Covid: James Bond film No Time To Die delayed for a third time
James Bond film No Time To Die has been delayed for a third time as Hollywood grapples with the continued disruption caused by the pandemic.
Daniel Craig’s final outing as 007 will now arrive on October 8, the official Bond Twitter account announced.
It had been set to be released in April this year following multiple pandemic-enforced delays.
No Time To Die is the latest major release to be pushed back as Hollywood studios scramble to protect their films from certain box office doom, with cinemas remaining closed in markets around the world.
Earlier this month Warner Bros announced it was delaying the release of Sopranos prequel The Many Saints Of Newark.
And after MGM released the Bond news, Sony said Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway was moving from April to June, Ghostbusters: Afterlife was pushed from June to November and Cinderella, which stars singer Camila Cabello, will now arrive in July.
Video game adaptation Uncharted has been shifted from 2021 and moved to February 2022, Sony said, while Jared Leto superhero flick Morbius, which did have the October 8 slot now occupied by No Time To Die, is now slated for January next year.
No Time To Die was the first major film to fall victim to the pandemic when its April 2020 release was pushed to November as the virus swept around the world.
In October last year it was delayed to April when it became clear Covid-19 was still rampant and cinemas would not be widely reopening.
The latest delay comes as no surprise and it was a question of when, not if. In the US, more than 400,000 people have died from Covid-19 while the situation is also dire in the UK.
As well as the film industry, the wider entertainment world has been battered by the pandemic. On Thursday it was announced the Glastonbury music festival had been cancelled for a second successive year.
As well as Craig, 52, No Time To Die also stars Lea Seydoux, Rami Malek, Lashana Lynch and Ana De Armas and is directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, with a script co-written by Fleabag creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge.
It will deliver a satisfying ending for Craig’s Bond, according to producer Barbara Broccoli.
Speaking on the official James Bond podcast, she said: “It’s a culmination of everything that his portrayal of the character has been through and it ties up all the storylines. It’s a pretty epic film, I have to say.”
No Time To Die finds Bond after he has left active service and is enjoying a tranquil life in Jamaica when his old friend Felix Leiter, played by Jeffrey Wright, from the CIA turns up asking for help.