Back in March, Daniel Craig’s final outing as James Bond with “No Time To Die” became the first major studio tentpole film to be delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
At the time the delay of seven months – from early April to early November – seemed unnecessarily long. Turned out it was incredibly prescient as numerous other films followed suit with several moving up to a year away from their original planned release.
Now, as the Fall season approaches in a few weeks and with the coronavirus pandemic an ongoing and still serious problem in quite a few countries – the inevitable question has arisen as to whether the Cary Fukunaga-directed film will be pushed back even further.
With market analysts suggesting it is unlikely cinemas will reopen for the rest of 2020, a new report at MI6-HQ.com indicates that MGM (domestic) and Universal (international) are now “under active consideration” of the possibility of pushing the film back again – this time to a Summer 2021 release.
A decision is due sooner than you think. The studios have reportedly already lost $30 million on marketing the film’s now abandoned April 2020 release and so are highly unlikely to pull the trigger on another 90-day marketing spend only to have to push back the movie again.
There’s also Universal’s “Jurassic World: Dominion” issue. That film had a three month delay in production and now faces a slower production and post-production timetable in a post-COVID world meaning its not clear if it will meet its June 2021 release date.
No delay has been announced, but should it be pushed then having an already completed Bond film on hand would make a very easy swap out for that prime Summer slot.
