MOVIE NEWS – Anthony Horowitz has written enough about James Bond to understand the legendary 60-year-old franchise inside out — and he’s not holding back when it comes to his opinion on how Daniel Craig’s tenure as MI6’s most iconic agent ended in No Time to Die. Although Bond will inevitably return with a new actor, a new creative team (thanks to Amazon MGM Studios’ acquisition), and plenty of new stories, Horowitz believes killing off the previous version of 007 was a fundamental mistake.

No Time to Die was always meant to be Craig’s swan song as the world’s most famous spy, but few expected it to make cinematic history by becoming the first film to actually kill James Bond. Even as the finale approached, fans held out hope that he’d pull off one last daring escape — but director Cary Fukunaga stayed the course and killed off the seemingly invincible agent. Horowitz told Radio Times he firmly disagreed with that choice:

“The last time we saw Bond (in 2021’s No Time to Die), he was poisoned and blown to smithereens – how will they get past the fact he is dead with a capital D? I think that was a mistake, because Bond is a legend. He belongs to everybody, he is eternal – except in that film. If I was asked tomorrow to write the script, I wouldn’t be able to do it. Where would you start? You can’t have him waking up in the shower and saying it was all a dream.”

Does Bond’s Death Complicate His Future?

In most cases, killing off a fictional character is the end of the road unless writers rely on a retcon or a “it was all a dream” twist. However, in the case of James Bond, death is far from final — every time a new actor takes on the role, the character is essentially reborn.

This was certainly true during Daniel Craig’s run. Casino Royale reinvented Bond as a hard-edged, no-nonsense action hero after the quip-heavy Pierce Brosnan era. The film not only ended with Craig delivering the iconic “Bond, James Bond” line but also set up a whole new world — even if Dame Judi Dench remained in place as M, continuing a strange thread of continuity through MI6’s supporting cast (remember how many Bonds the original Moneypenny and M served alongside?).

Craig’s era also reintroduced Blofeld (Christoph Waltz), who was once Sean Connery’s nemesis, proving that there are no hard rules when reinventing the franchise. Bond will return in a completely new incarnation in the coming years, and his death in No Time to Die simply marks the closing of Craig’s chapter — and the end of the first 60 years of the James Bond legacy.

Source: MovieWeb