Warning: Potential spoilers for No Time To Die are in play. If you want to head in fresh and without a hint of suggestion for where the ending could be headed, turn back now and exit through the gun barrel.
No Time To Die is set to “change everything” when it comes to the James Bond franchise. As the 25th film in the canon Bond series, and the fifth and final entry in Daniel Craig’s tenure as 007, there’s already a lot of pressure for writer/director Cary Joji Fukunaga’s turn at bat to live up to that claim. Which makes some reports claiming to know the film’s epilogue all the more shocking, should they turn out to be true.
We’re going to give you one last chance to exit this story, as this No Time To Die reveal is pretty groundbreaking. Still here? Good, because wow, does this live up to the hype.
As it turns out, MI6-HQ has gotten tips from some call sheets that have leaked onto the internet, as the production of No Time To Die has been wrapped for long enough that these artifacts are being auctioned off online. Among the details present, the 007 fan site has gleamed that the big secret Lea Seydoux’s Madeline Swann is keeping from James Bond is one of two things: and both possibilities center around a 6-year-old girl named Mathilde.
One possibility that’s been mentioned is that the girl is a clone of Dr. Swann, engineered by Rami Malek’s villainous Safin. That seems to track with the infamously cryptic line that James utters in the No Time To Die trailer, alluding to history not being kind to “men who play God.” But there’s another, more shocking prospect that ties into the time jump between the events of 2015’s Spectre and 2020’s No Time To Die.
With the film’s cold open sequence supposedly focusing on James Bond and Madeline Swann’s relationship post-Spectre, but before a five-year time jump, the alternate scenario of Mathilde’s mysterious origin is that she is the child of James and Madeline’s love affair. Should that be the case, Safin’s mysterious No Time To Die plot is still kept secret, and James is about to engage in a story arc that mirrors his own personal origins.
Further details supposedly divulged by No Time To Die’s call sheets state that Madeline and Mathilde will be escaping together, with Lea Seydoux’s character telling her younger scene partner a story. Perhaps it's a tale that will inspire the tears she’s promised the audience in this particular film. Meanwhile, Daniel Craig’s Bond is on the run from a supposedly villainous CIA agent, Billy Magnusson’s Ash. While this is all well and good, there’s a bit of reticence to accept these claims.
As No Time To Die's production is long past complete, and the film’s finished product is waiting for its new November 25 release date, there is a chance that unforeseen circumstances lead to a bit of a lapse in secrecy. That said, the usual policies surrounding the veil of security around a James Bond movie feel like they’d have either dictated the destruction of actual call sheets and/or the creation of convincing fakes.
Whether this supposed leak is either a legit concern, or a PR stunt designed to keep No Time To Die in the minds and mouths of moviegoers, is yet to be seen. We’ll find out this fall, when the 25th James Bond movie opens to the public; and CinemaBlend will break any updates on the road to that fateful day.
