After a six-year hiatus, the last James Bond film starring the inimitable Daniel Craig finally hit cinemas in late 2021, after the pandemic.

Craig had played the iconic 007 spy across five blockbusters in the billion-dollar franchise, starting with Casino Royale in 2006 and ending in a blaze of glory in No Time To Die.

Almost three years since the 25th Bond film premiered, EON Productions 007 producers Michael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli – who are being honoured by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in November – remain silent on what’s next.

Who will replace Craig in Bond 26? Is there a script? A working title? Are scouts out looking for set locations? Who will perform the all-important song?

What we do know is that a small number of directors, including Australian David Michôd (Animal Kingdom), have reportedly been summoned to London HQ, following the Broccoli tradition of choosing a filmmaker before Bond actor.

Broccoli was spotted on the fringes of the Venice Film Festival at a gala dinner hosted by the Doha Film Institute (DFI) and the Media City Qatar (MCQ), sparking rumours the next Bond film will be filmed in the Middle East.

“James Bond has not travelled to the Middle East since visiting Egypt for The Spy Who Loved Me in 1977, having previously travelled to Beirut in The Man With The Golden Gun in 1974,” wrote Deadline.

“He has never been to the Gulf.”

Author of Licence To Thrill: A Cultural History of the James Bond Films, University of Leicester Professor James Chapman tells the UK’s Telegraph there’s no need to worry “unduly” about there being a six-year gap between movies.

It happened between Licence to Kill (the final Timothy Dalton film) in 1989, and GoldenEye in 1995, the first to star Pierce Brosnan.

Chapman said the delay back then was for “all sorts of complex reasons” including that Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Bond’s home studio, was embroiled in buyouts and bankruptcy.

After Craig’s 2021 swan song, MGM was bought by Amazon.

So for the next Bond film, producers have been testing the waters, and are conscious of a new era in British history (No Time To Die finished filming in 2019).

“Bond is a product of the Neo-Elizabethan era – so the end of Empire, but still with a sense of ­pageantry and patriotism,” Chapman said.

“But he now has to adjust to the Carolean age – a new King [Charles], and the new national outlook that entails.

“I would hope the next film will address that.”

Sean Connery as James Bond in 1964. Photo: Getty

Created by WWII intelligence officer Ian Fleming in his spy novels in the 1950s, the James Bond character first appeared on film in the 1962 Sean Connery film, Dr No.

There was action, a big budget, a Bond girl and a villain.

It grossed $US16 million worldwide.

Twenty five films later, No Time To Die started with a budget of $250 million and ended with global box office receipts amounting to a staggering $US774 million.

“It’s often said that Connery was an unknown, but in fact he was already active in television, and taking meaty supporting roles in films in the late 1950s and early 1960s,” Chapman said.

“Roger Moore was closer to a star, but overwhelmingly on TV, in series such as Ivanhoe, The Persuaders! and The Saint.

“Bond is the only film series to have been around consistently for half of cinema’s existence as a mass entertainment medium … as a cultural figure, he’s also inextricably tied up with Brand Britain, reflecting the nation’s self-image.”

It was 19 years ago in 2005 that Daniel Craig was unveiled as James Bond, with Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson to star in the 21st Bond film Casino Royale. Photo: Getty

The next Bond ‘two years away’

In 2022, Broccoli was on the record saying it would be “at least two years“ before the next 007 movie begins filming, so that’s now.

And she said the task of finding an actor to replace Daniel Craig hadn’t begun “because it’s a reinvention of Bond”.

“James Bond is a male character,” she said at the time.

“I don’t think we have to take a male character and have a woman portray him. So yes, I see him as male.”

So who can pull that off?

Frontrunners include Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who The Sun reported in March had been “formally offered the role”.

At 34, he’s the right age to lead the storyline over successive Bond films, as Craig did.

The ongoing speculation also includes Bridgerton’s Regé-Jean Page, 36, Theo James, 39, whose hit Netflix series, The Gentlemen, has given him leverage, and possibly Slow Horses MI5 misfit, Jack Lowden, 34.