Cary Joji Fukunaga to direct Bond 25 with a scheduled release of February 2020

Another new direction for Bond

The Bond folks have plucked another indie darling to helm their blockbuster franchise as they announced that Cary Joji Fukunaga has agreed to direct the 25th film in the series. This all comes after Danny Boyle left because his vision for the movie was drastically different from the producer’s. Now the movie can get back underway, with shooting starting in March of 2019 and a release date of February 2020. 

That release date goes to show how much they want to get this out the door. It’s a pretty quick turn around, which doesn’t put them too far away from the original 2019 release date, but does remove Bond from the blockbuster season. The franchise usually anchors either summer or holidays, and February is more of a traditional dumping month for second-tier films. Then again, Black Panther. 

As for Fukunaga as a director, it will be interesting to see how he can handle the jump to major film. His Beasts of No Nations and work on True Detective was extremely well received and Netflix’s Maniac looks great too, but as we’ve seen time and again indy directors can get overwhelmed when handed the reigns of a big budget movie. Sometimes it works, like with Sam Mendes’ two Bond films, but sometimes it doesn’t… like really doesn’t. I still wish they’d been able to land Denis Villenueve, but he was too busy directing Dune.

‘Bond 25’ Gets Cary Joji Fukunaga As New Director For 007 Daniel Craig [Deadline]