Daniel Craig Says James Bond Isn’t Really Dead

If you haven’t seen No Time to Die by now … well … you probably don’t care that much about it. But if you didn’t, spoiler alert: James Bond died. (RIP to this fictional character.)

At the end of the movie, Bond, played by Daniel Craig, sacrificed himself to save the world, and his newly discovered daughter. As No Time to Die (the irony!) was Craig’s last film as 007, this was an appropriate end to his story.

But of course, that’s not really the end; James Bond can’t die, he can just be recast — at least until the movies stop making money, and in 60 years, that hasn’t happened so far. And in a new interview with BBC Radio (via Variety), Daniel Craig reassures any fans who actually thought the franchise might be done that, no, James Bond will inevitably be back.

“He’s not really dead,” Craig said. “I’m gone, but it says right at the end [of No Time to Die] that Bond will return, so he must return at some point.”

He also revealed that he had wanted to kill off Bond from the very beginning of his 15-year tenure as the character, back when he was making 2006’s Casino Royale:

I don’t know if it sounds disingenuous, I said to Barbara a long time ago, back in 2006, ‘If I do all of these movies, and we get it right, can we kill him off,’ and she said, ‘Yes, you can.’ And I was thinking about myself, about my postponed career and I was trying to think of how that would work and but I was also thinking what they did with Casino Royale – they had the chance to reset with that because they went back to the beginning. I thought you’ll have a chance to reset again. That kind seems to be like a good move.

Thus far, Bond producers have not revealed any of their plans for the next Bond movie, which will be the 26th official installment of the franchise. Nor have they announced casting for Craig’s replacement. So we’re looking at at least another two or three years at minimum before Bond is back. But he will return. He always does.

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