, is that Léa Seydoux will return as Dr Madeleine Swann, Bond’s love interest in his last outing.

Picture: YouTube

With the principal cast assembled with director Cary Joji Fukunaga at Goldeneye, little was being given away about the plot, beyond co-producer Barbara Broccoli saying that: "Bond is not on active service when we start the film, he is enjoying himself in Jamaica, [which] we consider [to be] Bond's spiritual home. We have built an extraordinary house for him, he starts his journey here. There is quite a ride in store for Mr Bond." Beyond that, and the fact filming would be done in Jamaica, Norway, Italy, London and Pinewood Studios, there was nothing more forthcoming. There wasn't even a reference to the rumoured title of "Shatterhand".

In the past, Bond productions have been signalled with a press event at Pinewood, but today's streamed event, fronted by Radio 1 DJ Clara Amfo, had a makeshift feel about it, which will not do much to settle Bond fans' anxiety about a delayed film and a script that has only recently had scribbler-du jour Phoebe Waller-Bridge of Fleabag fame added to the writing team. The only additional details we could glean is that Rami Malek, fresh from winning an Oscar for playing Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody, will also appear, presumably as a baddie since he appeared on video during the reveal declaring that he "won't give Mr Bond an easy ride".

Picture: YouTube

Although the reveal, taking place today, April 25, was clearly a clever wheeze by the Bond PR team (“Bond 25, the 25th - geddit?”), the exercise was much needed. After director Danny Boyle walked away from the project, and Fukunaga was appointed some time later, producers Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson have had to mount some spin control as an information vacuum has developed. Bond films have, in recent years, been released in November ahead of the Christmas season, but with principle photography only just starting, it’s a safe bet that the pledge today of 25 appearing “early next year” will be closer to Easter 2020. All seemed calm today, but Broccoli and Wilson know that the stakes are high for a film that could have even been out before last Christmas, had Craig been tied down to committing to it sooner, and the directorial situation not become so messy under Boyle (with reported differences of opinion over plot direction including Bond being killed off).

Much has been made of the fact that it will be almost five years between Spectre and 25, with Daniel Craig passing his 50th birthday in that time. Looking lean and buff today during the reveal, his age shouldn’t be a issue for the new film, but given that Bond should, ideally, be played by an actor in his mid-30s, the idea of Craig bowing out with this film is probably the right one, shame as it would be, seeing as he has, against expectations, been an excellent 007.

Picture: YouTube

But if the weight of expectation is heavy on Craig’s shoulders, it’s nothing compared with that weighing on Fukunaga and now-veteran Bond writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, who are joined by Scott Z. Burns and Waller-Bridge to deliver the script. You don’t stretch the world’s longest running film franchise to 25 movies without raising the stakes of failure. By and large the Bond canon has been of a high quality (Octopussy not withstanding), and the introduction of a grittier approach with Craig has ensured that his four so far are right up there with the best of those by Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan. Connery, in particular, is still regarded as the benchmark: I recently rewatched Goldfinger and From Russia With Love and, despite being the second and third oldest, respectively, they still held up extremely well. But don’t discount Lazenby’s sole outing, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, or Dalton’s brace, all of which took the Bond character closer to Fleming’s literary ideal. Craig may be short(ish), blond and blue-eyed, but he has carried off Bond as a steelier individual than Brosnan’s exquisitely suited smoothie, perfect for an age when Matt Damon’s younger Jason Bourne started to show old Bond a few new tricks.

Overall, though, and despite the pre-production turbulence surrounding Bond 25, Broccoli and Wilson, know what they’re doing and have been doing it a long time. The appointment of Sam Mendes to direct Skyfall and Spectre was a masterstroke that paid off with two gripping, well executed, quintessential Bond films that carried a noirish air about them. Fukunaga has a lot to live up to, and the quality threshold surrounding him is exacting. He has the right cast ingredients, let's hope Wade and Purves’ script, with Waller-Bridge’s help, supports them, and Daniel Craig can leave Bond behind next year in a high. I, for one, can’t wait.