His name is Bond. James Bond. And his film is poned. Post poned. ‘No Time to Die’, the James Bond movie that was supposed to come out in April this year, has been pushed to a November release date. Daniel Craig, current star of the franchise, is not only upset about this delay, but according to a GQ magazine interview, also has feelings about talk that the film is cursed. He used a word beginning with P and followed by two of these things: **, so unless you are fluent in ** you can’t tell how he feels. Us people of high morals and good manners don’t say or hear or understand words with *** in them. But I can take a guess and say by “p***ed off” he means he is “emotionally urinal” about the talk that ‘No Time To Die’ is accursed. Let me explain. It is. The film is in fact cursed. Someone has connived with the ancestors to unleash misfortune, calamity and distress upon the production of ‘No Time To Die’, and no matter how Craig’s bladder reacts to this, until they sacrifice a white cow to the concerned ancestors, he will continue to be p***ed. First of all they had conscripted decorated director Danny Boyle to make the movie. Danny Boyle, friends, is a genius filmmaker, a director of such grace, skill, elegance and panache that he made ‘Trainspotting’, ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ and ‘28 Days Later’, three of the finest displays of light and colour your eyes have enjoyed in their whole lives. Danny Boyle making a James Bond movie would have been amazing. We would have a James Bond movie that isn’t struggling to overcome the unforeseen fallout of its own runaway legacy. You see, the James Bond archetype has, over the decades, been replicated so many times, then improved upon by those it inspired, then parodied and then parodied until the parodies themselves became more entertaining than the thing they were making fun of (I don’t care who you are and what you tweet: ‘Spies In Disguise’ was better than ‘Die Another Day’) that they had to change the suave, unflappable uber-cool Bond into a Danny Boyle character. Then the curse befell the enterprise and Danny Boyle woke up suddenly stricken with creative differences. I don’t know why you would let a creative genius differ with you creatively, especially when you have been trying so hard under the regime of Daniel Craig to make James Bond surpass Jason Borne, Mission Impossible, Archer and Austin Powers by replacing the smug, exaggerated macho-ism with heart and humanity. Who knows heart and humanity more than Boyle? I am telling you. It must have been a curse. But they soldiered on with a new director, Cary Fukunaga, who does do heart and humanity. He is the one who helmed excellent episodes of ‘True Detective’ and made ‘Beasts of No Nation’. That is when the second strike of the curse arrived. Not only was filming delayed for weeks when what the studios called a “controlled explosion” apparently went out of control, but Craig, whose job is running around, jumping around, falling around and getting into all sorts of dangerous situations, Craig who has been doing this since ‘Casino Royale’ 14 years ago, Craig who should be quite good at it by now, since experience breeds improved skills, went and injured his foot so badly that he was off work for weeks. An expert faller messing up a fall and halting work for weeks? I am telling you; a curse. Then, just as we were ready to release the film at last, hello Coronavirus. Covid-19 has been cited as the reason for the postponement in ‘No Time To Die’s’ April release. Because well, do you really want people to flock into cinema halls in the midst of an outbreak of a contagious disease? So, what can we do now? I would suggest sending any white cows you have lying around to Pinewood studios so that they can burn them on their altar and appease whoever is p***ing on their plans.
