Denis Villeneuve to Direct Next James Bond Film

After years of waiting, the 26th James Bond movie has finally made some progress: It’s got a director — Dune’s Denis Villeneuve.

Amazon MGM, the new studio overseeing the franchise, announced the news today. According to Deadline, Villeneuve isn’t quite ready to begin work on the film just yet;. His third and final Dune film, Dune Messiah, “is shooting this summer and slated for release on December 16, 2026.”

The most recent Bond film, No Time to Die, the fifth and final one to star Daniel Craig, was released (after several Covid-related elays) in the fall of 2021. That Bond was directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga.

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Villeneuve has several skills that make him well-suited to direct a James Bond adventure. As proven by his Dune movies, he’s a strong visual director capable of controlling an enormous production loaded with special effects. Those films, as well as his Blade Runner 2049, showed he possesses a keen eye for taking older properties and updating them for modern audiences. He’s also flat-out talented; his filmography also includes the excellent Sicario, Arrival, and Enemy. He hasn’t made a whole lot of clunkers.

Deadline reported that other contenders for the coveted job of directing Bond 26 included “Edward Berger, Edgar Wright, Jonathan Nolan and Paul King.”

Amazon announced a few months ago that they had brought in Amy Pascal and David Heyman to produce the next Bond movie, after securing full control of the James Bond movie rights from the franchise’s longtime producers, Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson. Now the franchise’s attention will turn to finding the actor to play the new James Bond.