Amazon MGM Studios is taking its time in developing a new James Bond. Although they now have creative control over the legendary franchise, they have not hurried to recast the role last played by Daniel Craig. During the long hiatus, there has been plenty of discussion around who will play the legendary character.
That speculation has even reached across the pond, so much so that Glen Powell was asked about becoming the first American actor to portray James Bond. Powell, who has become one of the biggest movie stars in Hollywood, is not interested in being 007.
“I’m Texan. A Texan should not play James Bond,” Powell told The Hollywood Reporter. “My family and I joke around. I can play Jimmy Bond, but I should not be playing James Bond. Get an authentic Brit for that job. That’s who belongs in that tuxedo.”
Powell’s insistence that Bond should be played by a Brit will come as a relief to many who were concerned about the potential direction of the franchise. Even if Powell’s stock is rising in Hollywood, James Bond has never been portrayed by an American. There are no indications that Amazon will look at American actors to play the famous secret agent.
While Powell is out of the running for Bond (and was probably never a serious contender), we do know who will be directing the new Bond when the role is finally cast. Denis Villeneuve has already signed on to direct the next installment in the franchise, and he’s recruited Peaky Blinders writer Stephen Knight to write the film.
Villeneuve certainly has familiarity with projects of this scale, as he’s coming off of directing two Dune installments. Meanwhile, Knight has ping-ponged between TV and film, penning the screenplays for movies like Spencer and Eastern Promises.
We don’t know when the next James Bond movie will hit theaters, but given that the lead role still has not been cast, it’s safe to say that we’ll be waiting for at least a couple more years.
China just gave Hollywood a cautionary tale about AI filmmaking. Sanxingdui: Future Past, billed as the country's first fully AI-generated movie, hit theaters on October 23 and bombed at the box office.
According to Futurism, the film's reported $1.5 million production budget landed on more than 10,000 screens. Yet it pulled in only about $181,000, averaging roughly $20 per screen, making the budget difficult to recover.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?