Danny Boyle has confirmed he is working on a script for the next James Bond film alongside his Trainspotting collaborator John Hodge.
The news suggests Boyle will direct the 25th installment in the franchise, the final one featuring Daniel Craig in the title role.
Speaking to Metro US at the New York premiere of his new television show, Trust, Boyle said: “We are working on a script at the moment, we’ll see what happens. But it’s a great idea, so hopefully it will work. I’d love to be able to tell you more ... but I’m not going to.”
Boyle said he was about to start shooting a comedy written by Richard Curtis. “We hope to start shooting that in six or seven weeks. Then Bond would be right at the end of the year. But we are working on them both right now,” he said.
Boyle and Hodge, a screenwriter, are regular collaborators, having worked together on the films Shallow Grave, Trainspotting, A Life Less Ordinary, The Beach, Trance and T2 Trainspotting.
Rumours have circulated for months that Boyle is at the top of a wishlist of directors compiled by the Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson.
Boyle’s 2008 film Slumdog Millionaire was the most successful British movie of the decade, winning eight Oscars, and his 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony, which featured Craig’s 007 meeting the Queen and appearing to skydive into the stadium with her, was widely celebrated.
His artistic career began in the theatre, and he was deputy director of the Royal Court in London in the 1980s. He applied to join a seminary aged 14, but a priest suggested he might want to rethink. “Whether he was saving me from the priesthood or saving the priesthood from me, I don’t know,” Boyle once said.Craig has agreed to reprise the role of James Bond despite saying after shooting the 2015 film Spectre that he would rather “slash my wrists” than play 007 again.
The actor later said he had been exhausted when he made the comments. But he has confirmed that the next Bond film, due out in late 2019, will be his last. “I just want to go out on a high note and I can’t wait,” he said.