007: No Time To Die May Be Delayed Once Again

It looks like the new James Bond movie, No Time to Die, is headed for yet another delay. Deadline reported that the new 007 movie may be bumped off of its Easter weekend release date in April and move to a new date in the fall.

As with the previous delays, the shift of the film--should it happen--is related to the COVID-19 pandemic. It appears the production companies want to wait until the movie theatre market is in a better place with more venues open.

Deadline said it has heard that the various promotional partners for No Time to Die have been informed of the forthcoming delay, which has not been officially announced yet.

No Time to Die was reportedly shown to various streaming companies with an asking price of $600 million to acquire the film for an at-home release. However, Deadline said none of the parties were willing to agree to even half of that asking price.

For comparison, 2015's Skyfall, which is the latest entry in the series, made more than $880 million worldwide, while 2012's Skyfall is the highest-grossing Bond movie ever ($1.1 billion).

For No Time to Die, Deadline said it has heard from sources outside of the film studio that "it's amazing, and well worth the wait."

No Time to Die was originally slated to come to theatres in 2019, but the movie was delayed at first due to director Danny Boyle leaving the movie, and then again multiple times as a result of COVID-19. True Detective's Cary Joji Fukunaga eventually came aboard to direct and Fleabag's Phoebe Waller-Bridge was hired to contribute to the script.

No Time to Die will mark actor Daniel Craig's final performance as James Bond. The film also stars Oscar-winner Rami Malek as the bad guy, while Ana de Armas, Lea Seydoux, Christoph Waltz, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Ben Whishaw, Lashana Lynch, Jeffrey Wright, and Rory Kinnear also star in the movie. The theme song was written and performed by Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas.