Chatter re Pierce Brosnan Return for (Amazon) “Bond 26”

The movie GoldenEye (1995) premiered three decades ago this coming November.

After a then-unprecedented six-year absense between releases [1], Pierce Brosnan [2] stepped into the role of James Bond and *Omega* stepped up to become the latest James Bond watchmaker [3-4]. Four films later, Mr Brosnan was out. My own memory of the time is that neither this separation nor the consequent termination of his work as brand ambassador for Omega had gone on a high note [5-6].

Now twenty-two years after he last played Agent 007 in Die Another Day (2002), the James Bond motion picture franchise is set to be *under new management* for its next installment.

And there’s an impressive bit of talk about that same Pierce Brosnan returning to the franchise [7-9]. His present age is 72. By comparison, Daniel Craig was 53 years old when No Time to Die premiered, and Roger Moore was 57 with A View to a Kill.

But Sean Connery may be the best benchmark.

Issues of canon aside, he was almost 66 when his appearance in The Rock hit theaters. “John Mason” was unquestionably a James Bond character, and Mr Connery delivered without compromise [10-11].

Then, almost a decade after that, at 75 years old, he voiced the “From Russia with Love” video game [12-13]. Technically speaking, that release could be viewed as Sean Connery having replaced Pierce Brosnan as James Bond before Daniel Craig replaced Pierce Brosnan. As for video game likenesses having been generated by computer, that subject has already been broached viz “Bond 26” chatter. Far from cutting edge, digital “beauty work” [14], for example, made Michael Douglas appear almost three decades younger, as if his Wall Street-era self, in Ant Man, 2015 [15]. And just three years ago, Star Trek “765874 Unification” seemingly brought back to life circa 1990s-, 1980s-, and 1960s-era Captain Kirk visages à la William Shatner [16].

Up until two weeks ago, the idea of a post-2025 Pierce Brosnan as James Bond would have struck me as little more than flight-of-fancy. Not that I had worries about “pulling it off,” nor concerns that this direction portended any potential impediments to delivering a final motion picture at least on par with The World Is Not Enough (1999) — which I consider to have been excellent.

But I did wonder where Mr Brosnan, himself, stood with this talk.

The answer for me started with a feature that I saw on his pairing with Omega in Gentleman’s Quarterly [17]. The MobLand character that Pierce Brosnan is currently playing not only shares the same watchmaker as 007, but seems to do so as designated by the actor himself. That’s how I read the sentiments of its writer, Ollie Cox.

If so, such a position by Mr Cox could hardly be cast as novel. Last quarter, for example, the former and possibly returning James Bond star had reunited with both marque automobiles of his EON Productions tenure: Austin Martin [18] and BMW [19].

Now, “Brosnan has Conrad wearing a stealth Omega,” wrote Ollie Cox for GQ, “a rose gold Omega Constellation Globemaster on a brown leather strap to be more specific ….” Two paragraphs later, he cinched the knot: “It is also a wink to Brosnan’s ties as an Omega ambassador during his Bond years ….”

Thoughts about Pierce Brosnan as still effective in wristwatch advertising? Twenty years after GoldenEye, Speake-Marin thought so [20].

I can’t say to what degree any or all of this has been coordinated, nor if “Bond 26” interests have a hand in it. What I can say from a marketing perspective is that this approach would be among my personal top choices for staying in the headlines, deferring commitment on direction, and giving the new production team maximum elbow room to develop this project on their terms.

To quote an EON Productions casting director during lead-up to “Bond 21” in 2006: “‘People are, thank goodness, in a way still incredibly interested,’ said [Debbie McWilliams]. ‘Virtually a day doesn’t go by where we don’t read something about James Bond in a newspaper and that can only be good for us I think'” [21].

As to the notion of reading “something about James Bond in a newspaper,” consider the relevant sequence from Tomorrow Never Dies [22], 1997 — which came out the year before Pierce Brosnan reached his “statutory age of forty-five,” as specified by Ian Fleming in the 1955 Moonraker {16}.

