I’ve constantly got my eyes peeled for any Bond 26 news, so when I see some rumors that aren’t outlandish and deserve some discussion, I’ll comment on them. A recent MovieWeb report suggests Bond 26 could be set as a prequel within the Daniel Craig era and while the idea is not immediately offensive, it ultimately feels misguided.

A clean break from the Craig era is necessary, since his Bond met a definitive end in No Time To Die, and revisiting that continuity only reopens a creative wound that never needed to exist. Any Craig-era prequel quickly raises the question of what elements should carry over, like Spectre, Fiennes as M, or Whishaw as Q, which would only invite constant comparison to Craig’s Bond while reminding audiences that this version of the character is already doomed. This approach adds baggage rather than freedom and complicates the narrative for no meaningful payoff.

The solution is simple enough: either move forward with a modern soft reboot that quietly ignores Bond’s on-screen death, or commit fully to a hard reboot as a 1960s (or any other decade) period piece. Anything else feels unnecessarily convoluted and overly complicated.