Containing the Spectre of the Past: The Evolution of the James Bond Franchise during the Daniel Craig Era

Abstract

The notable commercial and critical success of the four James Bond films made with actor Daniel Craig playing the lead role-Casino Royale (Martin Campbell, GB/Cze/USA/Ger/Bah, 2006), Quantum of Solace (Marc Forster, GB/USA, 2008), Skyfall (Sam Mendes, GB/USA, 2012) and Spectre (Sam Mendes, GB/USA, 2015)has, over the past decade, provoked a sustained increase in the amount of academic commentary and debate around the Bond character, his fictional universe and multimedia incarnations. Working from the premise that Spectre knowingly advertises itself as a possible conclusion to the Craig era, this article attempts to identify and discuss a range of key thematic trends in Bond filmmaking (and Bond criticism) in the years since Casino Royale. Such themes include: enhanced attention to the fictional spy's body as a producer of textual and popular cultural meaning; Bond's complex relationship with evolving ideas of British national identity and state structures; the questionable extent to which the Craig Bond films constitute a meaningful revision of the 007 film franchise's traditional aesthetic and thematic defining characteristics.

The Cultural Life of James Bond

“…At the time of writing, Craig is due to appear in one more Bond film-No Time To Die (UK/USA: Cary Joji Fukunaga, 2020), the twenty-fifth in the franchise, with a 2020 release-so that story arc is clearly not yet complete. There is a wealth of scholarly commentary on the Craig Bond reboot, but most of it is in the form of theory-led textual readings (Lindner 2010;Anderson 2017;Murray 2017). This chapter sets out to do something different, to explore why this particular cycle of Bond films has been such a global success.…”