With many major theater chains closed until further notice due to the ongoing spread of COVID-19, studios are sitting a years worth of movies that would have hit theaters if not for…well, everything. While the release of a lot of these movies has been pushed back to 2021 or beyond, others have debuted on a streaming service, such as MULAN on Disney+, THE WITCHES on HBO Max, THE LOVEBIRDS on Netflix, GREYHOUND on Apple TV+, and more, but how many other feature-films will be joining them?
One of the biggest blockbusters that was set to hit theaters this year was NO TIME TO DIE, Daniel Craig's fifth and final film as James Bond. The release of the Cary Fukunaga film has been delayed several times and is currently slated to hit theaters on April 2, 2021, but there are rumours that streaming services such as Apple TV+ have reached out to MGM in order to acquire the film, and Drew McWeeny pondered that very possibility on Twitter.
Keep in mind that this is pure speculation, but as I mentioned above, studios have quite a number of movies just waiting to be released that streaming services would undoubtedly snatch up in a heartbeat. The question is, would MGM really give up their biggest project to a streaming service? At any other time, I'd say hell no, but as you might have noticed, we're living in crazy times. It's also worth noting that there have been rumblings of one of these streaming services simply buying MGM outright, with The Wall Street Journal reporting that Kevin Ulrich, whose New York hedge fund Anchorage Capital Group is the largest shareholder of MGM Holdings Inc., has been working on a deal with potential buyers that include Amazon, Comcast, Facebook, and Apple.
NO TIME TO DIE will continue on where SPECTRE left off, with James Bond having left active service to begin a new life with Dr. Swann (Léa Seydoux), but Bond is soon brought back into action when Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright) comes calling to enlist his help in searching for a missing scientist. When it becomes apparent that the scientist was abducted, Bond must confront a danger the likes of which the world has never seen before in a villain armed with dangerous new technology. The film also stars Rami Malek, Lashana Lynch, Ana de Armas, Christoph Waltz, Ben Whishaw, Naomi Harris, Rory Kinnear, and Ralph Fiennes, with Cary Fukunaga directing from a script he co-wrote with Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and Phoebe Waller-Bridge. NO TIME TO DIE is currently slated to hit theaters on April 2, 2021.
What do you think? Is a NO TIME TO DIE streaming debut in the cards?