After wrapping Skyfall, Sam Mendes (American Beauty) denied being interested in returning for any future installments of Bond. Although he claims to have had a good experience working with the iconic franchise, he needed to return to other projects, both within the film and theatrical world. Apparently a big, fat paycheck has changed his mind as Mendes is now confirmed to return for Bond 24 and is highly likely to also shoot Bond 25.

As to whether these features will shoot back-to-back is still unknown but speculation has pointed to A. these two films telling one narrative arc and B. they will be Daniel Craig‘s final Bond features. Having a director shoot two consecutive Bond movies is unheard of, let alone three so this is a definitive shift in the way that the Bond estate does business.

Putting this into context of reports that Christopher Nolan will be stepping aboard a Bond film, this perfectly sets up a Nolan-helmed Bond 26 as a relaunch with a new face for Bond. If  MGM can just speed this train up on these next two Bond films then we could look for that Nolan relaunch around 2018.

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