— Dell Deaton

off-site

References

1. James Bond: The Legacy 007 / 2002 / John Cork and Bruce Scivally (page 233; Harry N Abrams Publishers: New York).
2. “You Were Expecting Someone Else?” / January 17, 2025 / @goldeneyedossier (via YouTube, accessed April 25, 2025).
3. “Lindy Hemming: The Woman Behind James Bond’s Omega Watch” / October 18, 2012 / Meehna Goldsmith / Longitude: Christie’s blog for collecting watches (via Internet Archive, accessed February 4, 2024).
4. “Video: Jean-Claude Biver On Selling Blancpain, The James Bond Partnership, Sublet And Hip-Hop, And Starting The Biver Brand” / November 13, 2023 / Danny Milton / Hodinkee  (accessed November 14, 2023).
5. “How Pierce Brosnan was sacked from James Bond role with devastating phone call” / September 21, 2024 / Emmanuella Ngimbi / Express (accessed April 25, 2025).
6. “Omega returns with 007 in ‘Casino Royale’” / December 9, 2005 / Dell Deaton / James Bond Watches Blog (via Internet Archive, accessed April 25, 2025).
7. “Pierce Brosnan: ‘could be fun’ to return to Bond” / March 28, 2025 / AP (accessed April 26, 2025).
8. “Pierce Brosnan Opens up About the James Bond Franchise | The Jonathan Ross Show” / March 29, 2025 / The Jonathan Ross Show (via YouTube, accessed April 25, 2025).
9. “Pierce Brosnan Says He ‘Could Get Away with’ Playing James Bond Again: ‘Let’s See What Happens’” / April 2, 2025 / Michael Nied / People (accessed April 25, 2025).
10. “Michael Bay’s ‘The Rock’ Might Actually Be the Last of Sean Connery’s Bond Films” / June 8, 2021 / Alyssa Miller / No Film School (accessed April 28, 2025).
11. “The Rock is Definitely a James Bond Movie” / June 6, 2021 / Pentax Productions (via YouTube, accessed April 28, 2025).
12. “Sean Connery’s Surreal Final James Bond Performance Was In A Video Game” / April 5, 2025 / Joe Roberts / SlashFilm (accessed April 26, 2025).
13. “Making of From Russia With Love Game (with Sean Connery Interview)” / October 2, 2015 / John – 007 Files (via YouTube, accessed April 26, 2025).
14. “The secret Hollywood procedure that has fooled us for years” / December 1, 2014 / Josh Dickey / Mashable (accessed April 26, 2025).
15. “How Exactly Did Ant-Man Make Michael Douglass Look So Young?” / July 21, 2015 / Nate Jones / Vulture (accessed April 26, 2025).
16. “Star Trek: Unification – Review” / December 7, 2024 / TrekLad (via YouTube, accessed April 26, 2025).
17. “Pierce Brosnan’s =MobLand= watch is more quiet luxury than gangster” / April 15, 2025 / Ollie Cox / GQ (accessed April 15, 2025).
18. “Pierce Brosnan Just Dropped Another 007 Hint Amid Bond Return Chatter” / March 8, 2025 / Ryan Britt / Men’s Journal (accessed April 28, 2025).
19. “Pierce Brosnan Reunites with BMW: Meet His New 7 Series” / March 1, 2025 / Horatiu Boeriu / BMW Blog (accessed April 27, 2025).
20. “Pierce Brosnan promoting Rum Watch” / June 15, 2016 / Wealth Solutions (accessed April 27, 2025).
21. “Blond Bond stirred by criticism, but not shaken” / March 9, 2006 / Today (accessed January 20, 2024).
22. “Tomorrow Never Dies (4/7) Movie Clip – The Printing Press (1997) HD” / October 29, 2015 / Movieclips (via YouTube, accessed April 29, 2025).