The production of the next James Bond film has been suspended ‘indefinitely’ because of uncertainty over the future of film company MGM.
Producers Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli said they did not know when work on the 23rd Bond film would resume.
It was due to star Daniel Craig as 007 for the third time and be released in 2011 or 2012, the 50th anniversary of the first movie, Dr No.
MGM, which owns the rights to the 48-year-old film franchise, has debts of $4 billion and has been unable to find a suitable buyer.
Craig, 42, said he ‘looks forward to production resuming as quickly as possible’.
His first 007 outing in Casino Royale in 2006 was the most successful Bond film, taking over $600 million at the box office.
Wilson and Broccoli, of EON Productions, said: ‘Due to the continuing uncertainty surrounding the future of MGM and the failure to close a sale of the studio, we have suspended development on Bond 23 indefinitely.’
Craig is the sixth actor to play Bond, following in the footsteps of Sir Sean Connery (62-67 and 71), George Lazenby (69), Roger Moore (73-85), Timothy Dalton (87-89) and Pierce Brosnan (95-02).
MGM’s financial woes have also contributed to the delay of Peter Jackson’s adaptation of JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit.
In a recent interview, Jackson said he was declining to fix a release for the movie due to studio delays.
He said: ‘We’ve just delivered the script…So the studio’s got both scripts now, which is a milestone.
‘We’re now in the process of budgeting the films…I’d be pretty optimistic that we’ll be shooting before the end of the year. I would imagine October, November, we’d be shooting by. I’m not announcing it, though.’