Spoilers for "No Time to Die" ahead.
Before we talk about the future, I want to make it clear where I'm coming from. I like the Daniel Craig films more than most Bond fans. I like that they were serialized, that they were more serious in tone, and that they made significant changes to the characters. "Quantum of Solace" was really the only installment I didn't like because it essentially had no script, and I was perfectly happy with the ending, messy and compromised as the execution was.
So, after five films and fifteen years, we're definitely due for a new Bond actor and maybe a new approach to the Bond films. I've now watched all the theatrically released ones, so I'm very familiar with all the different versions of James Bond over the years, and how the franchise has changed with the times. The biggest new development going forward will be that 50% of the franchise will be owned by Amazon, via their acquisition of MGM. The Broccoli family will still retain creative control, so we don't have to worry about a proliferation of spinoffs just yet, but they're probably coming in the not-too-distant future. We nearly had one with Halle Berry's Jinx character from "Die Another Day," and there's been some chatter about Lashana Lynch and Ana de Armas's characters from "No Time to Die" too
The Bond franchise seems to cycle between Bonds that are more serious and gritty, like Timothy Dalton and Daniel Craig, and films that are more irreverent and fanciful, like Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan. As a response to the "Austin Powers" franchise, largely built around spoofing older Bond films, and following the lead of the more grounded Jason Bourne films, "Casino Royale" and its direct sequels embraced realism, though they slowly got more stylized and outlandish over time. Most fans are predicting a shift to a more lighthearted Bond, since nearly all the big, current, action franchises like the "Fast" and "Mission: Impossible" series are goofier and less self-serious. I'm not a fan of the sillier side of the franchise, but films like the first "Kingsman" have shown that you can do an updated version of the Roger Moore style Bond movies successfully.
There's a lot you could do with the Bond franchise outside of the rigid parameters that he's existed in so far. You could backtrack the way "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." did, and do a tongue-in-cheek Bond set in the '60s. You could put Bond in the near-future where his propensity for wild gadgets would make more sense. You could double down on the Craig-era serialization and plan out a more intricately plotted series over multiple films from the outset. Maybe an alternate timeline where the Cold War never ended. James Bond has been around long enough and proved resilient enough that the formula can handle some tinkering. "No Time To Die" already went so far as to kill him off, so the franchise could absolutely lean into the absence and spend the next film with M, Q, and the rest searching for a replacement.
The casting of James Bond always invites plenty of speculation. Daniel Craig got some pushback for being blond, of all things, so I doubt that we'll see anyone too different from the template of the straight, white cis-gender British male ideal that Bond has always embodied. There's been enough progress with colorblind casting that we might have some wiggle room on ethnicity, but definitely not gender, sexuality, or especially nationality. Bond has always been a very British operation, to the point where Cary Joji Fukunaga has the distinction of being the first non-British director of the Bond franchise (and only because Danny Boyle dropped out). I don't have any specific candidates in mind for the new James Bond, but I'm afraid Idris Elba is too old for the part now.
And nobody has the balls to continue the series with the Agent 007 played by Lashana Lynch, but that's a rant for another day.
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