Warning: This post contains spoilers for No Time To Die.
While No Time To Die's ending features the usual promise that "James Bond will return" after the credits despite the events depicted in the explosive final few minutes. As Ralph Fiennes' M puts it so tragically, it's very much a case of "right, back to work" even before there's a chance to mourn.
No Time To Die's ending is an inevitably emotional affair: even without the major revelation that brings Craig's tenure to an end, seeing the fifteen year 007 veteran hanging up his license to kill and his Walther PPK would already have come at a cost. But the decision to do the unprecedented and kill James Bond off at the pointed end of a dilemma that presented him with a hopeful future and then robbed him of the chance to enjoy it was even more impactful. Craig has done more for Bond as a character and a progressive idea than any 007 actor before him, and it's right to consider Bond's eras as pre-Craig and post-Craig now that he's done.
But James Bond is eternal - or at least he will be as long as his box office receipts and merchandise concerns are lucrative to his rights holders - and after the huge delays to No Time To Die's release, it's time to kick off a new chapter with whoever will play the next James Bond. Despite the clamor for a radical change - partly encouraged by the appearance of Lashana Lynch's excellent new 007 Nomi in No Time To Die - the final shot of Craig's fifth and final Bond movie confirms how unlikely it will be that we'll get a female Bond. The very fact that the message was chosen to read "James Bond will return" and not "007 will return" is a firm statement, particularly when the context of Lynch's new 007 looms so large. That seems to be the end of that hope, for now.
Daniel Craig himself ed the debate on a female Bond as No Time To Die readied itself for release, suggesting that it would be far better for there to be strong, comparable roles for female actors, rather than changing James Bond. The answer probably lies somewhere between the two, with No Time To Die proving that James Bond and female 007s can happily (and successfully) coexist on-screen. Perhaps it's just time to expand the scope of MI6's cinematic universe to blossom further around Bond, rather than obsessing constantly over the seed at the center. The fact that Daniel Craig's almost-revisionist Bond set the pattern for adopting modern film-making styles and story-telling conventions and putting aside some pillars of 007 filmic lore (like serial-like episodic stories) proves that the future doesn't have to be more of the same.
It is a shame that Lashana Lynch's 007 has now seemingly been cut off just as she was introduced and that Ana de Armas' excellent Paloma won't get her own spin-off, but the need to reboot Bond after No Time To Die probably makes both entirely impossible. And while there has been call for Bond to be reset as a female character - the so-called Jane Bond question - it doesn't look like that's in the franchise's immediate future either. The king is dead, long live the king.
