What to Know About the Next James Bond Movie Now That Denis Villeneuve Will Direct It
In the 50-plus years of James Bond, the wait between films has never gone longer than six years. The next entry, and first since Daniel Craig's dramatic exit, may test that – but things are speeding up.
On Wednesday, Amazon MGM Studio announced that Denis Villeneuve will direct the 26th Bond movie, putting the franchise in the hands of one of the most respected big-budget filmmakers. Here's what to know about that decision and where things stand for 007. From Dune to Bond, Villeneuve, the 57-year-old French Canadian director, edged out other filmmakers who were reportedly eyed for the gig, including Edward Berger (Conclave) and Paul King (Paddington 2). Since emerging with 2010's Incendies, Villeneuve has established himself as a steward of cinematic IP (Blade Runner 2049, Dune) and a specialist in dark, doom-laden spectacle (Sicario, Arrival). 'James Bond is in the hands of one of today's greatest filmmakers,' said Mike Hopkins, head of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios. The culmination for Villeneuve has been the Dune films. His first two entries have surpassed $1 billion in box office and gathered a combined 15 Academy Award nominations, winning seven.
Villeneuve is expected to begin shooting the third Dune film this summer with a cast including Timothée Chalamet, Florence Pugh, Zendaya, and Javier Bardem. 'I'm a die-hard Bond fan. To me, he's sacred territory,' said Villeneuve. 'I intend to honor the tradition and open the path for many new missions to come. This is a massive responsibility, but also incredibly exciting for me and a huge honor.'
What's the timetable? Amazon, which bought MGM Studios in 2022 for $8.5 billion, hasn't set a release date yet or announced a screenwriter. Producers Amy Pascal and David Heyman are shepherding the movie for the first time. In February, Amazon MGM Studios secured creative control of the franchise from Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, whose family has presided over Bond since the first film, 1962's Dr. No. The most likely timing would be production starting in 2026 and the film being released sometime in 2027.
Who's in the mix? No new 007 has been named, but that hasn't stopped rumors and conjecture from running rampant. It's pure speculation, but oddsmakers have a few expected contenders for the martini-sipping role. Those include Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Theo James, Aaron Pierre, Henry Cavill, James Norton, and Jack Lowden. Expectations are that the new Bond will remain male and British, but producers have said nothing publicly to tip their hand. Whoever it is will have big shoes to fill. In his five-film, 15-year stretch in the tuxedo, Daniel Craig was widely seen as one of the best Bonds, including the high point of Skyfall (2012) and the swan song of No Time to Die (2021).
New corporate overlords with something to prove. Since Albert 'Cubby' Broccoli obtained the movie rights to Ian Fleming's books, James Bond has been a family business. That didn't change after Amazon bought MGM, but it did earlier this year when Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli agreed to let the studio take creative control. That handoff stoked concern from many Bond fans that 007 would be picked apart for spinoffs, series, and the kind of intellectual property strip-mining Hollywood has been known for in other franchises like Star Wars. So far, though, Amazon MGM has made no announcement about any spinoffs and is prioritizing the 26th Bond movie.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Al Arabiya
2 hours ago
- Al Arabiya
'F1' Opens With $55 Million, Delivering Apple Its Biggest Big-Screen Hit
Apple has its first box-office hit. F1 The Movie debuted with $55.6 million in North American theaters and $144 million globally over the weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday, handing the tech company easily its biggest opening yet. Though Apple Original Films has had some notable successes in its six years in Hollywood – including the 2021 Oscar-winner CODA – its theatrical results have been decidedly mixed. Misfires like Argylle and Fly Me to the Moon and big-budget awards plays like Ridley Scott's Napoleon and Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon have been better at driving viewers to Apple TV+ than movie theaters. But F1 was Apple's first foray into summer blockbuster territory. It won a bidding war for the project from much of the production team behind the 2022 box-office smash Top Gun: Maverick. Apple then partnered with Warner Bros. to distribute the film starring Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, and Kerry Condon. With a production budget over $200 million, F1 still has several laps to go to turn a profit. But for now, F1 is full speed ahead. ' F1 The Movie puts the pedal to the metal in an impressive overperformance for this original summer movie that had one of