'Bond 24' Getting Hefty Rewrite From Neil Purvis And Robert Wade

Bond 24 will bring Daniel Craig and Sam Mendes back into the world of globe-trotting espionage, but the screenwriting credit may not be what we were expecting it to be. While John Logan also made the leap back into Bond after Skyfall, the script turned in may be getting more of a work-over than previously suggested. Rewrites on big movies happen all the time, and weeks ago it was reported that Neil Purvis and Robert Wade, who have worked on many Bond films in the last fifteen years, were doing a "last-minute rewrite" on Logan's Bond 24 script. 

Now the report is that rewrite is more like a total overhaul. Or, as one report puts it, a "rescue."

The info comes from the well-informed Baz Bamigboye at the Daily Mail (a rag for movie news when anyone other than Bamigboye is writing), who says that Purvis and Wade have delivered a rewrite, and that the film will begin shooting in "late November / early December." Those dates are what we expected, but it's the degree of the revisions that is new.  

The Purvis and Wade script is said to be "substantially different" from Logan's, amounting to much more than a punch-up to add some wit and extra action. 

And since Purvis and Wade had been said to be off Bond entirely after Mendes hired Logan to rewrite their Skyfall script, and then brought him forward to do solo work on Bond 24, the whole situation seems a bit thorny. It's all part of the process of making a new installment for one of the biggest movie franchises in the world — or at least one of the most rigorously developed.

Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris and Ben Whishaw will also return for Bond 24, which (despite the shooting delay) remains set for release on October 23, 2015 in the UK and November 6, 2015 in the US.