After providing script polishing duties on Bond 25, now officially named No Time To Die, word has it that Fleabag creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge is being courted to write Bond 26.
According to the Daily Mail’s Baz Bamigboye, who has broken more Bond stories than anyone else, the actress, writer and playwright has impressed producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson with her work.
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Though she was hired to reportedly ‘punch up’ the female dialogue in No Time To Die, based on a draft script from long-time Bond writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, she ended up working on the male dialogue too, and ‘across the whole script’.
An ‘executive close to the production’ told the paper: “Ian Fleming’s Bond is a red-blooded male, and to some ears he lives in such a misogynistic world we had to be sensitive to the changing moral landscape.
“Phoebe’s contribution was great — far greater than we’d anticipated. She’s the saviour of Bond, really. She was across the entire script.”
The course of No Time To Die has been ludicrously turbulent, with changing directors, broken limbs, explosions and even hidden cameras found in the studio toilets.
Michael G Wilson, Daniel Craig and Barbara Broccoli (Credit: Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images for Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures)
But according to Bamigboye, Waller-Bridge’s involvement cheered the production no end.
“Phoebe’s been having the best time; and the joy has sprinkled down,” a source added. “At first, no one knew what was going on. Now everyone’s happy. This is going to be a great Bond.”
If Waller-Bridge – currently riding high from sweeping the board at the Emmys on Sunday night – was to write the next Bond movie, it would be for a new 007.
Barbara Broccoli confirmed that he would be hanging up his tuxedo after this latest movie.
No Time To Die, which has shot in Jamaica, Italy, Scotland and Norway, and is being directed by True Detective helmsman Cary Fukunaga
It finds Bond out of active service when he is contacted by Jeffrey Wright’s Felix Leiter, who asks him for help in finding a missing scientist.
The movie also stars Rami Malek as the movie’s villain, Lashana Lynch as Nomi (who word has it has taken Bond’s 007 code number), and returning stars Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Rory Kinnear, Lea Seydoux and Ben Whishaw.
It lands in the UK on April 3.