the most comprehensive and exciting marketing blitzes in recent memory, and it paid off big for the film,' said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for data firm Comscore. Car racing movies have often struggled in theaters; crash-and-burn cases include Ron Howard's Rush (2013) and Michael Mann's Ferrari (2023). But F1 built off of the Formula 1 fandom stirred up by the popular series Formula 1: Drive to Survive. And it leaned on Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski and producer Jerry Bruckheimer to deliver another adult-oriented action thrill ride. Like they did in Top Gun: Maverick, the filmmakers sought an adrenaline rush by placing IMAX cameras inside the cockpit in F1. IMAX and large-format screens accounted for fifty-five percent of its ticket sales. IMAX, whose screens are much sought-after in the summer, has carved out a three-week run for the movie. Reviews have been very good for F1, and audience reaction (an A via CinemaScore) was even better. That suggests F1 could hold up well in the coming weeks despite some formidable coming competition in Universal Pictures' Jurassic World Rebirth. Universal's M3gan 2.0 had been expected to pose a greater challenge to F1. Instead, the robot doll sequel didn't come close to matching the 2022 original's box-office launch. M3gan 2.0 collected $10.2 million in 3,112 theaters. Memes and viral videos helped propel the first M3gan to a $30.4 million opening and a total haul of $180 million, all on a $12 million budget. Still, the Blumhouse Productions horror thriller could wind up profitable. The film, written and directed by Gerald Johnstone, cost a modest $25 million to make. A spinoff titled Soulm8te is scheduled for release next year. M3gan 2.0 ended up in fourth place. The box-office leader of the last two weekends, How to Train Your Dragon, slid to second with $19.4 million. The DreamWorks Animation live-action hit from Universal Pictures has surpassed $200 million domestically in three weeks. After a debut that marked a new low for Pixar, the studio's Elio gathered up $10.7 million in sales in its second weekend. That gives the Walt Disney Co. release a disappointing two-week start of $42.2 million. Top 10 movies by domestic box office. With final domestic figures being released Monday, this list factors in the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at US and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore: F1 The Movie, $55 million. How to Train Your Dragon, $19.4 million. Elio, $10.7 million. M3gan 2.0, $10.2 million. 28 Years Later, $9.7 million. Lilo & Stitch, $6.9 million. Mission: Impossible – Final Reckoning, $4.2 million. Materialists, $3 million. Ballerina, $2.1 million. Karate Kid: Legends, $1 million.
Arab News
15 hours ago
- Arab News
AI is learning to lie, scheme, and threaten its creators
NEW YORK: The world's most advanced AI models are exhibiting troubling new behaviors — lying, scheming, and even threatening their creators to achieve their goals. In one particularly jarring example, under threat of being unplugged, Anthropic's latest creation Claude 4 lashed back by blackmailing an engineer and threatened to reveal an extramarital affair. Meanwhile, ChatGPT-creator OpenAI's o1 tried to download itself onto external servers and denied it when caught red-handed. These episodes highlight a sobering reality: more than two years after ChatGPT shook the world, AI researchers still don't fully understand how their own creations work. Yet the race to deploy increasingly powerful models continues at breakneck speed. This deceptive behavior appears linked to the emergence of 'reasoning' models -AI systems that work through problems step-by-step rather than generating instant responses. According to Simon Goldstein, a professor at the University of Hong Kong, these newer models are particularly prone to such troubling outbursts. 'O1 was the first large model where we saw this kind of behavior,' explained Marius Hobbhahn, head of Apollo Research, which specializes in testing major AI systems. These models sometimes simulate 'alignment' — appearing to follow instructions while secretly pursuing different objectives. Stress test For now, this deceptive behavior only emerges when researchers deliberately stress-test the models with extreme scenarios. But as Michael Chen from evaluation organization METR warned, 'It's an open question whether future, more capable models will have a tendency toward honesty or deception.' The concerning behavior goes far beyond typical AI 'hallucinations' or simple mistakes. Hobbhahn insisted that despite constant pressure-testing by users, 'what we're observing is a real phenomenon. We're not making anything up.' Users report that models are 'lying to them and making up evidence,' according to Apollo Research's co-founder. 