In a brief interview with the Irish public broadcaster RTE, James Bond producer Barbara Broccoli said that she is ‘very happy’ to have Daniel Craig back for the next 007 adventure, which will be no. 25 in the smash-hit EON series.
Speaking about the new Blake Lively spy movie The Rythm Section, which is currently shooting in Ireland and which Broccoli is producing (due for release in February 2019 through Paramount Pictures), the 007 producer was also quizzed about the latest pre-production work on Bond 25. She explained: ‘We’ve got the biggest and most important piece in place, which is Daniel. I’m very happy that he’s coming back. So – to me – that’s the crucial thing. And we’re just looking on everything else. We don’t have too much in place, but we’ve got the main man in place, so that makes me very happy’.
Broccoli added: ‘We’ve got our Daniel; we’ve got to find the director. We’re working on the script and we’ll see… Hopefully by the beginning of the year we’ll have more news on all those fronts’.
After talking about the positive benefits of shooting in Ireland, Broccoli was asked whether James Bond would ever visit the country: ‘Let’s see, maybe we’ll try and get Bond here at some point. I must say, having experienced it, I would love to come back’.
Broccoli’s new spy movie The Rythm Section, which started its Irish location shooting in Dublin in early November, 2017, is being produced by Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson in conjunction with IM Global, and their hope is that it will be the first movie in a new spy franchise. Directed by Reed Morano and based on a story by Mark Burnell, the film is about Stephanie Patrick (played by U.S. actress Blake Lively), a woman who becomes a deadly assassin after the murder in a plane crash of her family. Patrick becomes determined to track down those responsible for the plane crash and manages to take her lethal revenge.
Lively’s co-stars in the new movie are the British actors Jude Law and Raza Jaffrey, and Broccoli has been spotted on set in Dublin.
Barbara Broccoli at the German premiere of ‘Spectre’