Bond 25-Daniel Craig Steps Down As Bond
 

Despite constant on/off statements as down to the wire as yesterday, Daniel Craig confirmed on Stephen Colbert's Late Show that the next Bond movie will be his swansong as the iconic spy.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/articl...mes-bond-again

Best Bond wants to go out on a high note. :tlove:

I wouldn't want to end my Bond career with Spectre either.

I'm just glad this finally ends the will he/won't he articles on him returning. I need to focus on more important things like is Affleck going to be Batman in the Matt Reeves movie.

Cool, I like him as Bond, but I thought he hated doing it. Like, vehemently.

I like him a lot, but he copped a major tude after Skyfall. I get payed an order of magnitude less than that mofo, but I still have to pretend I like my job, at least enough to be civil about it.

I liked SPECTRE just fine on paper. Terrible execution. I just hope it doesn't scare away future Bond filmmakers from continuing to use Blofeld and SPECTRE.

The only thing that surprises me is that it was up in the air this long. Daniel Craig's clearly wanted out. Regardless, five Bond films is a respectable number and around average for someone in the role.

Most do, it seems. Sean Connery hated the character. I think Pierce Brosnan was fine with the role, but I remember he admitted once he was never a hundred percent comfortable with it. Roger Moore might have liked it? I don't remember. I know he was uncomfortable with continuing to play Bond as he got older. Craig kind of fits in, in that regard.

He not only hated the character, he hated the Brocolis too.

Perhaps the next one after can feature Jamie Bond, and reveal M (Ralph Fiennes) to be gay?

All of this news is fairly meangingless. Every Bond movie has been Daniel Craig's last one until it isn't. Filming a Bond movie is a pretty life-sucking thing, and then at the end of the day to have it not be received so well (SPECTRE) is probably pretty disheartening after sacrificing so much for it. If the next movie is super well received like Skyfall, he'll probably stay around.

Eh. Why not. Might as well confirm the "James Bond is a codename" thing while they're at it. They've wanted to do that since Brosnan anyway.

That's all very true, but he's definitely reached that point where most Bonds either tap out or are pushed out. It's mainly a matter of when "the last straw" was and if whatever helped him make this decision was it. They're also a super involved process where you really can't do much between films, not to mention he's been wrapped up in them for eleven years, now, probably somewhere near fifteen by the time this film happens. Only Roger Moore has been with the character longer, as of this time.

Yeah, dude was done with everything involving Bond by the end.

He came back to voice James Bond on one of the original X-Box era Bond games. It's like the last thing he's done as an actor, ever.

Oh yeah, a "Russia With Love" game. I remember that now. I guess a couple decades can dull the edge. Plus I doubt it was nearly as involved a process as a Bond movie, so I imagine it would have made for a much simpler paycheck.

I want to believe it was like Shatner with Kirk. Eventually just... warmed up to it and embraced it in his older age.

Nimoy and Spock too, going with the Star Trek example; though I don't recall Nimoy being as cranky about it as Shatner got at times. It could be. Connery doesn't talk much in the public eye these days, right? I haven't seen anyone ask if his feelings have changed, or heard much about him in years.

Though James Bond was such a taboo topic with him for so long, people might just avoid it instinctively now.

People talk about that idea as though it makes sense out of Bond's continuity, but it is just as messy and contradictory as assuming he's the same guy. You have to write off references to his dead wife, his family lore, peerage, military record etc. Granted, It doesn't make less sense than a 40 year old man who's been on active service since the 1960s, but it's not as elegant a solution as internet listicles would have us believe.

I do think the Craig reboot thing was a mistake, though. Bond had a certain charm in being this ageless thing... same character, different actors, continuing history, even if certain real world dates and events make older ones less possible to happen to a guy in the present day that's under the age of 80. It was fine. If they wanted to dial back the gadgets for a few movies or even tell a "younger Bond" movie or two, that would have fine, too... junking the history because the Brocollis were self conscious about Austin Powers and Jason Bourne wasn't.

I hope the next Bond is allowed to be fun. Austin Powers is a comedy, and it's been over a decade since it was released, so it shouldn't be able to dictate the tone of upcoming Bond movies. Even Mission Impossible learned to have fun with RN. Gritty Bond is honestly boring, and when you play it too "realistic" you end up with sh*t like SPECTRE where it almost becomes a parody of itself.

Yeah, I would prefer they just don't acknowledge time at all and just keep making more-or-less standalone movies about the same character. The worst thing they did was to reference 9/11 in Die Another Day. I know why they did it, but it's hard to come back from that. Now he's in the real world at a specific time and place.

The Austin Powers thing is funny. They were so worried about comparisons to Austin Powers and then give Spectre the same plot twist as Goldmember.

Same. I've enjoyed the Craig era, but it got a little too "real", I guess, and took too many cues from what everything else was doing in the genre. I miss the wackiness, the gadgets and the like.

I guess, but I don't think it's any worse a solution than what they did, which did get kind of silly the longer it went on. But at the same time, it's a moot point, because they rebooted with Craig anyway and, for all we know, may soft reboot again.

They made the reboot sort of confusing at times too though. Judy Dench was M again, so it’s almost like they were hedging their bets to pull that codename stunt, but still have it in Eon continuity if they wanted to, but then they gave Daniel Craig the OG Bond’s backstory and introduced a rebooted Blofeld. Plus the DB5 show up in Skyfall, which I though was just a funny little reference at first, but then they used it pretty extensively in the last act; goofball gadgets and all.