To borrow Mr. White’s vivid phrasing from Spectre, the state of Bond 26 feels precarious at best. The usual speculation over casting has been amplified by a deeper uncertainty, with Amazon now steering the franchise and the longest gap between films raising legitimate concerns about momentum and direction.

This is unfamiliar territory for James Bond. Even the well-documented clash between Kevin McClory and Ian Fleming, which eventually produced Thunderball and Never Say Never Again, did not combine corporate transition, creative ambiguity after 007’s death, a new James Bond actor and prolonged silence in quite this way. Bond has endured reinvention to a degree with Craig’s reboot, but never under this pressure before.

The question is not whether 007 will return. Of course he will. The real issue is what version of Bond emerges from this turbulence, and whether he still feels like the same agent audiences have loved for decades.