The British tabloids love some good James Bond talk, and today they’ve delivered a story that’s actually more interesting than the usual “who will play Bond” casting speculation.
The Daily Mail reports that actress/writer/producer Phoebe Waller-Bridge has been in ‘early discussions’ with Bond franchise producer Barbara Broccoli and that Waller-Bridge has emerged as Broccoli’s number one choice to direct the next film in the franchise – the twenty-sixth overall.
The “Fleabag” creator/star famously worked on Daniel Craig’s final James Bond film “No Time to Die,” doing a script polish to beef up the dialogue, humor and pathos along with reworking some scenes and characters.
It’s most visible in the Cuban sequence where Ana de Armas scene-stealing Paloma character, a last-minute addition to the film, was created by director Cary Fukunaga and written by Waller-Bridge.
The paper’s source says: “Barbara has been quite open about saying Phoebe would be her first choice to direct and co-write the next film. Barbara believes Phoebe is a huge talent and brings a fresh, modern take to Bond. They’ve already had very early discussions, but there are lots of variables in the equation.”
The new film will be the first of a new Bond actor and likely see a shift in terms of the series tone and scale as is standard when a new 007 comes in.
Waller-Bridge has experience with espionage thrillers. She created and showran the first season of the darkly comic assassin/spy series “Killing Eve,” which scored much acclaim for that initial outing. She exited at the end of the first season, handing over the reins to other showrunners for the subsequent and less well-received three seasons.
Waller-Bridge will soon be on screen as Harrison Ford’s goddaughter Helena in “Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny” opening this Summer. She’s also writing a script for Amazon’s new “Tomb Raider” TV series and is starring in the fantasy comedy “If” alongside Ryan Reynolds and Steve Carrell.
The next Bond isn’t expected to go into production until next year at the very earliest.
