Well, well, well, here's an electrifying bit of news for a slow Thursday evening: Steven Knight is heading from Brum to Bond. Yes, following last mo
Well, well, well, here’s an electrifying bit of news for a slow Thursday evening: Steven Knight is heading from Brum to Bond. Yes, following last month’s announcement that Denis Villeneuve will direct the next James Bond movie for Amazon, the iconic spy series’ modern custodians David Heyman and Amy Pascal have just found the next piece of their 007-shaped puzzle. Per Deadline‘s reporting (and Amazon MGM Studios’ Instagram), Peaky Blinders creator Knight — who recently wrapped production on his Birmingham-based mob drama’s big-screen debut — has been tapped to write the upcoming 26th Bond movie.
According to Deadline‘s sources, since choosing Villeneuve as the man to make the first 007 feature since 2021’s No Time To Die, Heyman and Pascal’s sole focus has been on locking in the scribe to pen Bond’s substantial screen comeback. Apparently Knight — whose expansive CV of hits includes the likes of Locke, Eastern Promises, See, SAS Rogue Heroes, Spencer, and A Thousand Blows (as well as, wildly, global gameshow phenomenon Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, for which he gets co-creator credit) — emerged as the frontrunner for the job in recent weeks before reaching the final hurdle: a face-to-face meeting with Villeneuve, who’s currently out in Budapest shooting Dune Part Three. Clearly that conversation was a success, as Knight — whose cerebral storytelling approach has surely found a kindred spirit in Villeneuve’s own — has now emerged as the man tasked with writing the first chapter in a bold modern era for Bond.
As of this moment in time, we still don’t know who’ll be playing 007, how exactly the super spy is being brought back after Daniel Craig’s explosive NTTD exit, or when we can expect Bond 26 to hit our screens. But what we do know is that if Amazon are looking to reassure fans that the future of the franchise is in unthreatening hands, then every appointment so far — from producers, to director, to writer — is certainly doing the trick. And with Knight’s hiring, now the speculation can really kick into overdrive about who Amazon will bestow cinema’s most coveted license to kill upon. We wonder what Cillian Murphy’s up to next summer…
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