During recent interviews for Venus, director Roger Michell talked some about new James Bond Daniel Craig, with whom he made 2003’s Mother, and is slated to do another picture… but not an entry in the 007 franchise.

“I very nearly committed to doing
the next Bond movie, and at the final moment I decided not to,” says Michell. “I just felt that
[while] it sounds like an enormous amount of fun, when you look at it
closely it’s a huge, massive supertanker, and to nudge it half a degree off its
prescribed course takes superhuman effort. And I felt that it was probably more
difficult than I initially thought to do that. We couldn’t really agree on how
the script should develop, that’s the easy answer.”

This means bad news and a likely tough decision for Martin Campbell, who in addition to directing Casino Royale helmed 1995’s Bond entry GoldenEye, plus The Mask of Zorro and its 2005 sequel, The Legend of Zorro. A stereotypical-but-true close friend of a friend swears Campbell — no spring chicken at 66 years of age — would love to beg off another Bond effort and spend his remaining occupational capital and the last few years of his professional life making more personal fare, perhaps like 2003’s Beyond Borders. Expect Bond producer Barbara Broccoli et al, however, to push for that time-honored “one last job.” The money may be too good, who knows…