Maybe we should have seen this coming, given the way Bond 25 has completely torn up the Bond movie production playbook, but the latest word is that the traditional press conference held at Pinewood Studios immediately before the start of production has been axed.
In its place will be recorded TV segments from the Jamaica set which will air this Thursday and Friday during Good Morning America on ABC in the US and, according to MI6, Good Morning Britain on ITV in the UK. ITV has held the free-to-air terrestrial broadcast rights to Bond movies in the UK since 1975, but it’s surprising to see the announcement on a Disney-owned ABC show in the US rather than the Today show on domestic Bond 25 distributor Universal’s NBC.
This broke late last night, but today the official James Bond @007 account tweeted that there would be a “Live Reveal from an iconic 007 location” at 13:10 GMT tomorrow, April 25, complete with a chance to pose the cast a question via hashtag. That has to be Goldeneye resort in Jamaica, where Ian Fleming wrote the Bond novels and short stories; the cast and crew, including star Daniel Craig and producer Michael G. Wilson, were photographed yesterday flying into Kingston, Jamaica aboard a plane chartered from Stanstead, England, presumably not for a pleasant time drinking cocktails and topping up their tan.
It’s a novel strategy, presumably aimed at maintaining the veil of secrecy for as long as possible and controlling the narrative around the movie’s bumpy road to production while also leaving the crew to get on with making the movie in peace, but is it a risk to wade into a film news landscape we can expect to be otherwise dominated by Avengers: Endgame reactions?
In any case, it appears that by this time tomorrow we’ll finally know the title of Bond 25, who’s in it and maybe even something about the plot. It’s time to get excited, and you can rest assured BMD will be here to keep you updated with the latest news as it happens.
Over to you: yay or nay on this new publicity strategy? Upset that it’s going disrupt your morning TV viewing? Planning on “oversleeping” so you can catch it all before you go to work? Sound off below.
As of this writing, Bond 25 will be released in the UK on April 3rd 2020 and April 8th 2020 worldwide.