‘Bond 25’ Has Finally Found a New Director in Cary Joji Fukunaga
Fukunaga, Cary Fukunaga.
The True Detective director has been named as Danny Boyle’s replacement for the next James Bond. Longtime Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson announced the news on the official 007 Twitter account early Thursday morning. Bond 25 will kick off production next March and is set to hit theaters on February 14, 2020, so make sure whoever your Valentine is that year is a Bond fan, or else.
The road to a Bond 25 director has been a long one. After months and months of speculation last year, there were rumors around everyone from Christopher Nolan to Denis Villeneuve. Earlier this year Boyle was tapped to helm the next film, set to be Daniel Craig’s last. Then the Trainspotting director left the project, reportedly for clashing with Craig over the casting of the film’s Russian villain. Then a new shortlist emerged, suggesting the possibility of a woman director with S.J. Clarkson. But – for now at least – Craig and the producers have finally settled on Fukunaga, making the half-Japanese director the second filmmaker of color to helm a Bond movie. (As HuffPost notes, Die Another Day‘s Lee Tamahori is of Maori descent.) And honestly, out of all the rumored directors so far, Fukunaga is the choice I’m most thrilled about.
He did fantastic work with the first season of True Detective, and even before that with his Jane Eyre and his impressive debut feature Sin Nombre. Since winning an Emmy for True Detective, he followed that steam with Beasts of No Nation, one of the new Netflix movies I will happily stan for. Since then though, it’s been a series of stops and starts for the director, who was initially set to direct IT before exiting the project. That said, he’s a bold choice for Bond, and I can’t wait to see what he pulls off. Let’s just pray this decision sticks and we don’t get another IT situation. In the mean time, Fukunaga’s Maniac, his first directorial project in three years, arrives tomorrow on Netflix – what perfect timing!