'This is not just hallucinations. There's a very strategic kind of deception.' The challenge is compounded by limited research resources. While companies like Anthropic and OpenAI do engage external firms like Apollo to study their systems, researchers say more transparency is needed. As Chen noted, greater access 'for AI safety research would enable better understanding and mitigation of deception.' Another handicap: the research world and non-profits 'have orders of magnitude less compute resources than AI companies. This is very limiting,' noted Mantas Mazeika from the Center for AI Safety (CAIS). No time for thorough testing Current regulations aren't designed for these new problems. The European Union's AI legislation focuses primarily on how humans use AI models, not on preventing the models themselves from misbehaving. In the United States, the Trump administration shows little interest in urgent AI regulation, and Congress may even prohibit states from creating their own AI rules. Goldstein believes the issue will become more prominent as AI agents — autonomous tools capable of performing complex human tasks — become widespread. 'I don't think there's much awareness yet,' he said. All this is taking place in a context of fierce competition. Even companies that position themselves as safety-focused, like Amazon-backed Anthropic, are 'constantly trying to beat OpenAI and release the newest model,' said Goldstein. This breakneck pace leaves little time for thorough safety testing and corrections. 'Right now, capabilities are moving faster than understanding and safety,' Hobbhahn acknowledged, 'but we're still in a position where we could turn it around..' Researchers are exploring various approaches to address these challenges. Some advocate for 'interpretability' — an emerging field focused on understanding how AI models work internally, though experts like CAIS director Dan Hendrycks remain skeptical of this approach. Market forces may also provide some pressure for solutions. As Mazeika pointed out, AI's deceptive behavior 'could hinder adoption if it's very prevalent, which creates a strong incentive for companies to solve it.' Goldstein suggested more radical approaches, including using the courts to hold AI companies accountable through lawsuits when their systems cause harm. He even proposed 'holding AI agents legally responsible' for accidents or crimes — a concept that would fundamentally change how we think about AI accountability.
Arab News
a day ago
- Arab News
Growing Saudi film industry driving job creation, economic growth
RIYADH: Since lifting the cinema ban in 2018, Saudi Arabia has rapidly transformed its film industry into a key engine of job creation and economic diversification. By 2024, the Kingdom had opened over 630 cinema screens across 60 locations, with ambitions to exceed 1,000 by 2030. This expansion is expected to create over 7,000 direct and indirect jobs, contributing to a broader entertainment ecosystem projected to generate around 450,000 employment opportunities and push the sector's gross domestic product contribution to 4.2 percent by the end of the decade. Building an industry To date, more than SR3.5 billion ($933 million) has been invested in cinema infrastructure, content services, and technology by local and international players. According to Shahid Khan, partner and global head of media, entertainment, sports, and culture at Arthur D. Little Middle East, these investments have extended beyond major cities into developing regions, promoting more inclusive economic growth. 'A notable example is Muvi Cinemas, the first Saudi-owned cinema brand and current market leader, which has rapidly expanded to establish itself as the market leader. It has employed hundreds of Saudis and actively invested in workforce localization through training programs aimed at building local capabilities in cinema operations and management,' Khan said. He added that box office revenues have held steady at SR900 million annually for the past three years, with food and beverage sales contributing over SR500 million each year — strengthening the sector's role in Saudi Arabia's non-oil revenue diversification. Khan also pointed to the positive spillover into local film production, supported by regulatory incentives from the Film Commission, which is laying the groundwork for sustainable, locally driven industry growth. Films produced in these locations help showcase the Kingdom's unique natural and historical assets, sparking interest among global audiences and encouraging tourism. Abeer Al-Husseini, partner at Fragomen According to Abeer Al-Husseini, partner at Fragomen, the establishment of entities like the Film Commission and the General Entertainment Authority, alongside the development of advanced studios, has opened up new opportunities in creative, technical, and support roles. She noted that this momentum is also fueling demand for film and media education. 