James Bond Will Return in About Two Years

After about three years of legal wrangling -- thanks mostly to a bankrupt studio and a Broccoli family who owns the rights to James Bond and nothing else on earth, apparently -- James Bond will return to the big screen in November 2012. The reasons for the delay have to do with a lot of boring corporate restructuring business, but what really matters is that Daniel Craig will play Bond again. He is the lone reason anyone still cares about the Bond franchise which appeared dead at the beginning of the decade.


The exact date for the film's release will be November 9, 2012, and it's impressive that they have a release date considering they don't have a cast outside of Craig. Sam Mendes, whose directorial star has dimmed since he was initially signed on for this project, will direct, and the script is apparently in place and has in fact been ready for about two years. We hope they update it: We wouldn't want it to include lines like "Yes, Bond, you'll survive my trap only when a black man is elected President. You're doomed!"

The delay between films -- it will have been four years since "Quantum Of Solace" came out -- is the longest since ... well, since Craig took over for Pierce Brosnan in 2006. At that point, the whole franchise was a joke and thought doomed in an irony-drenched age. (There were people who claimed Mike Myers had killed James Bond. Mike Myers!) Then Craig came in and made Bond his own in "Casino Royale" with a raw, muscular, borderline psychotic performance that re-energized the whole franchise. "Quantum Of Solace" was less well-received -- it had the lamest Bond girl since Denise Richards pretended to be a physicist -- but it still had Craig, who is single-handedly keeping the franchise afloat. For now. We'll see what happens in November 2012, which is so long from now that it'll be lucky to beat "The Hobbit" to screens.