In the past few weeks, the postmortems of two box office disappointments in established franchises have revealed behind-the-scenes drama and huge changes that may have contributed to their failures. Now another big film in a famous franchise may be going through its own difficulties. That film is Bond 25, and rumors indicate that there may be major drama on the set of the 007 film.
According to The Sun, Bond 25 director Cary Joji Fukunaga, who officially joined the production last fall, showed up to set three hours late because he was playing video games. The director of Beasts of No Nation and the heralded True Detective Season 1 was apparently engrossed in a particularly intense gaming session on his PlayStation, causing him to miss his scheduled arrival time by a few hours. The crew was waiting for him on location until he finally arrived.
This apparently had a cascading effect of consequences to the already delayed film. To not fall behind schedule any further and to make up for the time lost to the director’s gaming, the production staff supposedly told the crew that they had to work over the weekend, including the Father’s Day holiday. The Sun’s sources say this led to something of a mutiny as many of the crew members refused to work over the weekend.
The director showing up so late and the crew being asked to make up for it has evidently made a lot of people angry, with the crew unwilling to give up their holiday for Bond 25. The has allegedly led to a bad environment on the set of the film, with one person describing Bond 25 as “doomed.”
Missing a call time by a few hours because of a video game session resulting in a mutiny on set is a pretty wild thing to hear and obviously this would look pretty bad for Cary Joji Fukunaga if true. It wouldn’t be the first time the director has had some bit of drama surrounding him either.
There seemed to be tension between Cary Joji Fukunaga and True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto, and Fukunaga did lose the director job on IT because according to him, the studio didn’t think it could control him. Despite that, for now this Bond 25 set drama should be taken with a grain of salt until there is further verification. It’s definitely not great if true, but even if it isn’t, Bond 25 still has its plate full with issues.
Bond 25 has gone through multiple directors and there have been reports of script issues as well. More recently, a crew member was injured on set and star Daniel Craig also suffered an ankle injury that required him to go through rehab after surgery. This has all resulted in the film being delayed from November of this year to February of next year and now April 2020.
Basically, this is a movie that can't afford more issues, so hopefully this latest drama is just the result of someone with an overactive imagination and a desire to stir the pot, because we all want to see 007 back on the big screen sooner rather than later.
Bond 25 is still scheduled for release on April 8, 2020. Check out our 2019 Release Schedule to see what’s headed your way this year.
