It appears that Daniel Craig feels like lightening up a bit, at least when it comes to his signature character, 007. Frosty over at at Collider has posted a nice little piece about what Craig envisions for the future of the Bond franchise. The paramount question being: will the third movie continue the current Casino Royale / Quantum of Solace story into a trilogy. Craig’s response? “No fucking way. I’m done with that story. I want to lie on a beach for the first half an hour of the next movie drinking a cocktail.” Frosty got a little more out of him on the subject, as Craig added, “We’ve finished this story as far as I’m concerned. We’ve got a great set of bad guys. There is an organization that we can use whenever we want to. The relationship between Bond and M is secure and Felix is secure. Let’s try and find where Moneypenny came from and where Q comes from. Let’s do all that and have some fun with it.”
My take on this? Mixed actually. On the one hand, I was so taken aback by the sheer awesomeness of Casino Royale that I’ve managed to put out of my head what Bond used to be: the gadgets, the give and take between Bond and Moneypenny and Bond and Q, the silly villains with the grand world domination schemes, etc. But then on the other hand, those are the things that made Bond, well…Bond. You could tell the fun Pierce Brosnan had in the scenes with Desmond Llewelyn in his first three films, and I enjoyed watching them.
Now, while Solace wasn’t the film that Royale was, it was still solid for the most part, and I’m just digging the hell out of Craig in the role. As long as he’s happy with the role and bringing his considerable A-game as 007, and as long as he has Judi Dench to keep him in check, I really don’t need much else of the old Bond formula. Nevertheless, if we are to have Moneypenny and Q back in the next film, just please let it be done right.
And to that end, a humble couple of casting suggestions as to accomplishing that:
Q – Bill Friggin’ Nighy
Oh yes.
Thanks to Clarence for the tip.