The internet was awash with reports yesterday linking Academy Award-winning filmmaker Danny Boyle to the vacant director’s chair on Bond 24, stemming from a report in The Sun which claimed that Boyle was in the frame because he’d been seen chatting with producer Barbara Broccoli back stage at the Empire Awards on Sunday night. So he must be a lock then, surely? Well, not at all actually, with Boyle distancing himself this morning from taking over the reigns of the long-running spy franchise during an interview on Daybreak:
“No [I won’t be directing]. I love the Bond movies, I love watching them and the last one was amazing,” said Boyle, whose latest film Trance hits UK cinemas tomorrow. “And when I was a kid, when I was a teenager, I read those books cover to cover, multiple times. So they’re really part of the fabric of my fabric but I’m not that kind of director. I love guys who can do those huge movies.”
Despite having no intention of directing a Bond movie, Boyle is keen to reunite the cast of Trainspotting for the long-rumoured follow-up, and he also offered a brief update on the possibility of reuniting the cast for the sequel: “Seriously, fingers crossed. If we can get them all back to play all the same parts, if we can give them enough to do and they don’t feel it will be a disappointment – because they will have a quality check on it on behalf of everybody whose memory of the first one are so fond, but hopefully that should work out.”
Bond 24 is currently without a director after the departure of Skyfall helmer Sam Mendes, although MGM chief Gary Barber has recently said to expect Daniel Craig’s fourth outing as 007 “within the next 3 years.”
Originally published March 26, 2013. Updated December 13, 2019.