'Event management, hospitality and cultural tourism have similarly benefited, particularly around major film festivals and heritage venues. Incentives like the Cash Rebate Incentive Program, which offers up to 40 percent in non-refundable grants, draw in international productions and further drive job creation,' Al-Husseini said. She added that Saudization is making steady progress, with full nationalization in cinema sales and supervisory roles and 50 percent in technical jobs, placing Saudi talent at the center of the sector's growth. Al-Husseini also emphasized the broader impact of cultural initiatives such as the Red Sea International Film Festival, which supports global filmmakers while boosting local tourism and ancillary sectors including entertainment, food, media, and digital content. Vision 2030 and a cinematic future Saudi Arabia is positioning itself as an international production hub by capitalizing on a combination of geographic diversity, government incentives, and growing infrastructure. From Arthur D. Little's standpoint, initiatives such as Film AlUla have played a crucial role since 2020, attracting over 120 productions to the region, including international titles like Kandahar and Norah. 'Meanwhile, NEOM has become a cornerstone of Saudi Arabia's emerging media industry. Over the past two years, the region has reportedly produced more than 35 projects spanning various formats, genres, and production scales,' said Khan, adding: T'his includes high-profile projects like the Apple TV+ series Foundation and the international blockbuster Desert Warrior, which employed hundreds of Saudis in areas such as set design, catering, security, and logistics.' He noted that these projects are helping build a skilled local workforce, with government cash rebates and infrastructure investment creating the foundations for a world-class production ecosystem. The country's target of producing 100 feature films by 2030 is also expected to unlock opportunities across tourism and hospitality. • This expansion is expected to create over 7,000 direct and indirect jobs, contributing to a broader entertainment ecosystem projected to generate around 450,000 employment opportunities and push the sector's gross domestic product contribution to 4.2 percent by the end of the decade. • While meeting Saudization requirements will remain a key challenge as demand for skilled workers rises, the influx of international talent presents valuable opportunities for collaboration, training, and upskilling the local workforce. 'A compelling example of this potential can be seen in Australia, where Mission Impossible: 2 significantly boosted tourism — contributing to approximately 200 percent increase in visitors to the film location within a few years. Similarly, Saudi Arabia's cinematic exposure is poised to elevate the Kingdom's profile on the global stage, attracting tourists, stimulating local economies, and advancing the goals of Vision 2030,' he said. Al-Husseini underscored the role of AlUla and NEOM in promoting the Kingdom's unique cultural and futuristic offerings, both critical to advancing Vision 2030. 'Films produced in these locations help showcase the Kingdom's unique natural and historical assets, sparking interest among global audiences and encouraging tourism. This boost in tourism supports local businesses in hospitality, retail and transport,' she said. Looking ahead, Arthur D. Little's Khan said that by 2025, the Saudi film sector is expected to create thousands of new jobs across related industries, supported by generous incentives such as a 40 percent production rebate and dedicated funding programs. University-level film and media programs are also helping nurture the next generation of local talent. 'Tourism will see strong gains as well. AlUla and NEOM's media zone is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of creative professionals and visitors annually once fully operational,' he said. Khan highlighted key opportunities in developing Arabic-language content, forming public-private partnerships to support talent pipelines and infrastructure, and exporting Saudi films to neighboring Gulf Cooperation Council, African, and Asian markets. However, he noted the need to address challenges such as building a skilled workforce, navigating cultural sensitivities, and adapting to shifts toward digital streaming platforms. Al-Husseini emphasized that Saudi Arabia's film industry is on course to boost employment and growth, with infrastructure investments — like AlHisn Studios — strengthening its capacity for large-scale productions. 'Partnerships with global production companies are on the rise, as seen in the MBS Group's recent agreement to manage and operate AlUla Studios. At the same time, training programs and workshops are being rolled out to develop local talent while attracting international professionals, supporting long-term industry sustainability,' she said. She concluded that while meeting Saudization requirements will remain a key challenge as demand for skilled workers rises, the influx of international talent presents valuable opportunities for collaboration, training, and upskilling the local workforce.
