Tradecraft: John Logan Signs On For Two More Bond Movies

Variety reports that Skyfall co-writer John Logan has been hired to pen not only the next Bond movie (Bond 24 in the official cycle), but also the one after that, Bond 25. Logan wrote Skyfall with Bond regulars Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, who have worked on every Bond film since The World Is Not Enough in 1999. (The pair also penned the Bond send-up Johnny English.) According to Mike Fleming at Deadline, Logan pitched "an original two movie arc" to producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson while they were shooting Skyfall, and the scribe has already begun work on the scripts. Both Deadline and Variety speculate that this would open the door to potentially shoot Bond 24 and Bond 25 back-to-back, which would be a first for the 50-year-old franchise. The hiring also marks a changing of the guard at EON, since Purvis and Wade have traditionally generated the first drafts of the recent Bond screenplays before people like Paul Haggis and Logan were brought on to rewrite their work. These new scripts are clearly beginning with Logan. Does this mean that Purvis and Wade won't be involved at all? It's certainly possible that they're Bonded out after five films in a row, but the pair seem so entrenched in the Bond family that I wouldn't be surprised if the roles were reversed and they were called upon to do a pass on the Logan scripts at some point in the future, since they know so well exactly how the producers envision 007. Besides Skyfall, Logan's credits include Gladiator, Hugo, The Aviator and Any Given Sunday. Logan is an avowed Fleming fan, and has gone on record as saying that "Bond should always fight Blofeld," so as long as trades are indulging in rampant speculation (about the back-to-back shooting), I'll allow myself some as well and reiterate my hopes that these upcoming films ("The Logan Duology," if you will) will see the return of 007's greatest enemy!