Anna Daniels
No Time to Die, the 25th James Bond film, has become the first major Hollywood tentpole film to delay its global release because of the coronavirus outbreak.
The movie, which was slated to premiere in London later this month and open globally in early April, has been pushed all the way back to November 25, 2020. But with worldwide concern rising as the coronavirus continues to infect more and more people across multiple countries, it seems as if MGM and United Artists Releasing (who is releasing the film domestically) and Universal (who is handling international distribution) have decided that it’s better to be cautious than to take a Bond-esque “dive in head first and deal with the consequences later” approach.
The Hollywood Reporter says that Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, the producers who have shepherded the James Bond franchise since 1995, “drove the decision to make the dramatic move,” despite it being a difficult challenge to upend a major movie so close to its release and rethink its marketing efforts. Bond movies have always been travelogues, with the franchise’s on-screen globetrotting being matched with worldwide press tours. That aspect is as much a part of the franchise’s traditions as sharp suits and slick cars.
While the severity of the delay took me by surprise (that’s a seven month push!), the idea that No Time to Die would not make its April release date has seemed increasingly likely over the past few weeks. Publicity tours for the movie had already been cancelled in China, South Korea, and Japan due to coronavirus outbreaks, and earlier this week, the world’s biggest James Bond fan blog, MI6-HQ, sent an open letter to MGM, Universal, and Eon asking them to delay the release of the film because of the spread of the virus. Their request wasn’t simply out of self-interest: they appealed to the studios’ financial senses, pointing out that, as THR puts it, “the ongoing Coronavirus outbreak could seriously impact the film’s box office, noting that the countries to have banned or restricted large public gatherings — including China, Italy, France, Switzerland, Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea — contributed some 38 percent of the total global earnings for the last Bond movie, 2015’s Spectre.”
A worldwide pandemic sounds like a plot point straight out of a James Bond movie, and as Bond fan (and Fangoria’s editor-in-chief) Phil Nobile Jr. noted on Twitter, the film has been clouded in so much secrecy that we’re not sure exactly what Rami Malek‘s villain character has up his sleeve.
Box office concerns and such aside, who wants to bet Safin’s plot involves some biological virus or some shit like that #NoTimeToDie and that too weighed over this decision…
— Phil Nobile Jr. (@PhilNobileJr) March 4, 2020
I wonder if this delay will give director Cary Joji Fukunaga the opportunity to tinker with the movie a little bit in the coming months, or if everything has already been locked in and the filmmakers will just patiently wait to roll out Daniel Craig‘s swan song later this fall. We’ll keep you posted when we learn more.
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