No Time to Die, the 25th film in the James Bond franchise, will now release on October 8, the makers announced on Friday on Twitter.
The film will mark actor Daniel Craig‘s fifth and final role playing the titular role of the iconic English detective MI6 in the series.
Craig’s first James Bond film was the 2006 release Casino Royale.
NO TIME TO DIE 8 October 2021 pic.twitter.com/HZlNG5kz8t
— James Bond (@007) January 22, 2021
The films are adaptations of Ian Fleming’s books by the same name.
Directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, the film has seen several delays since 2019. While the film was supposed to release in November 2019, filmmaker Danny Boyle’s exit from the project stalled it with the Covid-19 pandemic worsening the situation. Boyle was supposed to direct and co-write the screenplay with John Hodge.
Earlier, the film was scheduled to release on April 2, 2021. This was later postponed after there was a sudden spurt in the number of Covid-19 cases in the USA. No Time To Die is among several films whose release dates have been postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. According to Variety, the release dates of Universal Studios’ Nobody, Peter Rabbit 2, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, and Cinderella have also been pushed.
Recommended
The film, that was announced in 2016, features actors Lea Seydoux, Naomie Harris, Ben Whishaw, Ralph Fiennes, Rory Kinnear, and Christoph Waltz reprising their roles. Lashana Lynch, Billy Magnussen, Jeffrey Wright and Rami Malek, who plays the antagonist, will be additions to the cast.
Fukunaga, along with Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, have written the story while Phoebe Waller-Bridge has written the screenplay along with the trio.
Made on a budget of over $200 million, No Time to Die is the most expensive James Bond film made so far. The film is produced by Michael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli.
No Time To Die will be distributed in North America by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, while Universal Studios holds the international rights.
Spectre, directed by Sam Mendes, was the last James Bond film to release in 2015.